16 foot wooden dory

[Norse-Am]

Modified a Grand Banks 16 from the plans by leaving off the sheer plank. It was risky, being rather precocious for my first build, but it turned out a lot like Bolger's Gloucester Gull, just not stitch-and-glue. It was my first build. Pictures don't seem willing to upload, though. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with the way she rows. Bottom planks were home-milled cypress, sides were CLEAR white pine and ribs were red oak. Thwarts of yellow pine, and cutwater or stem is cypress. Used s/s screws and oil-based paint all but thwarts and caprail, which are stained and spar-varnished. Launched her on July 3.

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/norse-american/

[skaraborgcraft]

Sounds great,and congratulations but we need pictures. Expect lots of comments about the red oak.....

[johngsandusky]

Sounds great! If you're not carrying a ton of fish offshore, you don't need a boat as seaworthy and burdensome as the original. Some one will be along to advise on photo posting.

[James McMullen]

Congratulations on your first boat. Did you catch the boatbuilding bug?

[Gib Etheridge]

Upload your pics to Flickr

On Flickr...

Left click on the photo.
Right click on the new photo.
Select medium 500 or medium 640.
Copy and paste.

I like it when people innovate.

[Norse-Am]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/norse-american/ This link is about the best I can do. Can you all see the pics there? Let me know...

[Norse-Am]

Mr. McMullen, yes I've caught the bug rather badly. Thank God I originally bought enough lumber for two of these and only yesterday I located a REAL lumberyard only an hour from here. I'm on the southern tippity tip of Texas and it's hard to get real wood here. The red oak for the ribs came from the big box store...

[nedL]

Very nice! (Just leave her uncovered under a tree for a couple of years & your red oak will be fine.)

[Norse-Am]

[Norse-Am]

Potterer: got it. Thanks! Sorry for the befuddledness. I'm not tech challenged, just getting hang of it... Salud.

[Norse-Am]

Rowing.

[Norse-Am]

[Norse-Am]

Any advice from no-nonsense experienced dory builders of what to put into the seams besides Bostik 920, Sikkaflex or 3M 5200? Been lurking a while and seen the threads, but I want a DORY BUILDER who's been at it long enough to know what lasts. Oh, and the thing is trailered in and out of the water in hot, hot hot south Texas.

[davebrown]

Congratulations and nice paint job. You have identified one of my problems about using solid planking on my next build(s): I live in Sacramento, which is where The Devil vacations in the summer, because you know the climate is to his liking. Having a solid wood skiff on a trailer while you creep along in rush hour traffic while it is 118 degrees on the pavement seems prohibitive (and that temp is not an exaggeration). I don't know the answer but I would like to build my next boat out of solid wood.

[Norse-Am]

Everybody wants to build boats out of epoxy/ply, but in my windy area, I figured the inertia added with a little weight fro solid wood was a plus, even if it's not the lightest boat on the water. So I've got what looks exactly like a Gloucester Gull built like a Banker out of pine, which, in my humble opinion, rows spectacularly. A 3-mile jaunt a couple days ago was nothing. The boat tracked like a dream and glided along with grace. Not sure really what the hang-up is with solid wood. Ply seems every bit as tedious and not much easier technically speaking.

[James McMullen]

Well, now that I've gotten the encouragement out of the way, let me know when you're ready for some brutally honest constructive criticism. I would very strongly recommend that you not build the next one in the exact same way. There's some important details that could be improved on for your long term success.

[Norse-Am]

OK Mr. McMullen, lemme have it. I built the first one completely open to the learning curve I knew would ensue, particularly regarding material. I registered on the forum and posted my process with a mind to get the feedback from those who've been in this bidness a while.

So basically I was told that keeping the boat out of water and trailering necessitated the industrial-grade below-the-waterline bedding compound/adhesive. Instinctively, my thoughts are the ol' timers could keep these things out of the water and also not use that stuff. So tell me how you'd build a solid wood dory for long-term success, and I'll gladly hear you out, acknowledging my newbieness... You have only my appreciation.

[skaraborgcraft]

Looks like James spotted the grain on those frames.....

[Norse-Am]

Ha ha. Don't know what you're talking about. They came painted. Lol.

[James McMullen]

Okay, well here goes. . .but before I start, let me offer up a little caveat: I know I have been accused before of being very critical, but I am only doing it out of love. Love for small boats, and in the sincere hope that you will have the very best experiences with your own boatbuilding journey. None of the following is meant in any way as a personal attack, but rather in the spirit of helping your next boat(s) be even better. Lord knows the first couple dozen boats I built weren't anything to be very proud of--though I certainly seemed to think so at the time, objective evidence to the contrary. But with the help of all the resources open today--especially including this forum and easily posted photos that travel around the world at the speed of electrons--the learning curve for amateur building is ever so much friendlier these days. So I'm not dogging you, I think it is awesome that you have the drive and commitment to build your own stuff! Cheers to you, Norse-Am!

So yes, the grain on your frames is not ideal. You ought to have knees, or laminated knees, or gussets, or grown hardwood crooks for the ultimate in cool. The short grain there in the hook is structurally essentially useless. It's built heavy enough that it probably won't matter in the short term, but it's by no means as strong as it ought to be, especially of you were going to subject the boat to strains of beaching in light surf, or being heavily loaded.

I saw the exact same problem in both your transom and your stem knee. The short grain in the one arm in both of these important structural members is not ideal. At the very least, these members should have been cut out with the grain running as long as possible down the arms, though better yet is a grown crook or a glued lamination. Short grain is bad.

