Mistral Design Revisited

There are a few nascent dory designers who have written to me with comments and questions about designing and building Mistral, so I’d like to talk about that in a little more detail, hopefully answering some of those questions. (The rest of you, please humor me…)


There are no plans on paper for the build of this boat -- I think you can get by just fine without true plans, because the dory is a simple boat that has changed very little in centuries and is tried and true. And before there was paper, the plans filtered down through generations by word of mouth and trial and error.

I think of wood boat building as sculpture. Each piece made in the process has to fit in complete harmony with every other piece, so it's essential to visualize the entire piece from the very start. Wood carvers will tell you that the material they are using defines the sculpture. Despite the mathematical rigor in boat design, every hand made boat is different from all others, even those made by the same person with detailed plans, since interpretation plays an essential part of the creation.
For me the design / build process is organic and develops in my head as the boat is built. The proportions of dories can be found in a variety of sources, but the boats are remarkably similar. For this reason I was confident, though I had never seen a dory as big as Mistral, the proportions from an existing table of offsets for a banks dory would translate smoothly into the much larger boat I imagined.
If you are drawing your own plans and feel intimidated about details, take heart! Jump right in, the details will work themselves out.

I don’t mean to imply that the boat built itself. There was a year of pondering and engineering to work out the scantlings and when in doubt, I erred on the side of overbuilding. Mistral utilizes modern truss framing and plywood for strength so, though she is a stout boat, she still required additional ballast to carry sail.

The backbone is a keel built of laminated fir 2x6. For the forward half of the boat, this keel takes the shape of the rocker, but for the aft half, it has a flat bottom combined with rocker and so becomes deeper toward the transom.
How much rocker is needed? There is the St.Pierre et Miquelon which has a very jaunty chine and even livelier shear, and is an active boat, buoyant and agile, thus so the Mackenzie River Dory, which can turn on a wave crest. The bateau or flat bottom skiff has almost no rocker and is less fidgety. The eventual use will determine how active the bottom shape of your dory will be.




Mistral has about six inches of rocker fore and aft, and is relatively flat for boat with a 30-foot waterline. It’s just enough, and she cuts through the water like an eel.

She has straight frames with sheet plywood and was originally designed with a 3/4-inch bottom, 1/2-inch hull, 1/4-inch cabin sides and 3/8-inch decks (all marine grade fir plywood). The frames are (clear grained) old growth Douglas Fir 2x4's at 17 inches center to center. I didn't feel comfortable with the 3/4" bottom, so laminated another layer of 3/4" for a total of 1.5". I would recommend this, since the weight down low is good for stability, and a flat bottomed dory should be able to support it’s own dry weight.






Since Mistral is to carry sail, she needs ballast. The ballast is in a box, made of half-inch plywood, poured full of concrete, with several continuous lengths of steel reinforcing bar, for structural integrity. The ballast keel weighs one ton and is aligned with the middle section of the boat, which, for a double-ended hull is the approximate center of resistance. The finished keel is 18” deep, which gives the dory a total draft of 2.5 feet.

Stainless threaded rod bolts the ballast to the wood keel and epoxy impregnated 10-oz. fiberglass cloth covers the keel and hull. The motor is mounted off center, so there was no need to install a shaft through the keel. The weight built into the bottom vastly improves the handling of the dory.




Mistral has an 11-foot extreme beam, which means that on the road, I need a wide load permit and occasionally, pilot cars. Fortunately I don't trailer her much! She weighs five tons and about two tons of that is ballast. I added (one ton) interior ballast with the new mast, because she was very tender.



The dory is a very buoyant boat by nature and rolls quickly from side to side, which makes people nervous. Once you know the boat, this feeling disappears, because the design is incredibly seaworthy and will always right itself. You learn quickly to keep your weight centered. The hull will carry an impressive load --- an additional ton of ballast raised my waterline only 1.5"!

Mistral has "raised decks". In the pictures, the knuckle you see is the true shear and the beam of that basic hull is 10 feet. There is added width in the raised decks (an additional foot), which I designed primarily to help give me standing headroom without having a tall, boxy cabin. This feature became apparent during construction and is an example of how a plan will develop.
The beam at waterline is approximately six feet, which is a positive influence on efficiency, but contributes to lively response.

