It’s blowing half a gale here today and so Jay is back inside (see picture from Friday below), working to add a handsome finish to these two Nutshell Prams he’s been working on. Just look at that gunwale!

Dory Plug has been away on vacation (and even Jay took a week off to sail aboard the stunning schooner Mistral!), so that explains why there haven’t been any posts here lately. However we did have the lovely Miss B taking some photos for us as Jay continued to build not one, but two lovely Nutshell Prams with the assistance Arran.

We have lots of tourists in Lunenburg these days and so lots of folks dropping in to see what Jay is working on in the shop. Right now it’s a little Nutshell rowing pram, seen here.

We’re delighted to report that the first-ever Lunenburg Wooden Boat Reunion held over the weekend was a great success. Two very full days of activity including the Heritage Cup schooner race, sloop, small boat, even putt-putt-powered boat races, displays and demos by boat builders, oarmakers and sailors, shop tours, musical entertainment and much oogling of beautiful wooden boats, wrapped up last evening. Phew!

So the little Black Rocks sailing dory that we had planned to take to the WoodenBoat Show – but then, receiving an order for a rowing dory, took that instead – is finished. As you can see, it’s a sweet little boat with a simple lug sail rig. Perfect for a beginner sailer as the boat provides a very safe and stable platform from which to learn. Plus a dory of this size is easily rowed by a child as young as nine or 10 but can still hold a few people (her capacity is over 1000 lbs.!).

The Black Rocks sailing dory is just about ready (just waiting on a piece of stainless rod for the rudder) and Jay’s taking advantage of a gorgeous summer’s day to do a bit of painting in the boatyard before starting two new prams.

A reminder to everyone that if you are in the Halifax area this weekend (July 23-25), you should visit The Dory Shop and a dozen other Nova Scotia boatbuilding enterprises as we display our best at the Nova Scotia In-Water Boat Show at Bishop’s Landing on the Halifax Waterfront.

The Dory Shop was home to quite a time on Saturday when we hosted keel laying ceremonies for the twin 48-foot wooden schooners being built outside in the boatyard by our parent company, Dawson Moreland and Associates. More than 200 people braved brisk nor’ westerly wind and a minus 14 degrees Celcius windchill (that’s about 6 degrees Fahrenheit!) to watch Capt. Phil Watson of the Schooner Bluenose II and Capt. Matthew Mitchell, a 91-year-old seafarer who sailed aboard fishing schooners, including the original Bluenose, and skippered some of the first fish draggers out of Lunenburg, drive the ceremonial spikes into twin lengths of Mountain Gommier.

As much as Jay loves dories, it’s nice when he gets a chance to build something a bit different from time to time. For instance, right now he’s working on a 7’ 7” Nutshell Pram that will serve as tender to the lovely little schooner Kitty Cochrane, launched at the Dory Shop in September. Speaking of schooners, there’s a big event taking place here this Saturday as we lay the keels on two 48’ schooners that will be built in the Dory Shop Boatyard over the next year and some.