Along the same lines, you really, really ought to have an actual breasthook, especially for a trailer boat that will be dragged around by the stem. You seem to have only a little deck instead, and one in which the grain runs fore and aft instead of athwartships. This is also sub-optimal for strength, for the same reason as the other short grain problems. Wood splits ever so much more easily in one direction than in the other, and it is vital that the boatbuilder understand and minimize this issue by proper stock selection or other methods.

The reason red oak gets such a bad rap amongst boatbuilders--especially in a hot, humid southern climate--has nothing whatsoever to do with tradition or superstition or fashion. Red oak because of its basic cell structure is a zillion times more likely to rot than the white oaks. Very, very careful storage and maintenance may delay this problem for you for a while, but it is something you need to be very paranoid about if you are still planning on using this boat in open water ten years from now. That's okay, you'll have built a bunch of new boats by then and it won't matter.

I can't see the details of your plank fasteners, but it doesn't really look like you used rivets or clench nails. Did you use screws or something? The one view I could make out looked like a very, very deep dory-lap, with the planks brought nearly or maybe entirely to flush. If this is right, then you very definitely should have a through-fastener, as there is not nearly enough meat in those thin planks to hold a screw long term, especially not through a few dozen wetting/drying cycles. The fastener schedule that has proven to work over time the best would involve rivets or clench nails spaced every 4" or less along the entirety of each seam. This allows the wood to swell and dry without putting undue stress on the planks--and I don't see evidence of this in the pictures. Am I missing some important ones?

You asked about what to put in the seams. . . .uh-oh! Something like Sikaflex or Lifecaulk is sometimes used in a very thin bead in trad. lapstrake a la Walt Simmons' technique, but you really shouldn't be having much leaking at all, at all if you planed your bevels right and fastened them properly. There may be a fundamental problem here. But no matter, especially for a first boat. I'd say go ahead and caulk her up with that Sikaflex. That will last plenty long enough until your short-grain red oak frames give out and solve the problem for good.

And a few quibbles about the shape while I'm on a roll: That straight as a rod stem is hampering you from getting useful fullness into your bow sections. Look at how all the typical historic dories have a curve to the stem--that shape helps twist the planking in such a way that they improve the prismatic coefficient at the waterline. Even plywood dories like Bolger's famous Glouceser Gull have this and force some shape into bow by torturing the plywood a little. If you were willing to go to a knuckle-sided dory instead of sticking with the slab-sided banker you'll be able to get some even more useful shape out of her. I might reccomend a look at Clint Chase's Deblois St. Dory for a very nice example of this.

Norse-Am, I'm being a little tongue-in-cheek about this, but actually not really. I think you should enjoy this boat to it's fullest and feel happy that you have something to row while you're building an improved boat for down the road. But I wouldn't hold out any hopes that you're going to pass this first one down to your grandkids as a family heirloom. This is a great learning experience and practice for the next one.

And as a fellow american with Norse heritage, might I even suggest that you also look into the faering as an alternative yet still simple rowboat? I find that I now personally quite prefer them to banks dories, though of course your mileage may vary.

[Norse-Am]

You're a good man, McMullen. I appreciate the feedback a whole lot. I confess I used s/s screws to join it all, including the plank bevels, save the bottom. I promise to clench nail the next dory and use mesquite crooks and ribs. I will also curve the stem and use a mesquite knee brace. Is it OK to use a tiny bead of Bostik 920 between the laps? I'll try to plank this. Ext one lap strake. I needed the info badly, and hours of research could not have yielded anything so concise as what you've volunteered here. Tusen takk!

[BrianM]

I built the 12' Bank Dory (16' overall) from red oak frames and phillipine mahogany back when i was 16 years old. I did not lap-strake her since my woodworking skills weren't up to that level yet.

The boat sat on a trailer in a covered, cool garage, so the battens behind the seams using Sikaflex were just dandy.

After a roasting hot summer in a Sacramento field when I lost the garage, my boat imploded. Moisture content went down, planks shrank horribly (seams opened to almost 1/2"), and battens were split!

My fix?

it was ugly but I ran a router down the seams, opening them to a clean and consistent 1/2" width, made a 1/4" wide "spline", and bedded it in very thick Sikaflex. I painted the boat white, kept it out of the sun and she was fine thereafter. (still stored on trailer, but back in Bay Area.. no more devil's vacation land...)

[HarryH]

Okay, well here goes. . .but before I start, let me offer up a little caveat: I know I have been accused before of being very critical, but I am only doing it out of love. Love for small boats, and in the sincere hope that you will have the very best experiences with your own boatbuilding journey. None of the following is meant in any way as a personal attack, but rather in the spirit of helping your next boat(s) be even better. Lord knows the first couple dozen boats I built weren't anything to be very proud of--though I certainly seemed to think so at the time, objective evidence to the contrary. But with the help of all the resources open today--especially including this forum and easily posted photos that travel around the world at the speed of electrons--the learning curve for amateur building is ever so much friendlier these days. So I'm not dogging you, I think it is awesome that you have the drive and commitment to build your own stuff! Cheers to you, Norse-Am!

So yes, the grain on your frames is not ideal. You ought to have knees, or laminated knees, or gussets, or grown hardwood crooks for the ultimate in cool. The short grain there in the hook is structurally essentially useless. It's built heavy enough that it probably won't matter in the short term, but it's by no means as strong as it ought to be, especially of you were going to subject the boat to strains of beaching in light surf, or being heavily loaded................etc

James, hats off to you for an exemplary way to help out newcomers...to the craft, to the forum. I often wince when a sincerely asked question becomes a football for the less than empathetic of us....valuable experience offered with a bit of compassion...well done.

[Norse-Am]

BrianM, thanks for the input. At least I have a contingency plan now in case of the type of catastrophic failure you endured!