Building & Racing & Dories & Whatnot
Posted by The Dory Shop |
A very busy few months at Lunenburg's Dory Shop makes for an interesting read. Here's a taste of what we've been up to and what we'll get into next!
Posted by The Dory Shop |
A very busy few months at Lunenburg's Dory Shop makes for an interesting read. Here's a taste of what we've been up to and what we'll get into next!
Posted by The Dory Shop |
The historic port of Lunenburg has a unique way of welcoming the holiday season. Like many communities, the town hosts a Santa Claus parade, but there’s something that makes ours just a little bit different. The parade here has a boat theme; specifically, parade organizers seek to place as many of the entrees as possible in dories and other wooden boats. As you can imagine, we tend to get a few calls!
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Two very pleasant weeks with our latest dory building class wrapped up Friday as the group launched the fruit of their labours, the HMLD NAK. The what, you ask? Well, as always, the dory built during the class is available for sale to one of the participants and in this case will find a new home in New Brunswick.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Jay’s hard at work on a new dory. Or trying to be. There are a lot of tourists strolling along the Lunenburg waterfront on this beautiful sunny day and while we enjoy having an open shop, it can make it a little hard to get to the job at hand.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Participants in our spring dory course have been working so hard, we figured it was time they got out of The Dory Shop and visited a few of our neighbours in the greater Lunenburg marine trades community. First, it was off to the beehive that is the Michele Stevens Sailloft in Second Peninsula.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
The Hatts were here yesterday with our spring shipment of Hackmatack dory knees. Naturally grown frames, or knees as they are known in dories, are the defining feature of a Lunenburg-built Banks dory. While other ports built their frames using pieces of wood fastened together with a patented metal clip, ours are cut from a single piece of wood. They are not steamed, nor bent, but instead are cut from the lower trunk and roots of the very strong and rot resistant Hackmatack tree. For four generations the Hatt family has supplied The Dory Shop with this critical building material. Edgar Hatt, shown above, began cutting knees with his father Arthur and his grandfather. He now works in the woods with his son.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Posts to this blog regularly bear witness to the incredible boatbuilding talents of our team here at The Dory Shop, particularly the work of our master dory builder Jay Langford. But Jay’s talents extend well beyond the boatbuilding world as proven by the painting – his latest! – shown here.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Want to build a classic wooden boat? There’s no better way to learn how than to take one apart and fix it! That’s just the opportunity available at The Dory Shop this spring when master boatbuilder Jay Langford restores an aging Monomoy pull boat. Brought to The Dory Shop straight from Cape Cod, where these boats originated, this fascinating project offers a unique learning opportunity for up to four new and would-be boatbuilders.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
Our two-week segment with participants in the Boatbuilder Employment Preparation Training Program, sponsored by the Nova Scotia Boatbuilders Association and the Employment Solutions Society, is moving right along. Yesterday, the gang was fitting and installing the knees (frames) in the 13-foot-bottom, 17-foot overall Handline dory they’re building with Jay.
Posted by The Dory Shop |
There was much merriment in the boatyard this weekend (too much?) as we celebrated the installation of the last plank in our twin schooners – the Shutter Plank. Actor-adventurer Billy Campbell, for whom one of the 48-foot schooners is being built, did the honours – dousing the plank with rum and hammering in the fastenings. The more than 150 people who joined us also got a look at the dory being built by participants in the Boatbuilder Employment Preparation Training Program.