Dories have been traced as far back in history as 300 A.D. when they were used as surf boats on the Arabian Sea. Early dories were built along the banks of the Douro, which flows from Northern Spain through Portugal to the sea. It's quite possible the name of this small craft comes from the name of that river.
The Portuguese and other Europeans used the dory for fishing as far off as Iceland and Newfoundland at least as long ago as the start of the Sixteenth Century. Hendrick Avercamp of Holland was only one of the Renaissance painters to depict this sort of boat.
The English colonists on this side of the ocean later used dories for fishing also, and subsequent generations of Gloucestermen and Lunenburgers took them nested aboard their large schooners after ground fish on the Grand Banks. Down to within the last decade the Great White Fleet out of Oporto and the Tagus at Lisbon used them to fish the Atlantic. Many along our shores once supported their families from a dory when one man with a couple of handlines or two men with tub-trawls or nets harvested the nearby waters from day to day. Winslow Homer in the latter years of the last century painted the dory as the distinguished Canadian artist Jack L. Gray recently has.
Dories are still common for fishing in Labrador, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and the coast of Maine. They are here and there along the rest of the eastern seaboard south to Cape Hatteras as well; and they can be found in the Carribean and with the salmon vessels of the Pacific Northwest including Alaska. They continue to be in demand as lifeboats on draggers and long liners far and wide. Many want them as yacht tenders (particularly the Little Sister and the Admiral's Dory) and for general pleasure.
