Is a Modern Lightweight Dory REALLY Seaworthy? Are Dories REALLY Seaworthy?

Dories are a part of the great American Maritime Tradition.  From the book and film of Captain’s Courageous to all the folklore about fishermen surviving awful conditions at sea in a Dory.

But Do they really stack up to their press?  It seems that every few weeks I see a new design for a rowing dory or a sailing dory.

There is some robust discussion below in the comments. It forced me to look for some data to back my viewpoint. I found it.

I have used a few contemporary light, modern dory designs and know quite a few people who have used them for extensive periods. I’ve also researched contemporary accounts.

1. More on Boat Design Issues
2. Boats of Other Times and Places
3. Setting up Archaic Rigs

My feeling is that though there are some very fine dory designs around that in general they were designed for a very specific use – the traditional one – but may not adapt to modern patterns of usage very well.

There is a lot of crap talked about dories.
Here is a google link that searches for websites with the word … dory plan seaworthy
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=dory+seaworthy+plan

There are hundreds of sites that link these different words but most of the writers don’t have enough knowledge to give that type of advice.  Dories from 8ft to 30 or more feet. They just say what other people say – the internet was ever thus.

Traditionally built dories can be comparitively seaworthy – but the shortened, lightweight modern versions don’t come close.

Dories have two advantages compared with more rounded hullforms of their era.

  • Much easier to build but still row well despite the simplified hullform.
  • They can stack inside each other on deck of a fishing schooner.

On the downside they are NOTORIOUSLY unstable until you get half a load of fish aboard – ie up to seat level.  There are some mentions in traditional material that this was great for a commercial fishing vessel as there was a great incentive to catch fish quickly.

Are Dories truly stable boats: storerboatplans.com

Despite the many times someone has survived awful conditions in a dory, boat and man loss through sinking and drowning on the Grand Banks was common – a hugely risky, highly skilled undertaking as it was in any open sea fishery during the era of sail and oar.

The dories of that era gained much of their stability from their size and weight – look how heavy the boat’s structure is in Winslaw Homer’s painting above.

How Reported Experience of Traditional Dories becomes Skewed

A question was asked if I had ever spoken to an old time Doryman.

Of course, if I was he (probably) would have something to say about the Dory saving his life. As it may have. But we have no way of questioning those who drowned or disappeared.

One of the big surprises looking through the monthly reports from one busy harbour (Gloucester) is that the chances of drowning through capsize were far greater than dories going astray in fog.

If reading several sources they emphasise the main risk was “going astray” in fog. But the data does not back that up. Dig through and the deaths from capsize greatly outnumber the loss of life from going astray.

Where does stability come from

Two of the main factors that give a boat stability are:-
1/ Weight – Building building a really lightweight dory will usually mean stability is difficult to achieve.  It is easy enough to build a modern boat very lightly without sacrificing strength.  My 16ft rowboat design has a similar capacity to a dory but can be built at a weight of around 80lbs (35kg) – whereas a traditional dory of similar length would probably come in around three times that weight.In very rough terms the stability is in line with the weight.  A traditionally built dory with crew – roughly 450lbs all up. A modern lightweight dory hull of the same size and shape with crew – roughly 280lbs.  Stability of the lighter dory will be 280/450 = 0.62.  The modern boat will be 40% less stable then the traditional one.2/ Size – Building a small dory will usually mean low stability.  Most of the traditional dories were grouped by the length of their bottom panel – so a 15ft boat would have been around 20ft long.  Scale it down to 15 feet from bow to stern and there is a dramatic reduction of the already low stability.Stability is made up of multiplying the length by the beam by the beam squared ie LB3.  So if length and beam are reduced to 75% of the original then the stability will be 0.75 x 0.752 = 0.317 of the larger boat.  STABILITY IS REDUCED BY OVER 2/3.

The two stability factors will multiply out – so if you take a traditional 15ft dory (ie 15ft long bottom panel, but a total length of 20ft) and shrink it down to a total length of 16ft as well as make it lightweight through modern building methods the result is that stability is 0.62 x 0.317 = 0.197.  The stability of the smaller modern boat compared to the larger original is 80% less.

Consider too that the traditional dory form is not noted for its stability in the first place but smaller lighter dories are much less stable in comparison..

A nice modern dory

That doesn’t mean that there are not some good smaller dories around – but it takes a great designer to get them close to working well. Phil Bolger’s Light Dory is a wonderful example.

Waterplane of dory vs dinghy Are Dories truly stable boats: storerboatplans.com

My friend David Wilson built a Bolger Light Dory.  He’s a very experienced boat builder and user his summary was
1/ Beautiful to row in the flat.
2/ It gave the feeling of being able to row it all day with little effort
3/ Quite unstable, but it was OK in smooth water, but feels unstable as the water gets rough.
4/ Blows around badly in a breeze
5/ Goes badly out of trim with a passenger in the back seat unless the rower sits in the bow and accepts the cramped rowing position because of the smaller breadth of the boat in that area.
6/ A bit heavy for a single person to manage easily on shore.He did use it a lot and liked the boat a great deal for its good qualities.  Riverwork was great with a friend in the stern seat being balanced by the camping gear in the bow.  Pulled easily even with significant weight aboardHere is an image of my rowboat with Bolger’s Light Dory superimposed (dotted lines).  Both boats are very close to the same size.

