Swampscott Dory

 

"Dories have long been recognized as fine seaboats, but their low initial stability and active response to wave action is apt to be disconcerting to the sailor unaccustomed to dories."


The late John Gardner of Mystic Seaport combined a massive understanding of the history and practicalities of small boat design and construction with an ability to write lucid and interesting prose to guide the novice through his or her first few projects.


When I got a copy of "Building Classic Small Craft" about twenty five years ago I had just completed the Joel White Nutshell, about which I have already enthused - here- and was ready for a larger project. The book was a treasure chest of interesting shapes and romantic histories, evocative of the coast of Maine in its transition from a series of traditional fishing ports to a holiday destination, conjuring up the spirit of Winslow Homer.

 

Here were fully detailed drawings of everything from planks to spars and sails, with simple instructions and words of encouragement. Long evenings were spent agonising over which of these evocative craft should grace the shores of Loch Melfort. 

There were a number of factors in the choice of the Swampscott dory as my next build. The shape was enticing, a lovely curve to the stem and an extreme "tombstone" stern, plus an utterly insane leg o' mutton mainsail and tiny jib set on an unstayed mast. I read that if you saw a line squall coming up you could throw the whole rig overboard in an instant and the boat would ride to it on her mainsheet like a sea anchor. That transom could never take an outboard, so rowability was a major factor.

Dories evolved in ancient history when wide flexible planks of cedar or pine were available, many presumably coming form old-growth forests long since destroyed. Plywood is of course an excellent modern alternative, stable and capable of providing a watertight glued structure.  Also there weren't too many planks to cut, unlike some of the other lovely designs in the book.

Like most amateur projects my dory was massively over-built. The hull planking came from 9mm marine ply, sourced from an ordinary builder's merchants, put together upside down over a temporary strong back set into the frames. The latter were cut off to length in due course and remained in the finished boat.

To get the sixteen foot length most of the planks had two scarfs.

I hadn't learned the delights of epoxy and glued the lands together with a polyurethane glue that went off in contact with moisture, not a problem in Argyll, but a plant spray was useful in occasional dry days. I didn't entirely trust the glue and added hundreds of copper nails as well, quite unnecessarily.

Don't paint the inside this colour - it attracts dung beetles

End of shed unbolted to get her out - it never recovered

The plank dimensions in the book were accurate and everything went together pretty well. My one gripe with these old American designs is with the profiles of centreboards and rudders. We now know that a good hydrofoil shape will make a world of difference to the performance of any vessel through the water and while there's an historical argument for keeping the traditional slab shape there's also a lot to be said for improving performance when it can easily be achieved. Here is the board, as drawn, just after I had cast in the required lead to make it sink.

In the Spring of 1988 the dory Anne, named after an understanding wife, took the water.

During the build process I had dreams of the result being an ideal boat for messing about, perhaps evening sails with a few friends, one in the bow with the case of beer passing refreshments down the line as required. Homer had after all got five boys aboard his admittedly slightly larger craft. But the dory turned out to be no picnic boat. Neither wife nor dog showed any great enthusiasm for going out in what was in reality quite a racy machine.

Dory and Nutshell

I found that I was mainly taking the dory Anne out on my own, which gave me a good sense of her qualities. One was her extreme sensitivity to weight distribution. Any movement forward would bring her sharply into the wind, so I changed the steering by removing the tiller and substituting a yoke with lines leading round the boat, enabling her to be controlled from anywhere.

The new Commander

Eventually dory Anne found a new owner, younger and fitter than I and with friends willing to experience the excitement of a hull that heals just so far, the rail exactly on the water, but that is almost impossible to push further. Under her new commander she made frequent explorations down the loch, invariably bringing her new crew home safe and well, if a little wet. I don't think the experience was unique, because when John Gardner's Volume Two came out there were drawings for wider, improved version. The quotation above comes from there.

From a construction point of view the dory lasted well. She endured many years of minimal maintenance and is still around somewhere, but I don't know where. She has been through a number of changes of ownership, generally and as far as I know has never been sold.

Autumn Visitors

Most of the local boats are laid up now, Stroma included, sitting safely under her winter cover. The moorings are of course still out, so this has always been a good time for hardy souls to do a bit of late-season cruising. Not that the people aboard this lovely stylish motor yacht will exactly be slumming it in the cold and wet.

This interesting and quirky cat came in last night and obviously didn't need to lift a mooring.

A little later ...

Later still. Ladder vital equipment.

Another interesting visitor was the lovely yacht Mat Ali. Her owners, Charlie and Mary, invited me to a day out with them as they neared the end of their first major cruise. They had been living aboard for a month and there are very few boats on which that can be done in comfort.

Mat Ali's origin could have been written by Joseph Conrad. She was commissioned by a veteran of the First World War, who had obtained the grant of a tract of land in Malaysia to operate an oil plantation. There was an enormous tree on the land, of an extremely hard oriental hardwood, which he eventually had cut down and milled to provide his yacht, built in 1935 by a local builder named Mat Ali to a Harrison Butler design. On completion she was shipped to the Mediterranean and then sailed home by her owner to Cornwall, where she remained until recently.

I took these images after we had spent an interesting and educational day. With a wind of Force Four to  Five we ran out through the Dorus Mhor with the tide, then spent the day basically beating back against it. Despite her robust look and at twelve tons a heavy boat for her thirty two foot length this is one fast yacht. In the stronger winds she was easily making seven and a half knots and in five hours we covered twenty six nautical miles through the water, mostly tacking back and forth over the same piece of landscape. It was fascinating to compare our perceptions of where we were heading with our actual track as plotted on the sat-nav. At the end of the day our course was a tangled cats cradle of crossing lines.

My next shot is of a fine wee visitor from the South, an English Nutshell built by her proud owner Tom, who has been a regular visitor here for many years. Like many others he has been appalled by the threat to our local sailing waters from the fish farm menace.

Finally a picture of the Hebridean Princess, which I took from Mat Ali the other day. She had a career as a Calmac ferry until a previous government found an excuse to sell her off, following which she has become an extremely luxurious holiday ship, specialising in short cruises on the West coast. When I took this shot she was on her way to one of her favourite anchoring spots, Port na Moradh, which just happens to be exactly where Lakeland are proposing to establish their massive new industrial fish farm.

It's terribly important that all who care about the threat to our scenic landscape and the local, visitor-dependent, economy should register their views with Argyll & Bute Council. Full details of the campaign, including how to object, are on the dedicated website, http://www.saveseilsound.org.uk.