New website for an old boat shop: Visit us at www.doryshop.com

After months of planning, plotting, napkin sketching and computer magic, we’re delighted to say The Dory Shop has a brand-new website up and running.

Our former site served the boat shop very well for a long, long time but in recent years had become rather dated looking. It was also, frankly, too hard to find some of the information within the site (leading to emails where users asked ‘where do I find…? is it there?’). And ultimately, at some point, the website could not even be updated with new photos or text,  leading to embarrassing issues like dory course dates that were years old (yikes!). It was also what prompted us to create this blog here on wordpress.com

It came as no surprise to us that building a website is quite a bit different than building a boat. We like to joke here that The Dory Shop specializes in ‘trailing edge technology.’  Sure, we like the convenience of email and connecting with friends and clients via Facebook can be fun – heck, we even let Jay have a few power tools! But for the most part, our operations are decidedly low tech and we kind of like it that way. So we needed a new website but we didn’t want anything too slick and snazzy, just something that would help you to see more of what we do here and most of all, would feature prominently the strong, sturdy, reliable, handsome boats that we build.

To accomplish this, we brought in the hired guns from Spectacle Group of Halifax. Their mission? To help us create a modern website for a decidedly heritage business that specializes in building timeless, traditional boats. We’re quite pleased with the results and hope you will be too.

From here on out, we’ll be able to post updates about our projects and the general goings-on of The Dory Shop directly to the News section of the website, with a selection of the three most recent posts provided on the home page. This blog will not be taken down — we consider the information it contains on various builds and boat types to be worth leaving up, at least until we have built up a comparable archive of our work.

We encourage you to have a look around the new site at http://www.doryshop.com and let us know what you think.

Gently-used sailing dory for sale – great opportunity!

A change in programming plans at a Nova Scotia summer camp has resulted in the availability of a big, beautiful Banks sailing dory at an incredible price.
Built in 2011, the boat measures 17 feet on the bottom, 22’ 2 overall with a beam of 6’ 4.5 – so one of our Fortune Bay dories – and is outfitted with both a motor well and a gaff jib and main sailing rig.

She also has four thwarts and eight oarlocks for team rowing, a rudder with tiller for sailing or rowing with a coxswain, a centerboard to help keep her on course and four sets of oars.

The boat was used just two seasons at a site on the Northumberland Strait, was stored indoors during the winter and has been well cared for. The discovery of some bottom damage last fall resulted in a complete rebuild of the boat’s bottom by The Dory Shop, followed by fibreglassing, as well as an application of anti-fouling paint of the new bottom and garboard planks for added protection.

The boat is currently here at Lunenburg where she can be viewed by appointment.
This truly is a rare chance to get an almost-new sailing dory at a great price. For more information, including asking price, please contact Susan at The Dory Shop 902 640-3005

Fresh dory course dates!

In the midst of what’s so far been a challenging winter, it’s always therapeutic to think ahead to spring. And one of the sure signs of spring around here is having a new group of would-be dory builders join us for one of our two-week classes!

Following on tradition, we’re offering a spring session of our popular dory building course in the two weeks immediately before Victoria Day weekend. That’s May 6-17, 2013, right here on the waterfront at Lunenburg.

Join our master dory builder, Jay Langford, to build a traditional wooden Banks dory like the ones shown here. We have places for just six participants; a limit we set to ensure as much personal instruction and hands-on participation as possible.

All of the tools and materials are provided, and as always we’ll work in some visits to the shops of other marine artisans in our area.

The course costs $950 – a price that includes hearty daily lunches with Bob and Rose at Greybeard’s Monday to Friday, breaktime snacks with Dory Plug, and a fun launch and send-off ceremony too!

For more information or applications, please contact us at info@doryshop.com or call 902-640-3005

We’d love to have you join us!

Dory Plug

Hooray for Santa Claus!

The historic port of Lunenburg has a unique way of welcoming the holiday season. Like many communities, the town hosts a Santa Claus parade, but there’s something that makes ours just a little bit different. The parade here has a boat theme; specifically, parade organizers seek to place as many of the entrees as possible in dories and other wooden boats. As you can imagine, we tend to get a few calls!

Ironically, this year our shop did not use a dory on our float. Why? Well, parade chairman Howard Keeping needed a boat big enough to accommodate a six-piece band and the dories we have on hand (all 13-foot bottoms and smaller) were just a little too crowded. But our Cross Island skiff – featured in the latest edition of WoodenBoat magazine’s Small Boats edition – fit the bill, er, the band very nicely!

In fact, the next time someone asks about the capacity for this boat, I may just say: two trumpet players, two saxophonists (alto and tenor), one fellow on clarinet and another on the euphonium (baritone horn) just to see how that goes over!

Here are some more pictures from this year’s parade. And even though it’s still pretty early, Happy Holidays from all of us at The Dory Shop!

Dory Plug

Dory class celebrates successful launch

Two very pleasant weeks with our latest dory  building class wrapped up Friday as the group launched the fruit of their labours, the HMLD NAK.

The what, you ask?

Well, as always, the dory built during the class is available for sale to one of the participants and in this case will find a new home in New Brunswick.