Note the width of the bottom of the rowboat – compared to the dory – that indicates where the Dory’s deficit in stablity is..  Also note that the rowboat has an equally fine bow.
The greater length of the rowboat will give a higher top speed.
This doesn’t mean my rowboat design is better.  It has a different set of advantages and disadvantages – but it does have adequate stability and retains an excellent turn of speed – which is what the two instigators of the design want.
The Storer Rowboat wouldn’t suit the way D. Wilson was using his boat above – it is designed to travel fast when lightly laden.  It will take a passenger and has an alternative rowing position to keep the boat in trim.  The combination of the wider stern and the finer bow means that a passenger doesn’t make the stern squat too much with the passenger, but if the oarsperson moves slightly forward the fine bow depresses easily bringing the boat in to trim.

“Kinda, Sorta” Dories

There are lots of clinker sided boats called “Dories” that have the flat bottom of the original coupled with rounded clinker planked sides.  These have more the stability of a conventional dinghy but don’t have the true dory’s simplicity of build.

Is this even a Dory? Are Dories truly stable boats: storerboatplans.com

The smaller they are the more they have to resemble transomed dinghys to get adequate stability.  As you can see from the picture here of a 10ft Chaisson Dory it has a dinghy style transom and hull cross-section.  It also has lost the feature of having a canoe stern at the waterline.  A lovely little boat, but a dory in name only.

And DON’T get me started on Sailing Dories :-)  Any of them that work are sailing dinghy uppers with a dory bottom panel only but highly rounded topsides above that – either that or heaps of ballast.

A small rowing dory is hard to design well – a sailing dory is much more difficult as it sails on its stability.

There are no absolutely good types of boat or bad ones – but it is important to pick the right one for the use.

Enough rant!

The story of the 20lb Dory

I mentioned this article to my boatbuilding mate Peter Hyndman.  He was involved in high performance multihulls during the ’80s – mostly building incredibly light ocean going boats in foam sandwich and kevlar.

30ft hulls that one person could lift off the mould.

One of the people involved in the cat building decided to build a dory using the same technology as his bigger boat.  It was really quick to bend the slabs of foam into the dory shape and glass them up.  The end result was a 16ft boat that weighed in at 20lbs (9kg).When they put it in the water it floated feather-like – just touching the surface – but they found that no-one could get in – it was like a bucking bronco – the slightest pressure off centre – a touch on the gunwale and it would go over.The upshot was that they ended up pouring 2 inches of concrete in the bottom and glassing it over.  It now weighed more than a conventional dinghy, but at least it was possible to get into it.  Rowed rather nicely though.

2 thoughts on “Is a Modern Lightweight Dory REALLY Seaworthy? Are Dories REALLY Seaworthy?”

  1. “there is a lot of crap talked about dories”

    lets start with the following

    “On the downside they are NOTORIOUSLY unstable until you get half a load of fish aboard..”

    know a lot of ,way-old time cod fishermen , do you ? ..If the boats were “notoriously unstable” they wouldn’t have been used the way they were – for over 300 years ! – I do understand your point about modern cheap and quick construction merthods though . WTH is a “Bolger dory” for example…He (Mr. Bolger) was into light “post modern” designs and construction methods for the average person, and some of his boats are are a successful testament to that…But those old ocean fishing dories (the “unstable” ones that were thrown off the side of a cod schooner on the grand banks every day, in winter with two men aboard) were built like all boats were built then ..very heavilly with heavy building methods that the builders were used to all their lives ..

    Reply
    • Howdy,

      It is important to look at a broad base of information when trying to come to conclusions about the character of a boat.

      Mostly I know of dories through the writings of contemporary experts who lived alongside the dorymen for at least part of their lives. John Gardner, Howard Chapelle, Phil Bolger and other designers who lived along the same shores.

      The most common contemporary comment I find is along the lines that the shortcomings of the stability of the dory when not loaded were overcome by the skill of the users.

      My respect for the dorymen is immense. But the boats were not chosen for their safety. Rather for cheapness and stackability.

      However, lets have a little look at actual recorded history at the amazing site “Out of Gloucester” which reports the monthly deaths of seafarers and how they died. https://www.downtosea.com/1876-1900/1896.htm

      Remember this is from just one port. Also the literature would tend to make one think that getting lost in fog and “going astray” was the biggest risk. Well … it wasn’t by a long chalk. It was capsizes.

      1896
      Feb
      25th – William Lehay, 27 one of the crew of the sch. Mariner, drowned on Georges by the capsizing of a dory. Isaac Feener, his companion, pulled him back on the bottom of the dory twice by swimming after him at the risk of his own life, but he was finally swept away by the tide.

      March
      16th – Albert Babin capsized in a dory from sch. Agnes E. Downes on Georges, a native of Arichat, C. B

      May
      6th – Reinald Stevenson, 23, and Rastmus Peterson, 30, natives of Norway, two of the crew of sch. Eleanora, capsized in their dory on Georges and drowned.

