Dory - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

For the fishes known as dories, see dory (fish)
Dory (fish)
The common name dory is shared by members of several different families of large-eyed, silvery, deep-bodied, laterally compressed, and roughly discoid marine fish. As well as resembling each other, dories are also similar in habit: most are deep-sea and demersal...

. For the Greek Spear, see Dory (spear)
Dory (spear)
The dory or doru - ie not pronounced like the fish - is a spear that was the chief armament of hoplites in Ancient Greece. The word "dory" is first attested in Homer with the meanings of "wood" and "spear". Homeric heroes hold two dorys...

.

The dory is a small, shallow-draft

Draft (hull)

The draft of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull , with the thickness of the hull included; in the case of not being included the draft outline would be obtained...

boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

, about 5 to 7 m (16.4 to 23 ft) long. It is a lightweight and versatile boat with high sides, a flat bottom and sharp bows. They are easy to build because of their simple lines. For centuries, dories have been used as traditional fishing boats, both in coastal waters and in the open sea. Variant spellings are doree and dori. The British Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

spells it dorey (OED).

Definition

Strictly speaking, the only true defining characteristic of the dory is that it is planked up with wide boards, "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"

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 (nautical)
In naval architecture, a transom is the surface that forms the stern of a vessel. Transoms may be flat or curved and they may be vertical, raked forward, also known as a retroussé or reverse transom, angling forward from the waterline to the deck, or raked aft, often simply called "raked", angling...

often referred to as the 'tombstone' due to its unique shape.

The hullform is characterized by a bottom that is transversely flat and sometimes bowed fore-and-aft. (This curvature is known as 'rocker'.) The stern

Stern

The stern is the rear 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 of the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section...

is frequently a raked surface (a 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 are well known for their seaworthiness and rowing ease. Because of their narrow bottoms, they do not exhibit much initial stability and have often been called 'tippy'. They exhibit high ultimate stability, however, tipping to a point and then stiffening up significantly and resisting further rolling tendencies. Dories by design are quite voluminous and can carry a heavy load for their size and will continue to retain their great ultimate stability even when heavily loaded.

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. John Gardner identifies the first pictorial representation of a dory to a 1497 painting by Albrecht Dürer. 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 certainly what the earlier dories were really like."
In its most popular form, the dory was created in New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

fishing towns sometime after the early 18th century. Howard Chapelle writes, "... some kind of dory boat was in use on the Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

coast as early as 1726." A definite precursor to the dory type was the early French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

bateau

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...

type, a flat bottom boat with straight sides used as early as 1671 on the Saint Lawrence River

Saint Lawrence River

The Saint Lawrence is a large river flowing approximately from southwest to northeast in the middle latitudes of North America, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. It is the primary drainage conveyor of the Great Lakes Basin...

. The common coastal boat of the time was the wherry

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 also with the Broadland rivers of Norfolk and Suffolk. London passenger wherries evolved into the Thames skiff, a...

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 antecdotal 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.

Simeon Lowell in Amesbury

Amesbury

Amesbury is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is most famous for the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge which is in its parish, and for the discovery of the Amesbury Archer—dubbed the King of Stonehenge in the press—in 2002...

Massachusetts is credited with building the first dories around 1793 which he referred to as 'wherries'. What this boat looked like is open to conjecture but from various references it can be inferred to have been a flat bottomed boat. While some assume that this boat followed the Banks dory

Banks dory

The Banks dory, also known as the Grand Banks dory, is the most common variation of the family of boats known as dories. They were used as traditional fishing boats from the 1850s on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. The Banks dory is a small, open, narrow, flat-bottomed and slab-sided boat with a...

shape, the Grand Banks

Grand Banks

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.The mixing of these waters...

cod

Cod

Cod is the common name for genus Gadus, belonging to the family Gadidae, and is also used in the common name for various other fishes. Cod is a popular food with a mild flavor, low fat content and a dense, flaky white flesh. Cod livers are processed to make cod liver oil, an important source of...

fisheries for which the Banks dory was designed didn't start operating until the 1830s.

Simeon Lowell founded Lowell's Boat Shop in Amesbury

Amesbury

Massachusetts in 1793. This is the birthplace of the Dory. Lowell's Boat Shop is now a non profit working museum still dedicated to building classic dories and skiffs. Simeon's grandson, Hiram Lowell developed the Banks Dory. The major innovation was the straight sides to the new Banks Dory. This made the boats stackable on top one another. This revolutionized the fishing industry because now fisherman would stack 10 Dories on a larger boat and use all 10 Dories at once in order to maximize yield

Dories were built all over New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

from the Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound

Long Island Sound is an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean, located in the United States between Connecticut to the north and Long Island, New York to the south. The mouth of the Connecticut River at Old Saybrook, Connecticut, empties into the sound. On its western end the sound is bounded by the Bronx...

to the shores of Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...

