Re: [bolger] Light Dory 50th Anniversary - 3 years away in 2011

It would take a better man than I to scull a Gull, there is a double
ended version. I personally would build with the transom again if I were
to build another just because I think it looks better.

HJ

Kenneth Grome wrote:

> I see a sculling notch in the transom of the Gloucester Gull.
>
> Does anyone actually scull these boats? If not, it seems the
> construction might be easier if the boat were made without a
> transom ... a true double-ender.
>
> Are there any other reasons for this transom -- besides "appearance" or
> to be true to the original design?
>
> Sincerely,
> Ken Grome
> Bagacay Boatworks
> www.bagacayboatworks.com
>
>
>
>
>
>

After watching the stern wave on one of my GGs I added a balsa block to the
lower 6 inches of the transom and shaped it into a double ender; wave gone
1/4 knot faster. It was 1982, I would row her to and from work every day,
Glorietta Bay to Kettenburg Yard at Shelter Island, I was 30 years old,
building boats, had just met my third wife, just launched my PCB "Black
Skimmer" WOODWIND and the bay was mine. Tim P Anderson

_____

From:bolger@yahoogroups.com[mailto:bolger@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Kenneth Grome
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 5:11 PM
To:bolger@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [bolger] Light Dory 50th Anniversary - 3 years away in 2011

I see a sculling notch in the transom of the Gloucester Gull.

Does anyone actually scull these boats? If not, it seems the
construction might be easier if the boat were made without a
transom ... a true double-ender.

Are there any other reasons for this transom -- besides "appearance" or
to be true to the original design?

Sincerely,
Ken Grome
Bagacay Boatworks
www.bagacayboatworks.com

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I see a sculling notch in the transom of the Gloucester Gull.

Does anyone actually scull these boats? If not, it seems the
construction might be easier if the boat were made without a
transom ... a true double-ender.

Are there any other reasons for this transom -- besides "appearance" or
to be true to the original design?

Sincerely,
Ken Grome
Bagacay Boatworks
www.bagacayboatworks.com

Payson has the dories off in a corner of the web site

http://instantboats.com/downeastdories/

HJ

Christopher Wetherill wrote:

> Would this be in "Go Build Your Own Boat"? I don't see the plans as a
> stand-alone item on Payson's website.
>
> V/R
> Chris
>
>
>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>
>
>
> Bolger rules!!!
> - NO "GO AWAY SPAMMER!" posts!!! Please!
> - no cursing, flaming, trolling, spamming, respamming, or flogging dead horses
> - stay on topic, stay on thread, punctuate, no 'Ed, thanks, Fred' posts
> - Pls add your comments at the TOP, SIGN your posts, and snip away
> - Plans: Mr. Philip C. Bolger, P.O. Box 1209, Gloucester, MA, 01930, Fax: (978) 282-1349
> - Unsubscribe:bolger-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> - Open discussion:bolger_coffee_lounge-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Would this be in "Go Build Your Own Boat"? I don't see the plans as a
stand-alone item on Payson's website.

V/R
Chris

>
> 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.
>

--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, Harry James <welshman@...> wrote:

>
> So what would a celebration look like? Web site starting in early

2009,

> register every dory possible with pics, regional gatherings?
>
> HJ

All that. And maybe more:

Excited local releases via community service announcement, or letters
to editor etc, easily adapted from some online master templates?
(Master templates: including history, lore, suitability, facts,
environmental and other benefits, bolgerdata, pics, etc.)

Perhaps community (is that too grand? try combined, or cooperative,
or family) multiple builds. Use templates where appropriate (kids,
fifty-footers, semi-disposables) to shorten time to splash.

Maybe a yahoo website?

Awards? There might be several in good natured spirit. Do these
require a committee or a wiki? Categories may include: Type IV, Type
VI, Type V, Long, Longer, Longest. Finish standard, Fastest row,
Distance rowed, Most cruised, Oldest, Newest, Most shippy, Verifiable
wet entry, Biggest sea, Tallest tale, Most fish, etc.

Maybe a welcome to other designers' similar derived types, and one-
off self-builders' types too (I think quite a few of these in OZ),
for would they have been in their plywoodedness or glassinesses were
it not for that GG sheerline batten?

Graeme

Hey, thanks once again Bruce for your great research and
documentation. Thanks for the clarrifying text of the first part of
that SBJ aricle (and dates). I agree with your nailing of the date to
November 1960.

I recollect what Mark Twain said about the summer in your SF locale
being the coldest winter he ever spent (and he also spent some time
in Tassie!), and wonder therefore about an historically accurate
November "peak" to celebrations.

Down East snow rows and such like notwithstanding, would the northern
hemisphere fall, which I can only believe, not having experienced it,
or spring, be more conducive to participation than the November cusp
of northern winter? In the south the corresponding seasons, reversed,
would be choice times indeed for some dorying under oars (that is, in
most places at some sensible remove from Antarctica). How about, say,
either September 2010, or March 2011 as being more pragmatic for
commemorative larger events being mirrored in the sheds, on the
water, and shared digitally across all 4 hemispheres should they,
hopefully, occur?

