Launchings

Participants in the spring boatbuilding class at The Dory Shop in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, celebrate the launch of the as-yet-unnamed Banks dory they built under the tutelage of master dory builder Jay Langford May 7-18.

This is my 18′ Carolina dory. Materials are from local lumber yards except for the bronze screws. This was a fun project, the plans from Spira International were easy to read and the boat gets plenty of compliments.

Living by of The Gulf of Finland I wanted to have a small boat that I could easily launch in the spring and take up before the ice covers the sea in the winter. I designed and built the lapstrake boat Kjerstin, named after my grandmother.

Peter Baldracchi recently built this 14′ dory skiff in a class at Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury, Massachusetts. There’s a storage compartment under the sternsheets and room for gear and a couple of friends. The light grey interior, varnished seats, and dark hull make for a handsome boat.

Here is a Jeff Spira designed Pescadero I recently completed. It was designed as a light tackle tarpon hunter for the central gulf coast of Florida. The boat performs better than expected and makes an ideal fishing platform.

John Horst writes "I designed and built (actually just built) this 16' x 4' boat for rowing and fishing on Cabbage Creek and the ICW in Ponte Vedra, FL." He used 5/16" cypress planking over resorcinol-laminated ash frames.

David Satter restored this 1931 Old Town Canoe in 2002, after paying just $100 for her at a yard sale in NJ. It is an Old Town 50-lb 15 model. He replaced 10 ribs and 30 feet of planking, and replaced the canvas; then gave her a new coat of paint and varnish.

Despite working at times “at a glacial pace” for two years, Stirling Cummings of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, finshed and launched his 18′ Night Heron kayak on a cold windy day in February 2012 on Jordan Lake, near Chapel Hill.

SEAMONKEY is a 15'6" Bolger-designed catboat, that Robert Parish modified for a Chinese junk rig. He lives in Bozeman, MT and launched SEAMONKEY in 40-knot gusts on Canyon Ferry Reservoir in August 2004.

Kevin Brown needed a shallow-draft, v-bottomed boat for fishing the marshy coast of Georgia, so he designed and build LIL WOODY. At 15 feet long, LIL WOODY is powered by a 55-hp outboard, and can run up to 28mph.