Re: Gloucester Light Dory and Dories
Maybe it is fair. You're comparing a bigger boat to a smaller boat, but
the smaller boat carries more. I'm guessing it would be tough to come up
with a dory that displaced the same without going even larger. Someone
has to build it, and paint it, and mabye pay for dock space, buy an
anchor that can withstand the increased windage, etc.
the smaller boat carries more. I'm guessing it would be tough to come up
with a dory that displaced the same without going even larger. Someone
has to build it, and paint it, and mabye pay for dock space, buy an
anchor that can withstand the increased windage, etc.
>Howard Stephenson wrote:
>snip He tries to
>show that, although the dory is wider and higher than Jessie Cooper,
>it has much less internal space. But he is comparing apples with
>oranges: the dory displaces about 1.85 long tons, whereas Jessie
>Cooper displaces 2.75.
>
>This dory is no beach cruiser: it has a steel-and-lead fin keel.
>
>Howard
>
Paul, Bolger's 19' streched version (once sold by
Common Sense as "Big Dory") is stitch and glue, builds
easily, and I think is even prettier than the
original. Buehler has a neat-looking cruising dory in
the 35' range, I believe--don't know if any have been
built. Sam
--- Paul <kayaker37@...> wrote:
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Common Sense as "Big Dory") is stitch and glue, builds
easily, and I think is even prettier than the
original. Buehler has a neat-looking cruising dory in
the 35' range, I believe--don't know if any have been
built. Sam
--- Paul <kayaker37@...> wrote:
>__________________________________
> I'm trying to remember if Mr. Bolger designed a
> simpler to build
> (meaning instant boat) version of the Gloucester
> Light Dory
Do you Yahoo!?
Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.
http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
> In his chapter on Jessie Cooper in 30-Odd Boats, there are threeAnyone who prefers the dory can go here for comfort:
> sheets of a drawings of "the St Pierre Dory cruiser, built on John
> Gardner's lines....
http://www.macnaughtongroup.com/silver28.htm
Peter
Thanks for posting that article, Bruce. I hadn't seen it before and
it filled in a few gaps in my knowledge of Bolger dories.
In his chapter on Jessie Cooper in 30-Odd Boats, there are three
sheets of a drawings of "the St Pierre Dory cruiser, built on John
Gardner's lines.... with upper works..." devised by PCB. He tries to
show that, although the dory is wider and higher than Jessie Cooper,
it has much less internal space. But he is comparing apples with
oranges: the dory displaces about 1.85 long tons, whereas Jessie
Cooper displaces 2.75.
This dory is no beach cruiser: it has a steel-and-lead fin keel.
Howard
it filled in a few gaps in my knowledge of Bolger dories.
In his chapter on Jessie Cooper in 30-Odd Boats, there are three
sheets of a drawings of "the St Pierre Dory cruiser, built on John
Gardner's lines.... with upper works..." devised by PCB. He tries to
show that, although the dory is wider and higher than Jessie Cooper,
it has much less internal space. But he is comparing apples with
oranges: the dory displaces about 1.85 long tons, whereas Jessie
Cooper displaces 2.75.
This dory is no beach cruiser: it has a steel-and-lead fin keel.
Howard
Sue and I had good luck making molds to spec. and then stitch and
gluing our Gloucester Gull Light Dories together around the molds. We
didn't make stems, so i'd get that end of the boat is slightly
different than the boat as drawn. We also did a buttblocked bottom
panel. As it turned out, this put a nice rub pad right under where
you're feet fall when rowing from the middle thwart.
If making again, I might make heavier, but I'd still go S&G. Fast, easy
and fun.
YIBB,
David
gluing our Gloucester Gull Light Dories together around the molds. We
didn't make stems, so i'd get that end of the boat is slightly
different than the boat as drawn. We also did a buttblocked bottom
panel. As it turned out, this put a nice rub pad right under where
you're feet fall when rowing from the middle thwart.
If making again, I might make heavier, but I'd still go S&G. Fast, easy
and fun.
YIBB,
David
On Wednesday, July 28, 2004, at 03:22 PM, Lincoln Ross wrote:
> Michalak's Sport Dory is derived from that boat, and, as I recall, is
> meant for simplified stitch and glue.
Michalak's Sport Dory is derived from that boat, and, as I recall, is
meant for simplified stitch and glue. However, it doesn't have the same
sheer that Bolger's dory does.
Bolger is very much against sailing dories. As I recall, his point is
that by the time you turn one into a good sailboat, it isn't a dory
anymore. If it's still a dory it's not a good sailboat. He has some
rowboats meant for "cruising", or at least going long distances, but I'm
not aware of any that are dories.
meant for simplified stitch and glue. However, it doesn't have the same
sheer that Bolger's dory does.