Her owner/co-builder, Stephen, requested the non-traditional, but very handsome colour scheme shown here and when I walked into the shop first thing Friday he was stencilling her new name in place.

Admittedly I too had to ask what it meant.

Stephen explained that NAK comes from the first initials of his children: Nadia, Austen and Keagan. As for HMLD, the vessels of the Canadian Navy are HMS for Her Majesty’s Shop. Well, this is Her Majesty’s Lunenburg Dory!

As always we had a little initiation ceremony Friday afternoon before the boat’s launch. Then it was all four of them into the boat for the inaugeral row, followed by solo trips for a number of them, including the Jedi Master, Jay. He declared her a job well done.

Sincere congratulations to all four gentlemen, and thanks for a great two weeks!

Dory Plug

Crossing the line

We are so saddened today to learn of the passing of Edgar Hatt, longtime supplier of knees for our dories and a gentleman whose kind smile and quiet wisdom was admired by all who met him.

For more than 60 years, Edgar has provided this most essential component of our Lunenburg-built dories. The work required to harvest Hackmatack knees from the muck of a bog is great indeed. Edgar began as a child working with his father and grandfather. In more recent years, he worked with his own son, Otho.

Knee deliveries were made late spring and early fall, and it was truly always a delight to chat a bit with Edgar. Without saying a lot you nonetheless knew here was a man who was living his life well, working hard but cherishing each day.

He passed away in his sleep at age 80.

We will miss him.

Dory Plug

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Fall dory course well underway

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it must be true as the first week of our fall dory building course has simply flown by.

Once again, we’ve been fortunate to attract a fine group, all Atlantic Canadians this time — which is actually a first for us! — and all keen to pitch in and learn the skills required to build a traditional Banks dory.

By Friday afternoon, they had the boat planked up and those critically important naturally-grown Lunenburg knees installed. Great work for week 1 everyone!

For more photos, please check out our album on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.487732004600632.113058.100000915108918&type=1

Dory Plug

Ollie’s dinghy

I just realized we never posted pictures from ‘harbour trials’ of the sweet little Alaskan Yellow Cedar dinghy Jay built for the Schooner Martha Seabury. These photos were shot a few weeks ago when we were still enjoying a rather glorious Indian Summer. That’s all gone now. It’s dark, windy and rainy this Halloween day with the rumble of thunder off in the distance. But we can’t complain as we read of the hurricane damage suffered further south of us.

Jay remains terribly busy, not on new boat projects at the moment — though we’ve got another Grand Manan style to build before the end of November. Instead, it being fall, he’s had a spate of boat repairs, including interior work on the sloop Windswept, replacing three knees on a dory for Nova Scotia’s sailing ambassador, the newly-relaunched Schooner Bluenose II, a patch on a punctured kayak and installation of a motor well in the dory Hamish MacPuffin, built by our spring dory building class and soon headed for Jamaica with the incomparable Hugh D.

And speaking of dory building courses, our fall class begins next Monday so watch here for pictures.

Dory Plug

In the last seven years o…

In the last seven years of my life since I’ve been hanging out here, I’ve spent more happy hours here than anywhere else in my life.
Billy Campbell speaking about The Dory Shop

A dulsing dory for Grand Manan

As explained in a post about a wooden boat we built earlier this year, there is a modification that can be made to the transom of a Banks dory that allows the boat to carry an outboard motor directly from the stern.

We call the dories that have this feature Grand Manan dories as the modification has historically been most popular with dulse harvesters from this small but colorful island in the Bay of Fundy.

For the uninitiated, dulse is a sea plant that is harvested in Ireland, Iceland, Atlantic Canada and the Northeast United States for use as food and medicine. Dark purple in colour, it is one of the so-called ‘super foods’ as it is so full of vitamins and minerals – especially when compared to most vegetables – as well as being a good source of fibre, protein and iodine.

It’s also pretty versatile as the fresh product can be cooked into soups and chowders, or served in salads, while the dried product can be pounded into an easily disguised powder for cooking and baking or served as a crispy snack food.

It’s a bit of an acquired taste, to be sure! But those who like dulse like it a lot, and my grandad Johnny was one who did!

Anyway, this Grand Manan dory is truly headed to Grand Manan Island where the dulsing season has just ended but her future owner, Shawn, will be all set for next season.

The islanders prefer dories because of the fact they draw so little water, enabling them to enter the sometimes shallow coves where the dulse grows. The boats also carry an incredibly heavy load for their size, and wet sea plants weigh a lot! And of course they are legendary sea boats –  a point brought home to us recently when we spoke with another Grand Manan-er who’s owned a few of our boats.

Gene described being off Southern Head Light when it “breezed up suddenly and the seas were just curling, and that dory still kept me alive and put me up on that other sea. They really stand some sea those boats,!” he said.

Jay still has a nice wide stern seat with locker to build in to this dory before he’s finished, but I thought our followers might enjoy seeing how a resourceful boatbuilder carefully manipulates a straight piece of oak, soaked overnight in the harbour, to form the distinctively curved gunwale of a Banks dory. And all without asking anyone for a hand, especially Dory Plug, ’cause she’d probably do something wrong and it would crack and then the builder would be angry and it would have ruined everyone’s Friday!

Dory Plug