With Mistral’s low aspect sail, she goes like a greyhound on a reach or downwind, but with a full keel, she is slow to tack.
I run a 9.9 hp Mercury four-stroke “Sail Power” outboard in a motor well, which pushes the boat along at about five knots and is a testament to the efficiency of the double-ended dory hull. This oversized dory will cruise at this speed for 7-8 hours on a small three-gallon tank of fuel, with this small efficient motor.
A full sea trial is still in the future. I intend to petition my friends as crew. Any takers?

The mainsail I ordered for Mistral is still at the sailmaker's - I think I hit her at a bad time of year. So, I'm still using an old hand down main, which is too small for the boat. I recently adapted a used jib (Lashed on some hanks – That was fun!) which seems to work just fine (the one I had is now the storm jib). So things are improving. I made an up river run from the boat yard last week under jib alone (running with the tide) and averaged five knots! There was too much stuff (paint cans and etc.) to get the main out.




There is a great book about building the St.Pierre et Miquelon by Mark White, published in 1978 by International Marine Publishing. It is probably long out of print, but a real jewel. Mark builds a planked St. Pierre in Alaska (outside!) and documents it with pictures and a text intended for commercial fishing vessels. He recommends a 10 hp Saab or 10 hp Volvo Penta. He says the Saab has more torque, but the Volvo is much more economical.
To carry the weight of the inboard, Mark widened the transom eight inches, top and bottom, then fared that extra width forward to just past amidships. This added buoyancy and stability in the stern.



I wish I had widened my transom a little, too. I love the double-enders, but the cockpit is narrow just where I need the room for jib sheets, main sheet traveler and such. With the motor well in the cockpit, my big boat has the working room of a much smaller vessel.





There are design changes going on in my head all the time. If I were to build this boat again, it would look much different. But I won’t bore you today.

Please check links to other posts detailing the build of Mistral for additional information.

I’d be interested in hearing from others who are designing their own boats. The process involved is similar for all types of vessels and we can share comments and feedback.

Building the Goat Island Skiff "Sisu"

My friend David Graybeal is a proud owner/builder of a Goat Island Skiff, designed by Michael Storer.

David built Sisu with an old friend and his two sons so the four of them could learn to sail. I've heard a lot about the virtues of this boat from David, and a lot of other people as well. The Goat Island Skiff is an all around little boat, as David will tell you, a big little boat.

David sent me a note about the process involved in learning to love a boat and I'll share it with you:


“Why did we build a boat?… and why this particular design? Since the former drives the latter, let’s talk about what inspired us to build a boat.”

“Growing up in Astoria, Oregon and spending a lot of my youth at a summer cabin on Eld Inlet (Puget Sound, near Olympia, Washington), I spent a lot of time on power boats, some in rowboats, some on rafts of our own devising, and a lot of time in the water. There was a sailboat at the Eld Inlet house, but for some reason, I never learned to sail it. I was more interested in the raw excitement of hydroplanes than the subtle nuances of dancing with the wind.”

“As a professional woodworker, I’ve done some boat projects in my shop. Spars, and foils, coamings and companionway doors, tillers and bowsprits, hatches and ceilings. I’ve completely gutted and refitted the interior of a couple of boats. I’ve contracted to restore and maintain the brightwork of a few boats. But I had never built a boat from scratch, but for quite a while, I’d had a niggling urge to do so.”

“Then, one fateful day, my two sons commented about how it would be cool to learn to sail. I said it was a great idea, and how we ought to build a sailboat of our own. Humoring ol’ dad they agreed. Hearing of our plans, my best buddy, Jerry, said he wanted in also. So we had a building team of four.”




“But what boat to build?”
“Knowing very little about the current state of small boat design, I threw myself into an Internet search. What a rich vein awaited the pickaxe of my curiosity. We seemed to be experiencing a renaissance of small boat design which included elder draftsmen Wes Farmer and the Atkin duo and the modern geniuses like Bolger, Storer, Devlin, Welsford, Gartside, Swan, Fisher, Hill, Oughtred, and many more.”




