Dorry abrasion test

A dory is a small, shallow-draft boat, 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, 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 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 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 fishing towns sometime after the early 18th century. Howard Chapelle writes, "... some kind of dory boat was in use on the Massachusetts coast as early as 1726."Chapelle, page 85 A definite precursor to the dory type was the early French bateau type, a flat bottom boat with straight sides used as early as 1671 on the Saint Lawrence River.Gardner, page 18 The common coastal boat of the time was the wherry 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 to Newfoundland.

In Nova Scotia, 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 and continues to produce banks dories.

Winslow Homer