Graeme

--- Inbolger@yahoogroups.com, "Bruce Hallman" <bruce@...> wrote:
> The 50th anniversary of the 'Light Dory', I think is actually
November
> 2010, (following the 1960 summer launch of Pointer), with the
premise
> that the first 'Light Dory' was design number "140-11-60" design
#140,
> Nov. 1960, and built in the winter of 1960-1961 for PCB's use as a
> tender for his sharpie Pointer.

So what would a celebration look like? Web site starting in early 2009,
register every dory possible with pics, regional gatherings?

HJ

Bruce Hallman wrote:

> On Feb 7, 2008 11:52 AM, Harry James <welshman@...> wrote:
>
>> There must be a thousands of them around, I live in a relatively small
>> town (pop30,000 ) and I know of 6. I am constantly running into people
>> in conversation live or on the net who have one or who have built one or
>> know somebody who has.
>>
>> HJ
>>
>
> That sounds fun. I think the 'definitive' Bolger write up for the
> Light Dory is in the old Small Boat Journal March 1980 (text pasted
> below).
>
> The 50th anniversary of the 'Light Dory', I think is actually November
> 2010, (following the 1960 summer launch of Pointer),with the premise
> that the first 'Light Dory' was design number "140-11-60" design #140,
> Nov. 1960, and built in the winter of 1960-1961 for PCB's use as a
> tender for his sharpie Pointer.
>
> (I think the article contains a typo "one day in November of 1961 I
> happened to bend a batten around a very pretty sheerline indeed." I
> think he meant 1960.
>
> =========================================================
>
>

Ive built several GGs myself and miss having one around; maybe Ill do an
anniversary edition, a great way to kick off my new shop in Bayou Bonne
Idée, Mer Rouge, LA . Tim P Anderson

_____

From:bolger@yahoogroups.com[mailto:bolger@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Bruce Hallman
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 2:37 PM
To:bolger@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [bolger] Light Dory 50th Anniversary - 3 years away in 2011

On Feb 7, 2008 11:52 AM, Harry James <welshman@ptialaska.
<mailto:welshman%40ptialaska.net> net> wrote:

>
> There must be a thousands of them around, I live in a relatively small
> town (pop30,000 ) and I know of 6. I am constantly running into people
> in conversation live or on the net who have one or who have built one or
> know somebody who has.
>
> HJ

That sounds fun. I think the 'definitive' Bolger write up for the
Light Dory is in the old Small Boat Journal March 1980 (text pasted
below).

The 50th anniversary of the 'Light Dory', I think is actually November
2010, (following the 1960 summer launch of Pointer),with the premise
that the first 'Light Dory' was design number "140-11-60" design #140,
Nov. 1960, and built in the winter of 1960-1961 for PCB's use as a
tender for his sharpie Pointer.

(I think the article contains a typo "one day in November of 1961 I
happened to bend a batten around a very pretty sheerline indeed." I
think he meant 1960.

=========================================================
Phil Bolger Comments: From Small Boat Journal #7 March 1980

A 15'6" Light Dory

My leeboard sharpie, Pointer, was 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't understand 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.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Feb 7, 2008 11:52 AM, Harry James <welshman@...> wrote:

>
> There must be a thousands of them around, I live in a relatively small
> town (pop30,000 ) and I know of 6. I am constantly running into people
> in conversation live or on the net who have one or who have built one or
> know somebody who has.
>
> HJ

There must be a thousands of them around, I live in a relatively small
town (pop30,000 ) and I know of 6. I am constantly running into people
in conversation live or on the net who have one or who have built one or
know somebody who has.

HJ

graeme19121984 wrote:

> I'd been doing some digging and thinking about a dory topic posted by
> Mik Storer at his site and also currently discussed over at the
> dorygroup when the thought occured to me today that PCB bent that
> batten about that dory sheer in 1961.
>
> Through the years he often said words to the effect that the
> Gloucester Gull, aka Gloucester Light Dory, etc, was his best design.
> (A great design, but I wonder did he mean "best" as in looking, &
> sales?)
>
> He has said he was happy with many other designs. In recent times he
> has said the Birdwatcher design was his best effort. These designs
> won't have their 50th for another twenty-odd years. So what say all
> you Bolgerados, Bolgeristas, Bolgerites, Bolgerphiles, and Bolger
> nuts, how about some kind of (loosely) coordinated thing for the
> golden Gull anniversary? I dunno what - maybe something like building
> and slapping gold paint on Light Dories and where possible having
> them messin'.
>
> Watcha think?
>
> Cheers
> Graeme
>
>
>
>

I'd been doing some digging and thinking about a dory topic posted by
Mik Storer at his site and also currently discussed over at the
dorygroup when the thought occured to me today that PCB bent that
batten about that dory sheer in 1961.

Through the years he often said words to the effect that the
Gloucester Gull, aka Gloucester Light Dory, etc, was his best design.
(A great design, but I wonder did he mean "best" as in looking, &
sales?)

He has said he was happy with many other designs. In recent times he
has said the Birdwatcher design was his best effort. These designs
won't have their 50th for another twenty-odd years. So what say all
you Bolgerados, Bolgeristas, Bolgerites, Bolgerphiles, and Bolger
nuts, how about some kind of (loosely) coordinated thing for the
golden Gull anniversary? I dunno what - maybe something like building
and slapping gold paint on Light Dories and where possible having
them messin'.

Watcha think?

Cheers
Graeme