“Way too many choices!"
"It was time to narrow the search by creating a design brief. From this brief emerged the Goat Island Skiff, by Michael Storer of Australia. This is what we were looking for, and how well the GIS fulfilled our wishes…”

WE WANTED: a boat that would safely carry the largest number of boys & gear and would still be light enough to cartop.
WE GOT: darned near that. A bigger boat, for its 16' length, than we expected. A very stable boat. A boat that can be cartopped (we did that for a while - not recommended, it's a chore!) We rigged a trailer for her.

WE WANTED: a boat that'd be a balance between sailing, rowing & motoring - weighted slightly toward sailing.
WE GOT: a hull form that's primarily a sailing boat. We hadn’t sailed it yet, though the sailing rig was almost complete, and we were looking forward to it. Reports were that she sails "like a witch".
Rowing, I really enjoy. As designed, she doesn't really track that straight - better for a slalom course than for a straight shot across the lake. I think I'll be adding a small skeg (or two) to help in that respect. Motoring is quite nice also. We use a Nissan 4stroke 5hp. That's probably more than she needs, but seems to work fine and offers some reserve. My only (minor) complaint is that she squats under power with only one occupant. That's the compromise of using a sailboat hull, with its rocker aft, as a motorboat. With more bodies, we can shift weight forward, and she trims well.




WE WANTED: a boat that'd be dead simple for my 11 & 16 year old boys to build (along with a bit of help from Jerry my publisher/accountant friend, definitely not a woodworker - and myself, a professional woodworker).
WE GOT: just that. Very simple build. My three compatriots did the bulk of the work, and it turned out quite well. I tarted it up a bit with a canarywood transom cap, ipe gunwales, and mahogany knees and breasthook.



WE WANTED: a beautiful boat. Despite all the other requirements, it wouldn't be just a utilitarian scow. We wanted something simple that would turn heads.
WE GOT: far more than we expected. Simply stated - I was very pleasantly surprised at the final outcome. Pete Culler said, "Straight is the line of duty, curved is the line of beauty".
I have to agree, and that's what we got. This boat is much more salty and curvy than the photos suggest. She consistently garners compliments at the ramp and on the water.










“The bottom line is, We Love This Boat!”





“We’ve sailed her a good bit. Jerry uses her a few times a year. The kids have moved onto other interests, but they’ve sailed with me several times a year and on at least one boat/camping outing each summer.”










“It’s amazing the amount of gear she’ll hold. With that dory-like shape, she just settles deeper into the water, getting more stable all the while. I use her a lot. Turns out she’s as good a sailor as advertised. More sailboat than I know how to take full advantage of, but still loads of fun.”










David Graybeal can be found in Portland, Oregon as Harbor Woodworks. He has 35 years of experience in all types of wood work, but what interests me the most is his passion for wood boats. He is willing to tackle any small sailing, rowing, or power boat project, up to approximately 25 feet. He also manufactures wood boat accessories; spars, foils, tillers, companionway doors and interiors.

So if you are in range of Portland, Oregon, Vancouver, Washington or anywhere in the Pacific Northwest - Harbor Woodworks offers a wide range of services.

If you would like a quality custom boat built, or help with those tricky details on your own build, David can be reached at: 503-860-3160 or on this page. Give him a call, or send him a note. He loves to talk about boats!

All photos contributed by David Graybeal. Photos of Sisu under sail by John Kohnen.
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Sailing New England

Are you interested in the Ness Yawl, by Iain Oughtred?
How about the Jersey Beach Skiff, by Howard Chapelle?
Or Nat Herreshoff's Coquina?
Pete Culler's Kingston Lobster Boat is another tempting design.



And one of my personal favorites, Iain's MacGregor Canoe.










Then you should visit the New England Wooden Boat Gallery.

Tons of fun!

Slacktide

I suppose that everyone has heard of the Puddle Duck. The Bolger Brick on steroids.

Well, steroids or not, Triloboats has redesigned the Brick as a live aboard. While I don't quite see this design as a racing form; as an economical, efficient live aboard lifestyle it is a great idea.

