A dory is a small, shallow-
draft
Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to:
Watercraft dimensions
* Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel
* Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail
* Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vessel ...
boat
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on inl ...
, about long. It is usually a lightweight boat with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows. It is easy to build because of its simple lines. For centuries, the dory has been used as a
traditional fishing boat
Traditionally, many different kinds of boats have been used as fishing boats
A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish in the sea, or on a lake or river. Many different kinds of vessels are used in commercial, artisanal and recr ...
, both in coastal waters and in the open sea.
Definition
Strictly speaking, the only true defining characteristic of the dory is that it is planked with wide straight boards running fore-and-aft; "It should be well understood, that it is the dory's special mode of construction, not its hull shape, that sets it, and its related sub-types apart from other boats".
[Gardner, page 15.] More generally speaking, the dory can be defined as a small boat which has:
* a flat bottom, with the bottom planks fastened lengthwise (bow to stern).
* a hull shape defined by the natural curve of a sawn plank (never steam-bent).
* planks overlapping the stem at the front of the boat and an outer "false" stem covering the hood ends of the planks.
* (with some exceptions) a fairly narrow
transom
Transom may refer to:
* Transom (architecture), a bar of wood or stone across the top of a door or window, or the window above such a bar
* Transom (nautical), that part of the stern of a vessel where the two sides of its hull meet
* Operation Tran ...
often referred to as the "tombstone" due to its unique shape.
[Chapelle, pages 85-87,]
The hull's bottom is transversely flat and usually bowed fore-and-aft. (This curvature is known as "rocker".) The
stern
The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...
is frequently a raked narrow transom that tapers sharply toward the bottom forming a nearly double-ended boat. The traditional bottom is made from planks laid fore and aft and not transverse, although some hulls have a second set of planks laid over the first in a pattern that is crosswise to the main hull for additional wear and strength.
Despite their simplicity of design, dories were known for their seaworthiness and rowing ease, although this reputation owed more to the skill of the operators than inherent factors in the design. Because of their narrow flat bottoms, they have little initial stability and are "tippy". Traditionally, they were designed to carry large amounts of wet fish — often over a ton. They were commonly rowed by experienced seamen who understood the characteristics of the design and could compensate for the limitations. Dories exhibit high ultimate stability, tipping to a point and then stiffening up significantly and resisting further heel. By design they are quite voluminous and can carry a heavy load for their size. Their high sides give ample freeboard even when heavily loaded, and as the load increases, so does the stability.
History
With no clear definition of the type, and few early illustrations or detailed descriptions to go by, the early history of the dory is muddled at best. The first known mention of a dory in detail was in 1719.
Until about 1870, there are to be found no recorded dory lines, details, nor any list of particulars that would enable us to say with certainty what the earlier dories were really like."
["Gardner, page 4] In its most popular form, the dory was created in
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
fishing towns sometime after the early 18th century. Howard Chapelle writes, "... some kind of dory boat was in use on the
coast as early as 1726."
[Chapelle, page 85] A definite precursor to the dory type was the early
French bateau
A bateau or batteau is a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed boat which was used extensively across North America, especially in the colonial period and in the fur trade. It was traditionally pointed at both ends but came in a wide variety of sizes. Th ...
type, a flat bottom boat with straight sides used as early as 1671 on the
Saint Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connectin ...
.
[Gardner, page 18] The common coastal boat of the time was the
wherry
A wherry is a type of boat that was traditionally used for carrying cargo or passengers on rivers and canals in England, and is particularly associated with the River Thames and the River Cam. They were also used on the Broadland rivers of No ...
and the merging of designs between the wherry type and the simplified flat bottom construction of the bateau initiated the birth of the dory. Other anecdotal evidence exists of much older precursors throughout Europe. England, France, Belgium, and Italy all have small boats from the medieval periods that could reasonably be construed to be predecessors of the Dory.
Dories were widely built from
Long Island Sound
Long Island Sound is a marine sound and tidal estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It lies predominantly between the U.S. state of Connecticut to the north and Long Island in New York to the south. From west to east, the sound stretches from the Eas ...
to
Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
.
