Just when I decided to build a replica of a Grand Banks dory, I can’t remember. Several ideas came together. I’ve always fancied the lines, and wanted a boat more versatile than my Redwing: one that can be rowed, powered or sailed under Richmond Bridge — a bit tight with the Redwing’s 24 foot mast. I am also interested in folding boats. No, dories don’t fold, but my version does; or rather it dismounts into three sections. It seemed to me that if I could store an 18 foot boat on the ground area normally occupied by a Mirror, I had nothing to lose.

But would a dory sail? Although folding centreplates were fitted to a few Grand Bankers, the idea did not catch on as it did in other types of dory, and they seemed only to have carried minimal sail for travelling down wind while being steered with an oar. On the other hand, the hull was fine enough to give hope of a windward performance. With a chine beam of 2’ 6”, it seemed too fine, so I widened it to 3’. That was my first compromise with the Higgins and Gifford design which was probably the perfect form of the type. Then again, the transom was too high and narrow even for the 22” shaft of my Seagull — more compromise. Next the problem of how to sectionalise it.

You can’t build a boat in sections and get it fair. It has to be built as one and sawn up afterwards. It seemed to me that by dividing it into three sections, with the centre just under 8’ long, I would put less strain on the connections than if I made it in two parts. It also seemed advisable to end the sections in thwart-high bulkheads. From this, it was a short step to decking in the fore and aft sections at thwart height to give built-in buoyancy and, incidentally, a nice sense of shelter, since the coming is another foot or more above that. The sections are connected by bolts through the bulkheads and sealed off with rubber tap washers. But how many? How strong?

There’s nothing new about bolting sections together to make a boat. In small boats there was the Berthon Duplex, the Whittle Packaboat, and rowing eights often come apart for transport. But ‘how strong’ was a matter of guesswork. I settled for seven bolts per junction, with three along the bottom and two up each side, but the middle ones are probably unnecessary as all the flexing is carried at the extremes.

I had a choice of building in ¼” ply with a lot of frames or ⅜” with a few. I chose the latter, using only one frame apart from the section end frames. I fitted a gunwale stringer, but that was the only one; the chines are glass taped. Another time I would build using the traditional dory lap, which would give more manageable sizes of ply sheet. The final weight came out to 300 lbs, which is about the weight of the original, and with the hull painted a dark green the joins are not too obtrusive.

The boat is, of course, easily driven by a 5 hp Seagull, and at full throttle will do about 6 knots in calm water. But if you open up the throttle the bow comes up so you can’t see ahead and you have to move right forward to keep it down, which means that you need control lines to the tiller which then trip you up, if you are me, as you run aft to close the throttle which is about fourteen foot away. At the moment it is difficult to mount the engine, and I intend building a well further into the boat and reducing the shaft length to 16”.

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Lines and elevation of dory. Table of offsets in feet, inches and Fourteen-foot Banks dory built by eighths to inside of plank. Higgins and Gifford, Gloucester 1881 Construction: tholes, ¾in diameter Lines drawn by Howard I Chapelle are made from oak or locust. LOA 18ft 11in. Drawings by H I Chapelle. Length of bottom 14ft 0in. Beam 4ft 11in. Depth 1ft 8¾in Inshore boats: Grand Banks dories

The simplest boats for amateurs to build are flat bottomed craft, hence the tradition for this type on the east coast of the USA and Canada where in colonial times there was a shortage of trained shipwrights. The type also existed in the shallow waters of the east coast of England and in the Netherlands. In addition to the gun punts, other types of punt were built for fishing, reed cutting and for shooting from shoulder guns. Larger flat bottomed craft, usually rigged with a single lugsail, were also widely built and used for marsh work and fishing in the east coast estuaries between the Medway and the Wash. I owned an example of just such a craft, which was known as a Medway punt. She was a very stable little boat. The flat bottomed Dutch craft were so numerous and so much more sophisticated they would need a book of this size to do them justice. In the USA, the traditional flat bottomed types are many and various, ranging from primitive square-ended scows and punts to fifty-foot sharpie schooners. The most noteworthy type, however, is the Grand Banks dory. The dory was developed to be carried aboard the Banks schooners and then, once on the fishing grounds, to be used for long line fishing. Without any gear aboard a dory floats high in the water looking for all the world like a paper boat. With gear aboard, it rows easily and will sail downwind. When dories were stacked on the decks of the schooners, the thwarts were taken out and the little boats were placed one inside the other.