, with major production centers north of Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, from Massachusetts

Massachusetts

to the New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

border.

Beach dories

The earliest known dories were beach dories developed for beach launched fishing operations. The principal example is the Swampscott dory

Swampscott dory

The Swampscott dory is a traditional fishing boat, used during the middle of the 19th century by fishing villages along the coast of Massachusetts. It is a type of dory designed to be launched off the beach...

, named after Swampscott, 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 following sea

Following sea

In boating, a following sea refers to a wave direction that matches the heading of the boat. For example, if the waves of the body of water are heading in the same direction as the sailor, then the water is "following" the sailor's boat...

or breaking surf

Ocean surface wave

In fluid dynamics, wind waves or, more precisely, wind-generated waves are surface waves that occur on the free surface of oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, and canals or even on small puddles and ponds. They usually result from the wind blowing over a vast enough stretch of fluid surface. Waves in the...

as well as making the boat easy to row.

Banks dories

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 schooners, such as the Gazela Primeiro

Gazela

Gazela is a 1901 wooden tall-ship homeported in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She serves as the maritime goodwill ambassador for the City of Philadelphia, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Ports of Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey...

, for their trip to fishing banks, such as the Grand Banks

Grand 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.

Sailing dories

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.

River dories

The river dory resembles the Banks dory on first look but are a different boat, built in a different time, in a different place, for a different purpose. By the strict definition at the beginning of this article however, the river dory is very much a dory adapted for use on the river rapids of the Western United States.

Motor dories

With the introduction of the outboard motor

Outboard motor

An outboard motor is a propulsion system for boats, consisting of a self-contained unit that includes engine, gearbox and propeller or jet drive, designed to be affixed to the outside of the transom and are the most common motorized method of propelling small watercraft...

the "semi-dory" or "half-dory" was developed. Because typical dory bottoms are so narrow, the thrust of an outboard motor pushes the stern of the dory down creating a very unstable and inefficient boat. The semi-dory is basically a Swampscott dory with the stern widened and the rocker straightened aft to support the thrust of the outboard motor.

There are other larger power dories, notably the St Pierre dory, about thirty feet long and similar in shape to the Banks dory, and the Boston power dory of Boston Harbor

Boston Harbor

Boston Harbor is a natural harbor and estuary of Massachusetts Bay, and is located adjacent to the city of Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Port of Boston, a major shipping facility in the northeast.-History:...

Other dories

Other, less common but traditional types were the double ended surf or Gunning dories. The pointed bow and sterns made these boats excel at launching through the surf. Gunning dories were built quite light in comparison to the more traditionally constructed beach dories.

The "dory skiff" is another variation of the dory type. For inshore work the transom was widened, freeboard was lowered and more rocker introduced into the bottom making an exceptionally easy-to-row boat that was more stable (initial stability not ultimate stability) than their offshore cousins. However they are not as seaworthy as the Swampscott or Banks dories.

These are the principal types of traditional dories produced. There are many more named types but the names typically refer to the same type built one town over. For example, the Cape Ann

Cape Ann dory

The Cape Ann dory is a traditional fishing boat, a variant of the beach dory or Swampscott dory. Cape Ann dories were often fitted with a small spirit rig sail, a short folding centerboard, and washboards . The descendants of the Cape Ann dory are still raced as the Town Class...

and Gloucester dories

Gloucester dory

The Gloucester dory is a variant of the Banks dory, a type of narrow-bottomed, slab-sided boat, common in the North Eastern United States. It is characteristically smaller and lighter, with less overhang, both bow and stern, and less freeboard. It retains the Banks dory's slab sides...

are essentially Banks dories with a centerboard and rig for sailing in local waters. Gloucester

Gloucester

Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....

was the home port to over 300 fishing schooners at its peak and was the main harbor on Cape Ann

Cape Ann

Cape Ann is a rocky cape in northeastern Massachusetts on the Atlantic Ocean. The cape is located approximately 30 miles northeast of Boston and forms the northern edge of Massachusetts Bay. Cape Ann includes the city of Gloucester, and the towns of Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and...

. Swampscott can be seen from the breakwater at Gloucester harbor. Essex, Newburyport, Salisbuy, and Amesbury, all big producers of dories, are all towns immediately north of Cape Ann and all have a particular dory 'type' named after them. Differences, if they existed, were minor in nature.

Modern interpretations

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the dory style. Many contemporary marine architects and backyard amateurs have been experimenting with the dory type and refining the type to some extent. These boats are designed primarily for pleasure and utilize new building materials and techniques not available to the originators of the dory. The basic form remains however ensuring the survival and growth of the type. New England is no longer the center of dory construction and dories have been built all over the world.

External links

The Dory Page
Dory Boat Plans
The Dory Shop
Dan's Dories (modern and historical dories)
www.buildyourowndoryboat.info (Build Your Own Dory Boat)
Lowell's Boat Shop, Birthplace of the Dory

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.