At first I thought this was a catamaran and I wish it was (certainly could be).


If you have always dreamed of a waterborne life, and Wall Street's machinations have left you a penny wiser, but a dollar short, consider the Slacktide. A low impact home on the water.
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Sam Devlin's (first?) " Egret"

My friend Jim was good enough to pass on a great project this spring. He'd spent a few months restoring this Sam Devlin designed Egret and decided he wasn't really a sailor and wanted to concentrate on his rowing boats.
Which makes me the lucky one! Jim has generously donated this Egret to the Doryman boatyard. He has completed most of the hull repairs and left me the finish work.

Sam apparently built this particular boat about thirty years ago. His trademark "stitch and glue" style is in effect and this boat is a testament to the durability of that method. Sam says this was his first design and remains one of the most popular designs he sells today.

Sam says this about his Egret:

"As a sailboat, the Egret is stable and quick. Up to four adults with gear can enjoy a day of sailing in comfort. The 75 sq. ft. spirit sail rig provides plenty of sail area to drive the hull. Though the Egret has double rowing stations, it is easily rowed by a single oarsman. For two oarsmen, the Egret is great fun and good transportation."

"An offset outboard well is offered, and we have found it to have no vices in handling. Egret was my first design and she now has sisters a-plenty. For a variety of uses and conditions, Egret has a lot to offer."


Length 15' 2"
Beam 4' 10"
Draft 7" (board up) 4' 2" (board down)
Weight 235 lbs
Sail area 75 sq ft
Max. Load 690 lbs

What a great daysailer for protected waters such as the many lakes found here in Oregon! Light enough to tow behind a small car, the Egret could provide many hours of easy sailing and effortless handling in the summer sun.

She currently has no centerboard but a deep, full length keel. I will probably add a centerboard trunk and a drop board to improve windward performance.


There is an articulating rudder out in the shop that will work nicely on a boat this size. Jim's gift included a mast and a balanced lug sail, so all I have to do is make up a yard and a boom. I hope Sam doesn't object to this small design change!


I intend to complete this Egret with a small foredeck and side decks wide enough to sit on.
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Sàndolo

The Sàndolo was the most popular form of transportation in the Venetian lagoon for centuries. It was typically privately owned, however it was also used as a water taxi or fishing boat.
This vessel is still very common today, although many now use a motor as a means of propulsion rather than rowing in the traditional sense, and are used as romantic tourist attractions.

The Sàndolo can commonly be seen in the regatta of Venice and the appointments of these Sàndolo often reflect the personality of the owner.

These lagoon boats measure between five and nine meters and have an angled, straight stem and a straight transom. There are many variants of the Sàndolo adapted to a wide range of uses, from fishing (sàndolo a la ciosòta, sàndolo buranèlo, sàndolo sampieròto, sàndolo da fagia), to use as a pleasure craft and for regattas (mascaréta, puparìn), or hunting (s’ciopon), and transporting people (sandolo da barcariol).



Is this a dory? Doryman thinks so.

This boat predates the craft used in the fisheries of the Atlantic, which eventually influenced the recreational dories of today. John Gardner, in The Dory Book, suggests that the boats of Venice, specifically the gondola might be a precursor to the dories of the British Isles.

Doryman suggests that the Sàndolo is a more specific Venetian predecessor to the dory design.

It is generally understood that Marco Polo, who brought back descriptions of boats from Suzhou, ostensibly introduced the Sàndolo to Venice in 1295.

Again, according to Gardner, the earliest known representation of a dory flat in Europe is in Albrecht Durer's Little House on a Fish Pond, circa 1497, and by the sixteenth century, French fishermen were building similar dory flats for fishing in Newfoundland.

There is a probable cultural thread in the migration of this design for a simple, yet effectively seaworthy craft, from ancient China to Europe and on to the New World.





I submit, for your perusal some pictures of the Sàndolo of Venice. The dory design is timeless and its true origins are lost in unwritten history. We can look to extant examples for inspiration, one of which is the lively vessel portrayed here.

Is the Sàndolo an ancestor to the dory?



