Jay is still working away on a lovely steam-bent Alaskan Yellow Cedar dinghy for the Schooner Martha Seabury. It’s a much fussier project than a Banks dory, which planks up lickety-split using nice, wide planks fashioned from pine with no need for a steam box.

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.

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.

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.

A new television documentary featuring interviews about the building of the twin schooners out in The Dory Shop boatyard premieres this weekend on CBC Television.

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

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’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.!).

We’re packing up some dories and hitting the road this week to attend the 20th annual WoodenBoat Show at the Mystic Seaport Museum at Mystic, Connecticut. Lashed to the boat trailer we have an 11-foot-bottom Banks dory, what we call our Black Rocks dory, inside of a heavy-duty 19.5′ semi dory. We also have some information about the schooners we are building.