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I think I could claim the Guinness Book of Records for most photographed yachtsman. The single lens reflexes out hunting on the towpath can’t resist the sight of a Captain Birdseye sculling or rowing standing up in his funny shaped boat. It was the same with the Redwing — photographers can’t resist red sails. But I like rowing, and the dory rows well, certainly better than the Redwing. In flat water I can row 10 miles in four hours, but such a high boat (three foot from top of stem to chine amidships) is difficult to handle in a wind, particularly from behind. Howard Chapelle says, “Light, it was a tender boat that required skill to use without capsizing. But in its proper employment the Bank dory has the weight of its fishing gear and bait aboard, which was sufficient to give stability.” Another source says a full load was about 1500 lbs, and heaven help the poor fisherman who rowed that back to the mother ship in a rising wind! (They didn’t always make it). Without a skeg it also yaws rather badly, but perhaps that’s my bad rowing, or slackness in the rowlocks, so that you can’t be sure both oars will bite at the same time. I’m thinking of trying thole pins or the single pin used on the Irish curraghs with a bull on the oar — a strengthening piece with a hole in it which fits on to the pin. I could always fit a skeg, but that’s departing from the design, and would make it slower going about.

For sailing I had hoped to use leeboards, so that I didn’t have to break into the floor with a dagger box, but I couldn’t find a satisfactory way of connecting them when the sides of the dory are at 30 degrees to the vertical. They would have been inefficient resting against the sides: apart from the angle of inclination they would have trapped the water flow between the hull and leading edge. But the board’s got no support if it was hung vertically, and you could never be sure it was parallel to the centreline. I eventually went for a dagger box that could be unbolted and leave a clear interior space, though in fact it doesn’t seem to be in the way.

It took me a long time to decide on the sail plan. It was a question of balancing convenience against performance, with no clear idea how much sail it would stand. My part of the Thames is less than 100 yards wide, with fluky winds typically less than 8 knots. A boat that cannot sail after a fashion through those conditions is no use to me. The few sails I had in October suggest that the dory might just fit the bill. I am glad that I made myself a rule that all spars must stow inside the boat; it’s a rule of thumb that seems to produce a convenient rig. After a lot of agonising over junk rigs, standing lugs and even dipping lugs, I eventually decided on a sprit rig because the sails could be brailed without any spars coming down into the boat. On these spars I can work in about 65 square foot of spritsail. I decided also that since the mast might spend more time down than up, it was essential to simplify the rigging, otherwise I would get into terrible tangles of wire and rope — I always do! So I decided on an unstayed mast with all halliards and hoists on endless lines so that I would not have yards of rope to wrap around cleats.

The spritsail works quite well. Sheeted in hard it will make about two knots to windward in an eight knot breeze and point about as high as a racing dinghy — to be more truthful it holds the same course; not quite the same thing! But in about ¾ knot of current you do no better than hold your own, and while this area is probably about right for seawork it is not enough for the river. As I make my own I can afford to play around with sails a bit. I have made a 25 square foot jib which I intend to set on a club to make it self-tending, but haven’t yet tried it out. It ought to make the difference between marking time and working upstream. After that there are topsails and mizzens to think about.

My conclusions about the sailing performance from my very limited trials are:

1. Without me in it the hull has neutral stability and certainly wouldn’t meet Eric’s criterion, but under sail it feels quite stable, although off the wind it will probably roll badly.

2. A sprit rig is very good for a tender boat, and with an unstayed mast the sail will flap free in any position. I tried a boomless main, but it put the sheeting position practically on the transom and gave the sail an impossible shape off the wind, so I added a boom. The boom is a nine foot piece of deal that cost £2, and is attached to the mast by a rope snotter which can be adjusted to tighten the foot by pushing the boom back or the opposite by pulling the boom forward. Oh the joys of primitive technology!

3. The rig can be easily brailed with a line from boom to throat. It’s quick, but it puts a lot of windage up aloft, especially if the wind gets into the folds of sail. The spritsail would probably work up to a wind speed of about 14 knots; after that it would have to come down. The reefed shape would be inefficient and it would be better to run up a small leg of mutton sail of about 35 square feet. Perhaps a wrap round sail, which seems to be more efficient and would give increased safe area downwind. With ballast, of course, it would stand up to the sail for longer.

4. It seems to go best with the sail pulled out flat. If I’m right, it could be that the sprit lying up to the sail has a more adverse effect on a full sail and distorts it more. Or it may be that I haven’t enough lateral resistance. I made the sail to fall off to leeward. This might be taken further; the top of the sail is not doing its full share of work yet. A vang could be taken from the end of the sprit to pull it on to the wind, but it’s another rope and there isn’t time to use it on the river.

All in all I’m satisfied the boat will give me what I want. It gives me a boat I can row reasonably well and can carry half a dozen people with no trouble. Sectioned, two people can take it apart and launch it in inconvenient places; a slipway would not be necessary. But it has its quirks. It sails backwards beautifully! And like any narrow flat bottomed boat, it jerks from side to side instead of rolling comfortably.

I chose a traditional design because I knew it would be seaworthy, but whether I will be seaworthy in it is a question that will have to wait until next summer.