Bolger is very much against sailing dories. As I recall, his point is
that by the time you turn one into a good sailboat, it isn't a dory
anymore. If it's still a dory it's not a good sailboat. He has some
rowboats meant for "cruising", or at least going long distances, but I'm
not aware of any that are dories.
>Paul wrote:
>
>I'm trying to remember if Mr. Bolger designed a simpler to build
>(meaning instant boat) version of the Gloucester Light Dory, or if
>that was a builder trying to simplify it themselves.
>
>Since surf boats were mentioned, aren't Dories probably the best
>surfboat, and are there any cruising dories by Bolger?
>
>Paul
>
> [And, would someone explain what 'pretty thin on the groundScarce.
> at the time' means?]
> Besides, I'd been one of those "pretty thin on the ground atIn other words, good rowboats were out of fashion.
> the time " who had a mission to see that a generation didn't
> grow up in total ignorance of what could be accomplished
> with reasonable practical rowing boats.
Peter
Paul <kayaker37@...> wrote:
he designed for his personal use as a surf row boat, and it
doesn't look much like a Bolger style rowing dory.
Follows is a cut and paste of what he wrote about the history
of his dory designs in March 1980, including this notable quote:
"dories aren't the best solution for all nautical problems"
[And, would someone explain what 'pretty thin on the ground
at the time' means?]
======== quoted text below =================
====From Small Boat Journal #7 March 1980 =====
Phil Bolger Comments:
A 15'6" Light Dory
My leeboard sharpie, Pointer, was la launched in the summer of 1960.
She had no place on deck for a dinghy, and I set out to design and
build a good rowing tender. I wanted one that would live in rough
water and row well enough so I could feel free to anchor far out from
landings. Besides, I'd been one of those "pretty thin on the ground at
the time " who had a mission to see that a generation didn't grow up
in total ignorance of what could be accomplished with reasonable
practical rowing boats.I pulled out a design I'd made back in 1952
called Golden River, a planked dory that had rounded sides and was a
good deal slimmer and lower than the usual fisherman's dory. (Fig.1)
These were nice boats to row, but the construction was so finicky and
laborious that only a few were built. I revamped it for sheet plywood
construction and in a moment of inspiration very much improved the
looks of the sheer line. (Fig. 2) This drawing wasn't supposed to be
seen by anybody but me, by the way; my brother said something about
the shoemaker's children going barefoot when he saw one of the
drawings I'd made for my own use.
I built her that winter, very roughly, having no pretensions to being
a competent carpenter. If you stand back fifty feet that boat looks
real good, said a kind friend. In fact, it did (Fig. 3), and still
does; Damian McLaughlin owns it now, along with the sharpie, and he's
refinished it elaborately.
I gave it a quick trial, hurriedly added a skeg to make it tow
straight, and took off for a month's cruise around Cape Cod and the
Islands. The cruise was meant to showoff the sharpie, but wherever I
went,nobody looked at her. They were all looking past the stern, at
the dory on the end of her sea painter. There were so many compliments
that I thought I must have a commercial product, and when I got home I
redesigned it again for production. I'd like to note that the dory
shape was originally adapted to series production out of sheet
material, namely wide planks, and these boats have the sharp flare so
they can be stored and transported in compact nests.This third version
had the stem rounded back where I'd had a miserable time trying to
twist the plywood onto the fore foot. The fore-and-aft straddle thwart
had made her seem even more tender than she was by nature because it
prevented stepping dead center of the bottom; I changed that for three
conventional thwarts. I put the gunwale stringer on the outside so
water and mud would run cleanly out when she was on her side; the
proportions of breadth and flare made it possible to step on the
gunwale as she lay on a beach, bringing the far gunwale nearly up to
an out stretched hand with which she could be pulled up on her beam
ends. I corrected the angle of the rowlock sockets, though to this day
I don'tunderstand why it is that a rowlock that cants out with the
flare makes a boat seem hard to row.
With my heart in my mouth I ordered a batch of ten of these boats from
Art Rand's boat shop, on speculation, and bought some small ads. (Fig.
4) The ten sold out, and another ten, and another and another, and
another. The demand was scattered,but it was there. There were more
compliments, including one I'll treasure forever from Buckminster
Fuller. Palawan was seen to sail through Buzzards Bay with a brace of
them nested on deck. Ralph Wiley ordered one for the deck of a cruiser
he was building.
The modest success was nice, but I soon had enough of handling sales.
I tossed the business in Art Rand's lap and went off for a year to
work in Stanley Woodward's yacht yard in Mallorca. When I got back,
Art had got himself into a financial bind and gone out of business.
