A Swampscott dory

Madog is an Iain Oughtred-designed Swampscott dory 16’ loa, 4’4” on the beam, about 12’6” on the water line, with a flat bottom and three strakes per side. Though she has a transom, it is so narrow that she is, in effect, a double ender below the waterline. Construction is lapstrake ply, built upside down on moulds and two permanent frames; the hull weighs about 60 kg. As designed she is rigged with a una sprit sail offering about 57 sq ft, a lifting rudder and a daggerboard, with the option of sealed buoyancy chambers fore and aft or three open thwarts.

Modifications incorporated during construction were fore and aft decks at gunwale height, and a change to a ‘conventional’ loose footed sail on a boom with kicking strap and main sheet.

Cruising modifications after the main construction included side benches between the main thwart and the stern flotation tank, the addition of a forestay and later an ex-Mirror jib of about 20 sq ft.

The addition of a jib should have made her severely unbalanced, but in practice she requires little or no lee helm from a dead run right round to about 60° off the wind. Above this angle the additional force provided by the jib is offset by the resistance of the rudder set at an increasing angle to keep her on course. She manages about 3 knots at 60° to the wind with jib and main in wind and sea conditions which give about 2 knots at 45° under main only.

The first reef is at the top end of force 3, and is simply removing the jib. There’s a jib downhaul which makes life easier. The main has three reef points, but only the second is kept rigged with jiffy reefing. There’s just too many bits of string required to use all three.

After a capsize, under main only, it proved impossible to keep the semi-swamped hull upright to bail, so new side benches were added forward from the centre thwart and were boxed in, together with the after benches to form additional flotation and reduce the free surface the water has to splosh about on. In camping mode, the aft bottom boards lift up between the centre thwart and the side benches, and an additional plywood board fits forward from the centre thwart on the daggerboard case, extending the flat area to just over 6’. There is a camping cover that fits over three wooden frames that slot into sockets fitted just below the inwale. This is currently in the way of a trial arrangement and is made of cut-down blue tarpaulin (ex-builder’s merchant for about £8) held together with aluminium builder’s tape (£5) and brass eyelets. It seems to work well enough in the limited use I’ve had of it this year, so it will probably be replaced by an identical one in heavy canvas from the sailmaker.

Madog is based on an American type of boat so I wanted a nautical name with transatlantic connotations. Madog was a Welsh princeling who sailed to America, probably Florida, in about 1172. He came back the next year with only half his crew, as all the young lads had stayed behind (presumably having a really good time in Disneyland), and sailed again the following year with ten boats loaded with settlers.

One of my great grandparents was a Maddox, which is a modern version of the same name, so I thought I could reasonably use the name without committing lese majesty.

Finally a bit of wilful mispronunciation produces Mad Dog, which speaks for itself.