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.

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.

Participants in the Boatbuilders Employment Preparation Training Program (phew – what a name!) are making good progress with the 13-foot-bottom Handline dory they are building.

We’re very happy to have the gang from the Boatbuilder Employment Preparation Training Program, sponsored by the Nova Scotia Boatbuilders Association, with us these next two weeks.

An article in this month’s issue of Classic Boat, entitled 10 Iconic American Boats, lists both dories and working schooners.

It’s always rewarding to receive a call or email from someone with one of our boats, telling us how much they love and enjoy them. Especially heart-warming are the messages from folks who have acquired an older dory in need of some TLC but who can look beyond the repairs required to the boat that can still be. Often they have questions about how to approach the needed repairs, and we do our best to help them. And of course if they are within driving distance, we are happy to do the repairs for them.

For more than a week now, Jay has had a group of students from the Picton Castle Bosun School working with him in The Dory Shop. The Bosun School is a land-based program aimed at young mariners who wish to advance their skills away from the necessary distractions of a ship that’s underway at sea. This is the third running of the program and we’re delighted to have young sailors from Canada, the USA, Finland, Iceland and Denmark in attendance.

It’s taken ol’ Dory Plug an entire week to post a few more pictures from the finale of our fall dory building course – that is, of course, the launch of the gang’s Handline dory. Very sorry about the delay; part of which relates to my distinct lack of talent for technology. I held off posting more pictures, hoping I would have some smartly edited video to post with them. Seems like that might take a bit longer. So for now, please enjoy some more snapshots of our launch party.

They say there’s no rest for the wicked and though I’m not sure what Jay has done to deserve it, I can tell you he’s been a busy guy lately. Following the completion of our fall dory building class last week, and a gloriously warm and bright long weekend during which we Canucks celebrated our Thanksgiving, Jay returned to the shop to welcome an all-new group of newbee boat builders.

Congratulations to ‘graduates’ of our fall dory building class on the successful launch of their hand-crafted 17′ Handline dory. The boat not only looks great, she performed really well in successive trial rows. And let me tell you, every member of this group turned out to be a very capable rower!