For vanity's sake, I wanted the design to stay in circulation, so I
drew the plans again and made a present of that version to Capt. Jim
Orrell, the Texas Dory man. He called it the Gloucester Gull and
circulated it nobly; I'd guess he must have sent out thousands of
plans. But we quarrelled over it: he got angry because I wouldn't draw
up a sailing rig and a motor well for it, and I lost my temper because
he went ahead and had somebody else do both over my objections. These
I thought, should have been respected, especially as my reasons were
that the modified version was somewhat dangerous as well as
inefficient.
When I was working up my book,"Small Boats," I designed (for the
book)what was supposed to be an improved version, with longer entrance
lines, drew weight more concentrated to go better against a head sea,
and the construction supposedly cleaned up a little. (Fig. 5) This
version really is better, but not by much,and most people don't think
it's as good looking as the 1961 design, which just keeps on selling.
The absolute final version, as far as I'm concerned, is Type VI. (Fig.
6) This one was drawn up to Harold Payson's order.He both builds them
and sells the plans, which is the way it should be, ideally. I think
it must have been one of his boats in which the hero of "Swashbuckler"
pursued the heroine of that rather disappointing movie
I've spent a good deal of time in the past 10 or 15 years trying to
warn people that dories aren't the best solution for all nautical
problems. They need lofting and jigging preparation that make them
expensive to build one-off, and they're full of sharp bevels that make
them tricky for novice carpenters. All of them, and this one
especially, feel terribly tender, and they're hard to get into and out
of in consequence. They have a wild, bouncy motion in a seaway, which
keeps them dry but can do horrid things to your stomach. I've watched
one that was being towed behind a close-hauled sailboat in a strong
chop and a heavy rain, and her cork-screwing among the waves was
throwing the rainwater up and out of her bilge 6' in the air. Over in
England they've solved the stability problems of dories by bestowing
the name dory on copies of the Boston Whaler. S'truth!
Be that as it may, these light dories are not bad boats. I've several
times rowed 15 nautical miles in five hours, and more athletic types
have done much better than that in them. If a single oarsman has sense
enough to stay solidly planted on his or her butt, low in the boat,
these boats will go through a wicked-looking sea. And though it's not
hard to design a boat that will perform and behave better for most
purposes -- even in sheet plywood, let alone molded -- it's not at all
easy to make it as graceful to the eye.
This design seems likely to be the permanent monument to my erratic
career as a designer, and if so it will be mostly because one day in
November of 1961 I happened to bend a batten around a very pretty
sheerline indeed.
>Probably not, if you asked Phil Bolger. Crystal is the boat
> I'm trying to remember if Mr. Bolger designed a simpler to build
> (meaning instant boat) version of the Gloucester Light Dory, or if
> that was a builder trying to simplify it themselves.
>
> Since surf boats were mentioned, aren't Dories probably the best
> surfboat, and are there any cruising dories by Bolger?
>
> Paul
he designed for his personal use as a surf row boat, and it
doesn't look much like a Bolger style rowing dory.
Follows is a cut and paste of what he wrote about the history
of his dory designs in March 1980, including this notable quote:
"dories aren't the best solution for all nautical problems"
[And, would someone explain what 'pretty thin on the ground
at the time' means?]
======== quoted text below =================
====From Small Boat Journal #7 March 1980 =====
Phil Bolger Comments:
A 15'6" Light Dory
My leeboard sharpie, Pointer, was la launched in the summer of 1960.
She had no place on deck for a dinghy, and I set out to design and
build a good rowing tender. I wanted one that would live in rough
water and row well enough so I could feel free to anchor far out from
landings. Besides, I'd been one of those "pretty thin on the ground at
the time " who had a mission to see that a generation didn't grow up
in total ignorance of what could be accomplished with reasonable
practical rowing boats.I pulled out a design I'd made back in 1952
called Golden River, a planked dory that had rounded sides and was a
good deal slimmer and lower than the usual fisherman's dory. (Fig.1)
These were nice boats to row, but the construction was so finicky and
laborious that only a few were built. I revamped it for sheet plywood
construction and in a moment of inspiration very much improved the
looks of the sheer line. (Fig. 2) This drawing wasn't supposed to be
seen by anybody but me, by the way; my brother said something about
the shoemaker's children going barefoot when he saw one of the
drawings I'd made for my own use.
I built her that winter, very roughly, having no pretensions to being
a competent carpenter. If you stand back fifty feet that boat looks
real good, said a kind friend. In fact, it did (Fig. 3), and still
does; Damian McLaughlin owns it now, along with the sharpie, and he's
refinished it elaborately.
