Once every year, about this time in October, The Dory Shop welcomes a pair of very special visitors. They arrive in their stunningly clean pick-up truck (always wonder how they do that!) and unload the equivalent of dory building gold. They are Edgar and Otho Hatt and they supply our “naturally-grown” dory frames or knees.

Saturday, September 12 was an extraordinarily busy day on the Lunenburg waterfront, what with the International Dory Races, the launching of the schooner Kitty Cochran at the Dory Shop, and all of the other events of the Lunenburg Waterfront Seafood Festival. We did get to see the afternoon Charity Challenge, in support of South Shore Health. The event came down to a final between teams from the schooner Bluenose II and the Barque Picton Castle.

Lots of excitement around the Dory Shop these days as we prepare for the launch of the first newly-built wooden schooner here in maybe 40 years. The 33-foot Kitty Cochran was built by schoonerman Dave Westergaard of Tusket for Halls Harbour resident Duncan Veasey and his family. The boat was brought to the Dory Shop for her finish work and launch, now slated for September 12.

I can’t resist posting a link to what’s often been called the greatest movie entrance ever, and it takes place in a Lunenburg Dory Shop dory. I’m talking of course of Capt. Jack Sparrow’s entrance in the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Curse of the Black Pearl.

This is a Lunenburg dory, which means it’s 12 feet on the bottom, 15.5 feet overall. Jay finds it a nice change after building two big Fortune Bay dories back-to-back.

Canadian rowers took four of five races as they squared off against teams from Gloucester, Massachusetts during the International Dory Races at Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada September 13.

Wet weather didn’t dampen the enthusiasm at the Lunenburg Waterfront Seafood Festival  last weekend. There were good crowds for all of the events, from our beloved dory racing (results soon) and scallop shucking to the always moving Seamen’s Memorial Service. And for the second year in a row, The Dory Shop sponsored a children’s boatbuilding workshop.