Anyone who knows me knows that I am one hell of a proud Lunenburger. But let me tell you, to stand in the boatyard yesterday watching a handsome wooden schooner slide down the ways (not without a little hitch but that only added to the excitement!), well, to say I was proud does not tell the half of it. We’re a little town here, and we have this amazing history and heritage (significant enough that the United Nations recognized it). But it is moments like this – a real present day moment involving real people whom I have watched, assisted in only the most minor capacity and I suppose, some days harrassed as they crafted this vessel, the Martha Seabury, and her as-yet-unnamed twin, through two damp, cold Nova Scotia winters, using skill sets that many consider forgotten – that somehow marry this seaport town’s proud past with sincere hope for the future and I truly could not be prouder.

The Dory Shop Boatyard’s a hopping place this week as we complete all of the last-minute details for the launch of the first of our twin schooners, the Martha Seabury. The big event is slated for Tuesday, August 7 at noon and everyone’s invited to join us.

They say that the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. So here goes. I, Dory Plug, have a problem. Please don’t just me too harshly. I’m not really the philandering type but, well, I do tend to fall in love with every new boat we build.

Jay’s hard at work on a new dory. Or trying to be. There are a lot of tourists strolling along the Lunenburg waterfront on this beautiful sunny day and while we enjoy having an open shop, it can make it a little hard to get to the job at hand.

Participants in our spring dory course have been working so hard, we figured it was time they got out of The Dory Shop and visited a few of our neighbours in the greater Lunenburg marine trades community. First, it was off to the beehive that is the Michele Stevens Sailloft in Second Peninsula.

The Hatts were here yesterday with our spring shipment of Hackmatack dory knees. Naturally grown frames, or knees as they are known in dories, are the defining feature of a Lunenburg-built Banks dory. While other ports built their frames using pieces of wood fastened together with a patented metal clip, ours are cut from a single piece of wood. They are not steamed, nor bent, but instead are cut from the lower trunk and roots of the very strong and rot resistant Hackmatack tree. For four generations the Hatt family has supplied The Dory Shop with this critical building material. Edgar Hatt, shown above, began cutting knees with his father Arthur and his grandfather. He now works in the woods with his son.

Posts to this blog regularly bear witness to the incredible boatbuilding talents of our team here at The Dory Shop, particularly the work of our master dory builder Jay Langford. But Jay’s talents extend well beyond the boatbuilding world as proven by the painting – his latest! – shown here.

Want to build a classic wooden boat? There’s no better way to learn how than to take one apart and fix it! That’s just the opportunity available at The Dory Shop this spring when master boatbuilder Jay Langford restores an aging Monomoy pull boat. Brought to The Dory Shop straight from Cape Cod, where these boats originated, this fascinating project offers a unique learning opportunity for up to four new and would-be boatbuilders.

Our two-week segment with participants in the Boatbuilder Employment Preparation Training Program, sponsored by the Nova Scotia Boatbuilders Association and the Employment Solutions Society, is moving right along. Yesterday, the gang was fitting and installing the knees (frames) in the 13-foot-bottom, 17-foot overall Handline dory they’re building with Jay.

There was much merriment in the boatyard this weekend (too much?) as we celebrated the installation of the last plank in our twin schooners – the Shutter Plank. Actor-adventurer Billy Campbell, for whom one of the 48-foot schooners is being built, did the honours – dousing the plank with rum and hammering in the fastenings. The more than 150 people who joined us also got a look at the dory being built by participants in the Boatbuilder Employment Preparation Training Program.