      16th – Stephen Hanlon and Kempton Larkin, lost on the Banks from sch. Edward S. Eveleth by the capsizing of their dory. Larkin was 34 and belonged in East Pubnico, N. S., and Hanlon was 30.

      22nd – Albert Day 28, and James May, 29, natives of Newfoundland, belonging to sch. Edith M. Prior capsized in their dory while visiting their trawls on Grand Banks and drowned.

      27th – Gerring Roberts, belonging to Argyle, N. S., and John Harnish, belonging in Liverpool, N. S., two of the crew of sch. Louise J. Kenney, capsized in their dory and were drowned on the Banks.

      June
      16th – Andrew Anderson, a native of Sweden, one of the crew of sch. Henry M. Stanley, was drowned on Baealieu Bank by the capsizing of his dory. His dorymate clung to a keg and was rescued.

      November
      3rd – William D. Munroe, one of the crew of the sch. Lewis H. Giles, drowned on Bacalieu bank, by the capsizing of a dory. His companions, John Mason and Albion Lund, were rescued. Munroe was 39 years, a native of Whitehead, N. S., and left a widow and four children in this city.

      December
      26th – John Wilson and Alex. Nickerson, two of the crew of sch. Lizzie Griffin, drowned on Banquereau by the capsizing of their dory. Wilson was 23 years, unmarried, and belonged in Portland. Nickerson was 25, a native of Russia and single.

      1897 was a better year

      February
      10th – Harry Olsen and Norman Jeddrey, two of the crew of the sch. Edward A. Perkins, drowned on Banquereau by the capsizing of their dory. Olsen was 25, a native of Hamnerfest, Norway, and Jeddrey 25, a native of Yarmouth, N. S. Sch. Hattie N. Graham searched for smuggling liquors.

      April
      Dory went astray not found – can’t blame stability for that. Only one in these three years where most articles state the dangers of going adrift as being the dominant form of death in dory use. Not so.

      August
      18th – John Nelson and Charles Reno, two of the crew of sch. S. P. Willard, went astray form their vessel on Grand Bank and probably drowned by the capsizing of their dory. Nelson was a native of Norway and Reno was a native of Burette Island, N. F.

      September
      11th – George Muise, 21, native of Tusket Hill, N. S., one of the crew of sch. John L. Nicholson, drowned on Grand Banks, by the capsizing of his dory. John Muise, his dorymate, clung to the dory until rescued.

      18th – One of the crew of sch. John L. Nicholson, name unknown, was drowned by the upsetting of his dory on the Brand Banks.

      24th – James Doucette and Eugene Burke, two of the crew of sch. Elsie M. Devine, drowned by the capsizing of their dory. Both men were natives of Nova Scotia.

      1898

      January
      29th – Sch. Tragabigzanda went ashore on Cedar Island ledge, near the Isles of Shoals in a thick fog, while engaged in the haddock fishery. Harry Kanute or Knute 35, native of Sweden, one of the crew of sch. Clara P. Sewall, drowned off Cape Cod by the capsizing of his dory.

      February
      16th – Augustus Rickhorn, 32, native of Sweden, and Charles Mallett, 27, native of Prince Edward Island, two of the crew of sch. Nourmahal frowned on Bank Quero by the capsizing of their dory. Rickhorn leaves a widow and one child residing in Boston

      March
      Maybe stability – maybe not. 13th – Amanchis Goodick, one of the crew of sch. Comet, drowned on Middle Bank by falling from his dory. He was 27, single, and a native of Shelburne, N. S.

      April
      19th – William Sunderman, 38, native of Germany, and Olaf Gunderson, 26, native of Norway, two of the crew of sch. Norma drowned on Georges by the capsizing of their dory. Sunderman leaves a widow and four children.

      August
      John Armstrong, 27, and Anthony Stone, 52, natives of Bay Bulls, N. F., two of the crew of sch. A. E. Whyland, capsized on the Banks in September, in their dory. Stone leaves a widow and one child.

      October
      25th – Frank Welch, 32, and Lawrence Drew, 25, natives of Bay Bulls, N. F., two of the crew of sch. Valkyria, drowned on Bacalieu Bank by the swamping of their dory. Welch leaves a widow.

      September
      John Campbell, one of the crew of sch. Annie Greenlaw, drowned off Georges by his dory being capsized by being hit by a sea; Campbell was 27, single and a native of North Mountain, C. B.
      _______________________________________

      And this goes on year after year, month after month, every port the schooners sailed out of – the biggest cause of death was capsize.

      Not to underestimate the seas, but capsizing of a dory was far outnumbers people going astray (getting lost in a dory – fog etc) or being washed off the deck of a larger boat.

      My hat is off to the skill dorymen. The history supports the statements of the contemporary boat designers and historians that it was the skill of the dorymen rather than stability of the dory that was responsible for the Dory myth.

      The other types of boat derived from the dory, with more rounded sides have a much greater range of stability and are much better for us far less skilled boat users as stated in my article.

      Reply

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