In
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".
Most of the population are native Eng ...
, the towns of Lunenburg and Shelburne maintained a rivalry in mass production of dories. A distinction emerged in 1887 with the use in Shelburne of "dory clips", metal braces used to join frames, versus the more expensive but stronger natural wood frames used in Lunenburg dories. The John Williams Dory Shop in Shelburne was one of several Shelburne factories mass-producing dories. It is now the Dory Shop Museum, operated by the
Nova Scotia Museum
Nova Scotia Museum (NSM) is the corporate name for the 28 museums across Nova Scotia, Canada, and is part of the province's tourism infrastructure. The organization manages more than 200 historic buildings, living history sites, vessels, and speci ...
and continues to produce banks dories.
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
, 1836–1910" style="float:center;">
File:Winslow Homer - The Fog Warning (lightened).jpg, ''
fishing, 1885
File:Winslow Homer - Gloucester Harbor and Dory (1880).jpg, ''Gloucester Harbor and dory'', 1880
File:Winslow Homer - Three Boys in a Dory with Lobster Pots - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Three boys in a dory with lobster pots'', 1875
File:Winslow Homer - Boys in a Dory.jpg, ''Boys in a dory'', 1873
The Dory Shop in Lunenburg first opened its doors in 1917 when W. Laurence Allen began building Banks Dories for the many fishing schooners that filled Lunenburg's Harbour. Though ownership has changed hands a few times since then, they are still producing dories today using the very same jigs and patterns used 100 years ago. Very little has changed in the way they build their dories, however they now also build many other types of wooden boats as well and offer dory building classes for fishing history enthusiasts.
Today many Hollywood producers have employed the iconic form of the dory and they are choosing to use a traditional dory over many of the modern-styles of small wooden boats. Some more notable appearances of Lunenburg dories are in ''Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl'', at the opening scene when Captain Jack Sparrow steps off the mast of his ship Jolly Mon; the final scene in ''Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End'' where Captain Jack is seen sailing away in a smaller Black Rocks dory; ''Reign III'' when King Francis and Queen Mary take a few days alone to sail together; ''Pirate Master'' Emmy Award-winning producer Mark Burnett's tall ship based reality TV show; and many more!
The earliest known dories were beach dories developed for beach-launched fishing operations. The principal example is the
, Massachusetts where they were introduced. Early wherry types were modified with flat bottoms and borrowed construction techniques found in the French bateaus. This resulted in an almost-round-sided boat with a narrow flat bottom, well suited to launching through the surf and able to hold up against aggressive ocean conditions. The narrow "tombstone" transom assured that the boat rode well against a
, and also made the boat easy to row.
It is often assumed that the Banks dory was the original dory. In fact, the Swampscott dory preceded the Banks dory by fifty years.
The Banks dories first appeared in the 1830s and were probably the most numerous at their height of popularity. They were "designed specifically as a ships boat but it became so well known and so common a type that it not only was used alongshore but influenced the design of some local fishing boats".
Adapted almost directly from the low-freeboard French river bateaus, with their straight sides and removable thwarts, bank dories could be nested inside each other and stored on the decks of fishing
and other fishing banks. They are not as handy or easy to row as the slightly more complicated Swampscott dories but were mass-produced in much larger numbers. Banks dories were also popular as work boats.
As the need for working dories diminished, the Swampscott or beach dory types were modified for pleasure sailing. These sailing dories became quite popular at the beginning of the 20th century around the town of Marblehead, Massachusetts. They were generally longer, yet remained narrow with low freeboard and later were often decked over. Another common distinctive feature of the sailing dory was a long boom on the rig that angled up with a mainsail that was larger along the foot than the luff. The Townclass, a sailboat still raced today, is a late example of a sailing dory. Earlier types were the Beachcomber and Alpha series, built by the famed dory builder William Chamberlain, and raced extensively in Salem and Marblehead between 1900 and 1910.
Few of the original Chamberlain-designed dories remain intact. An original Alpha dory can be seen at the Marblehead Historical Museum in Marblehead, Massachusetts.