My friend Giacomo, who was generous enough to send these photos, says the Sàndolo is “a flying boat, which can be sailed of course”.













Note the crossed oar rowing position. It seems everyone in Venice rows standing up!
















No PFD's either.

















We will, no doubt, hear more about this boat in the future....

At the Boatyard

Especially at haul-out time, Doryman thinks Mistral is a big boat (36 feet). Wouldn't want to sand and paint anything bigger!

But look at this! A sail rigged Skookum fishing vessel of a mere 53 feet. (That's Mistral in the shadows... each with new bottom paint.)











On the other side of the yard is this beauty. This is not an old boat, but a new design under construction. There must be a story there somewhere, (hmmm?!)

The Largest Dory Ever

Trevor Davidson sent me some interesting pictures of an old coastal cruiser near his home in Victoria, Australia. Trevor was the subject of recent posts about his Cape Ann dory and during our correspondence was good enough to include this story of a hand built boat (ship?) used for local commerce. He is fascinated with dory design and calls this boat a dory. It might be the largest dory ever!
I’m inclined to call it a sharpie, based mostly on it’s extreme length (95 feet!), but it is double ended, and the bow angle is definitely a dory characteristic. However, it has no rocker and, in fact, seems to be dead flat on the bottom. It was designed with a centerboard, where leeboards might have been used, were it a sharpie. A hybrid dory/sharpie apparently, with a clipper rig - quite a unique and impressive ship!

Trevor has this to say about his find:

“Here are some pictures of a ninety five-foot dory, which is moored at a maritime museum in Warmambool, Victoria. She was used as a coastal trader for many years, working up to the 1950’s.”


“The boat was built by one man, mostly from salvaged timbers from old warehouses, auction sales etc. - quite remarkable, as he was building it at the same time. It was completed in less than twelve months apparently.”

“This included hand shaping the masts, about 10" thick and the mainmast was splice joined over a distance of about 6 feet. It had a huge drop centerboard, which allowed access to local rivers. There are new replica masts coming to be stepped in the near future, I was told.”






“You can make out in the photos the steering arrangement. The wheel is connected via a universal joint to a long stout threaded column which push/pulls the rudder, bulletproof I'd reckon.”

“The owner skippered the boat with a crew of one other man and a boy. The small deckhouse at the stern was their sleeping quarters and galley.”









“They tell of a time they were in Bass straight, a notoriously unpredictable area, which can throw up big seas with little or no warning. The boat broached, a wave crashed and broke over the side filling right up to the top of the bulwarks, but the boat survived, a testament to dories.”




“The pictures I took of the drawings and reconstruction were taken inside the hold where it was difficult to get back far enough for some shots because of the centerboard case.”

“I will be going back to the museum, to see the boat with the masts stepped. She is in Warrnambool today, on the southwest coast of Victoria, known as the shipwreck coast. There are tragic stories of countless ships coming to grief between the mainland and King Island, where there is strait about fifty miles wide - a small gap in a storm without modern navigation aids!”

“I have also included a snap of a stretch of coastline that is typical of the whole area - nothing soft to land on if you get blown ashore.”






Thank you once again, Trevor! This is a fascinating boat and if it weren’t completely on the opposite side of the globe, I might be making arrangements to see her for myself!
Hopefully Trevor will be back in touch with an update when the restoration is complete.

An Oughtred Eun Na Mara in Venice

Just launched in Venice! An Eun Na Mara christened Takatani; designed by Iain Oughtred and built by Roland Poltock. (That's Roland with the champagne).

Roland is the same Master Shipwright who built the Ness Yawl (another Ian Oughtred design) my friend Giacomo sailed the Po River with last year, which was featured here a couple months ago. This boat is for Giacomo's father Giuseppe De Stefano.





Giuseppe is 78 and taking up sailing for the first time. He's chosen a very fine boat, beautifully crafted by a true artist. He's a lucky man!

The boat is equipped with an ASMO 6 Kw electric engine. Smooth and quiet, not to mention astonishing power and torque. Takatani will be rigged and with tanbark sails made by Ombra Renzini e Daniela Cometti.