I gave it a quick trial, hurriedly added a skeg to make it tow
straight, and took off for a month's cruise around Cape Cod and the
Islands. The cruise was meant to showoff the sharpie, but wherever I
went,nobody looked at her. They were all looking past the stern, at
the dory on the end of her sea painter. There were so many compliments
that I thought I must have a commercial product, and when I got home I
redesigned it again for production. I'd like to note that the dory
shape was originally adapted to series production out of sheet
material, namely wide planks, and these boats have the sharp flare so
they can be stored and transported in compact nests.This third version
had the stem rounded back where I'd had a miserable time trying to
twist the plywood onto the fore foot. The fore-and-aft straddle thwart
had made her seem even more tender than she was by nature because it
prevented stepping dead center of the bottom; I changed that for three
conventional thwarts. I put the gunwale stringer on the outside so
water and mud would run cleanly out when she was on her side; the
proportions of breadth and flare made it possible to step on the
gunwale as she lay on a beach, bringing the far gunwale nearly up to
an out stretched hand with which she could be pulled up on her beam
ends. I corrected the angle of the rowlock sockets, though to this day
I don'tunderstand why it is that a rowlock that cants out with the
flare makes a boat seem hard to row.
With my heart in my mouth I ordered a batch of ten of these boats from
Art Rand's boat shop, on speculation, and bought some small ads. (Fig.
4) The ten sold out, and another ten, and another and another, and
another. The demand was scattered,but it was there. There were more
compliments, including one I'll treasure forever from Buckminster
Fuller. Palawan was seen to sail through Buzzards Bay with a brace of
them nested on deck. Ralph Wiley ordered one for the deck of a cruiser
he was building.
The modest success was nice, but I soon had enough of handling sales.
I tossed the business in Art Rand's lap and went off for a year to
work in Stanley Woodward's yacht yard in Mallorca. When I got back,
Art had got himself into a financial bind and gone out of business.
For vanity's sake, I wanted the design to stay in circulation, so I
drew the plans again and made a present of that version to Capt. Jim
Orrell, the Texas Dory man. He called it the Gloucester Gull and
circulated it nobly; I'd guess he must have sent out thousands of
plans. But we quarrelled over it: he got angry because I wouldn't draw
up a sailing rig and a motor well for it, and I lost my temper because
he went ahead and had somebody else do both over my objections. These
I thought, should have been respected, especially as my reasons were
that the modified version was somewhat dangerous as well as
inefficient.
When I was working up my book,"Small Boats," I designed (for the
book)what was supposed to be an improved version, with longer entrance
lines, drew weight more concentrated to go better against a head sea,
and the construction supposedly cleaned up a little. (Fig. 5) This
version really is better, but not by much,and most people don't think
it's as good looking as the 1961 design, which just keeps on selling.
The absolute final version, as far as I'm concerned, is Type VI. (Fig.
6) This one was drawn up to Harold Payson's order.He both builds them
and sells the plans, which is the way it should be, ideally. I think
it must have been one of his boats in which the hero of "Swashbuckler"
pursued the heroine of that rather disappointing movie
I've spent a good deal of time in the past 10 or 15 years trying to
warn people that dories aren't the best solution for all nautical
problems. They need lofting and jigging preparation that make them
expensive to build one-off, and they're full of sharp bevels that make
them tricky for novice carpenters. All of them, and this one
especially, feel terribly tender, and they're hard to get into and out
of in consequence. They have a wild, bouncy motion in a seaway, which
keeps them dry but can do horrid things to your stomach. I've watched
one that was being towed behind a close-hauled sailboat in a strong
chop and a heavy rain, and her cork-screwing among the waves was
throwing the rainwater up and out of her bilge 6' in the air. Over in
England they've solved the stability problems of dories by bestowing
the name dory on copies of the Boston Whaler. S'truth!
Be that as it may, these light dories are not bad boats. I've several
times rowed 15 nautical miles in five hours, and more athletic types
have done much better than that in them. If a single oarsman has sense
enough to stay solidly planted on his or her butt, low in the boat,
these boats will go through a wicked-looking sea. And though it's not
hard to design a boat that will perform and behave better for most
purposes -- even in sheet plywood, let alone molded -- it's not at all
easy to make it as graceful to the eye.
This design seems likely to be the permanent monument to my erratic
career as a designer, and if so it will be mostly because one day in
November of 1961 I happened to bend a batten around a very pretty
sheerline indeed.
I'm trying to remember if Mr. Bolger designed a simpler to build
(meaning instant boat) version of the Gloucester Light Dory, or if
that was a builder trying to simplify it themselves.
Since surf boats were mentioned, aren't Dories probably the best
surfboat, and are there any cruising dories by Bolger?
Paul
(meaning instant boat) version of the Gloucester Light Dory, or if
that was a builder trying to simplify it themselves.
Since surf boats were mentioned, aren't Dories probably the best
surfboat, and are there any cruising dories by Bolger?
Paul