There’s still one space available in our next dory building course, taking place May 12-23, 2014, at our historic shop here on the edge of the Old Town Lunenburg UNESCO World Heritage Site in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The Winter Olympics at Sochi have us feeling a tad patriotic these days. And so does our latest project – four new dories for the Canadian Dory Racing Association!

A change in programming plans at a Nova Scotia summer camp has resulted in the availability of a big, beautiful Banks sailing dory at an incredible price.

In the midst of what’s so far been a challenging winter, it’s always therapeutic to think ahead to spring. And one of the sure signs of spring around here is having a new group of would-be dory builders join us for one of our two-week classes!

The historic port of Lunenburg has a unique way of welcoming the holiday season. Like many communities, the town hosts a Santa Claus parade, but there’s something that makes ours just a little bit different. The parade here has a boat theme; specifically, parade organizers seek to place as many of the entrees as possible in dories and other wooden boats. As you can imagine, we tend to get a few calls!

Two very pleasant weeks with our latest dory  building class wrapped up Friday as the group launched the fruit of their labours, the HMLD NAK. The what, you ask? Well, as always, the dory built during the class is available for sale to one of the participants and in this case will find a new home in New Brunswick.

We are so saddened today to learn of the passing of Edgar Hatt, longtime supplier of knees for our dories and a gentleman whose kind smile and quiet wisdom was admired by all who met him. For more than 60 years, Edgar has provided this most essential component of our Lunenburg-built dories. The work required to harvest Hackmatack knees from the muck of a bog is great indeed. Edgar began as a child working with his father and grandfather. In more recent years, he worked with his own son, Otho.

"In the last seven years of my life since I’ve been hanging out here, I’ve spent more happy hours here than anywhere else in my life." Billy Campbell speaking about The Dory Shop

As explained in a post about a wooden boat we built earlier this year, there is a modification that can be made to the transom of a Banks dory that allows the boat to carry an outboard motor directly from the stern. We call the dories that have this feature Grand Manan dories as the modification has historically been most popular with dulse harvesters from this small but colorful island in the Bay of Fundy.

A few years ago, Jay brought a little rowing tender into the boatyard. It was one he had made for his beloved boat, the David Stevens-built Mora (now a schooner, then cutter rigged). The little boat was a stunning craft fashioned from steam-bent planks all neatly riveted in place. I can’t tell you how many people stopped to ask if that boat was for sale (it wasn’t) or what it would cost to build one. Suffice to say there were a lot of inquiries. And each time someone asked Jay would groan to think about all those rivets, preferring the much quicker clinch nails we were still using to build dories.