A serene solution to the water taxi noise and waves in Venice.







Giacomo would like to thank Iain, Roland and the Vento di Venezia staff (who did the technical and electrical work).

And we would like to thank Giacomo for sharing his family's good fortune. We are all richer when the world is graced with such beauty.






Please note in the foreground of the photo to the right, along side Takatani, a Pellestrina tradition - the exquisite Sanpierotta.



The simple and beautiful Takatani is a pocket cruising canoe-yawl. A very seaworthy shallow draft double ended boat with a gaff main and mizzen plus a moderate jib mounted on a bowsprit.


The cockpit on this boat, as can be seen from the photos, has plenty of working room for a couple of crew and even some passengers.

The Eu Na Mara is a firm bilged boat in Iain's style, with full after sections to provide sufficient buoyancy for crew. Fixed ballast is a lead keel with steel bilge boards.




My friend Chuck thinks this is a Doryman boat and I have to admit, he has a point!









Length 19' 9"(6m)
Beam 6' 8"(2m)
Draft 18"(.45m) plate up 36"(.9m) plate down
Weight 680 kg
Sail Area 240 sq ft.(22.3 sq m)

Cape Ann Dory

For those of us who are intrigued by the Cape Ann dory from West Port, Victoria, Australia, here is the latest note from Trevor Davidson. We’ve been curious to hear how this stout dory handles under sail… The boys from OZ have rigged a sprit sailed ketch which can also be rigged as a sloop. The variety of sail options for this boat are impressive.







Trevor explains it best:

“I’ve been amazed by the 22 foot Cape Ann’s predictable manner and good sailing qualities.
As you can see she is fitted with leeboards, I know the purists will howl, but it was never built to be a replica…”

“The rig consists of free standing aluminum masts, made of 90mm pipe. The sails are made from good quality polytarp material. The main has two darts in it to give it shape and it is a powerful sail. The mizzen is cut flat.”


“The boat can be set up with both masts with one or both sails being used.” There is another thwart near the centre of the boat allowing the stepping of a single mast."

"With both sails up she can be quite a handful, but a lot of fun. We carry about 90 kilograms of ballast in the bottom with two sails up, although this makes her a bit more difficult on and off the trailer.”




“We have experimented with different sail configurations and I think the best combination is the mizzen mast stepped in the centre with a boom and the sprit up, also with a small headsail. Two of us can handle her quite well set up this way without carrying any extra ballast. (Although my skipper and I are a fair bit of ballast!)”

“The other noticeable thing about this set up is the boat points up quite a lot better to windward, due I think to having a headsail and also the mizzen being cut flat, the tarp material seems to stretch enough to give a bit of shape without the darts.”

“The bottom and decks have been fibreglassed and the exterior of the boat has been painted with oil based paving paint (I think you guys refer to it as porch paint. It is very hard and has a low gloss, which I think suits the older style wooden boats.”




“The rudder is set to slide up the transom when the boat is sailed up on the beach, a simple but ingenious system”



Mr. Davidson is understandably proud of his dory. And I'm impressed, too.

Nice job, Trevor! Thanks for sharing your boat with us.

Mistral Haul-out

Those who say a wooden boat is a lot of work are right.
Mistral has not been hauled out for maintenance and new paint for two years, which might be twice too long. Anyone who has paid for a boatyard haul-out knows why I waited! Not to mention all the work involved.

1000 square feet of weather damaged paint has to be scraped, sanded, repaired and painted. And the happy boat owner/builder has the good fortune to paying for this privilege. Each year takes it's toil, so it's a crap-shoot whether skipping a scheduled maintenance is worth it.

Doryman has been accused of having a very low tolerance for sloppy maintenance.

With a full length keel, Mistral sits easily in the cradle of the hoist. Dories are adaptable to any situation! Isn't that the greatest accolade?

It's just about sunset on an overcast summer day, while Mistral hangs in the slings.

Greg, if you're out there, now's the time to survey the old girl! She's on the hard at Riverbend Boatyard. And Doryman will be there every day for three weeks.

Mistral in the sling from michael bogoger on Vimeo.