NE Dory help!

�I am on a vacation and have my Dory with me. This is only the 4th time I have had her in the water. I had some serous difficulties today. When I launched the wind was pretty stiff. No whitecaps but close to it. My intention was to grow out to open water and then set the sail. As soon as I got out into the open the wind increased uncomfortably. My Dory was turned broadside to the wind and I had to struggle to control her. I could not controll the direction that we were going. My ruddernwasnin place and the tiller pole was lashed down holding the rudder straight. I could turn the boat but only with extreme effort. I managed to limp us to a sandy beach. I removed the rudder and my wife decided to bail out and walk back. Then without rudder or.my wife I had no trouble at all returning to the launch site. I think my problem was either the rudder being in place, or more likely my wife was sitting on the stern seat. 8 need to figure this out. One more adventure like that one and my wife will not get in the boat again!

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RE: NE Dory help!

���Sorry for all the mistype. I posted that on my cell phone!

RE: NE Dory help!

Mike,

First, you set us up for a plethora of wives in the boat jokes! I will try, for now to resist.

Second, African Proverb: "Calm seas do not make a good sailor"

Third, seems like you answered a lot of your own questions already.

  1. turning the boat with the rudder lashed in 'straight ahead' should be hard - otherwise the rudder doesn't really work. You proved the rudder does work and well.
  2. You found out the dory rowed well in those conditions without the passager (wife) and with the rudder uninstalled. Now you just need to try each of those items independently.
  3. Maybe if the wife actually steers while you row, the wife and the rudder can be installed.
  4. If the wife wants a perfect row/sail, with no 'adventure', sounds like you need to get much much more familiar with your yacht before you take her out.

Good Luck, seems like the adventure turned out well and you learned a lot about your boat, yourself, and your wife.

Joel

RE: NE Dory help!

Don't forget the daggerboard. That also has a big effect. Was it up or down?

It sounds to me as if you and your wife were  acting as sails and that even though you were officially rowing, you were in fact sailing without the benefit of using the rudder. The rudder didn't know this and kept trying to steer you straight.

When I'm rowing my Faering Cruiser I can get into a similar situation. Between the mast and furled sail and the cabin and hold and me it has a good amount of sail area and can be difficult to maneuver in strong wind if treated like a rowboat. The trick is to think of it as a sail boat with the oars as auxiliary thrusters and to aggressively use the rudder when attempting to turn.

In your case, unlashing the tiller pole and using the rudder as Joel suggested would probably have helped a lot. Moving the crew around could have helped, too. Putting your wife up front could have let her act as a jib, while having her lie down in the bottom (if there was room) would have "furled" her.

You really learn a lot when youcan't brute-force your way with a motor. This was just part of that.

Good luck,

Laszlo

 

RE: NE Dory help!

   The most challenging parts of sailing the NE dory in a stiff wind are raising sail to get underway and dropping the sail at the end of the day. Both of these activities can be more challenging with a second person aboard (because of the greater difficulty you'll have moving fore and aft). I recommend practicing alone.

Here is what I'll be trying to do this afternoon when gusty conditions are predicted on Norfork Lake:

1. Put the mast up on shore before launching the boat -- and get the spars and lines all sorted out and untangled.

2. Prop the rudder up on the transom and sternsheets so it is ready to fit in place.

3. Row out far enough into the middle of the lake so that the wind won't blow the boat back onto the lee shore as I take care of business. This is always farther than you think!

4. Get the boat moving into the wind as briskly as possible. While it has forward momentum, drop the daggerboard in place.

5. Quickly man the oars again and build momentum into the wind. Fit the rudder and attach the tiller extension. This fiddly process takes time and inevitably the boat will turn downwind, drifting rapidly.

6. Man the oars again to turn the boat into the wind. (I never lash the rudder, but I do tend it as I can.) Build a good bit of momentum into the wind.

7. Quickly move forward. Lift the spars atop the mast thwart. Grab the halyard and haul the sail all the way up. The sail thrashes around, but a stopper knot at the end of the downhaul keeps the boom from flapping too far outboard. The boat always turns cross wind, but as long as the mainsheet has not snagged on anything, it won't capsize. (It will often start sailing at a pretty good clip on a reach! Stay clear of the lee shore!) Try to let the sail luff and then cleat the downhaul. Crank down as hard as possible on the downhaul to eliminated the diagonal crease and improve the shape of the sail.

8. Take a seat in your favored location,-- (I like the rear thwart, facing foreward) -- haul in the mainsheet, and sail away.

In the best of breezes you may want to try hiking straps so you can sit on the windward rail and tuck your toes under the strap to avoid falling overboard. Simple hiking straps can be made from a couple of chunks of 1/4 nylon rope. Starting from the foreward side of the center thwart, thread one chunk of rope through both of the limber holes at the base of the thwart. Tie figure-8 knots-on-a-bend at the end of each part of this rope. Feed a second chunk of rope from the foreward side of the stern thwart through the limber holes toward the rudder. Take the two ends of this rope and bring them back over the thwart. Run the ends through your figer-8 loops, pull  the "hiking straps" taut, and tie off securely. That's all there is to it.

Dropping the sail is easier. Get up a good head of speed on a reach or a beat and then steer straight into the wind. Quickly rush forward and untie the halyard. The yard will want to drop straight onto your head so don't just release the halyard. Try to lower the yard in a controlled fashion . . . but get it down fast or else the boat will start turning across the wind, the yard will flap to leeward, and your sail will end up in the lake. (But the stopper-knot on the downhaul will at least keep it attached to the boat!)

Good luck and good sailing!

RE: NE Dory help!

���Thanks for the help guys. It is a petty windy day here so I think I will leave the sail in the truck and go fishing instead! I have another question about the tiller. I see where it was a mistake to lash the tiller. Having my wife steer did not work out well either. Would the kick up rudder option help? Or do I just need to figure out how to set the rudder out on the lake?

RE: NE Dory help!

As a former USN sailing instructor, my first suggestion is to fully rig the boat (sail up) while at the dock and sail it away.  There are many dinghy designs (such as the Laser) where this is a requirement because you cannot raise/lower the sail on the water.  Even on boats where you can raise/lower the sail on the water, sailing away from and back to the dock is a required skill that every sailor should master.

If your skill is not at a level where you are confident with that, I would suggest rowing out to a location where you can anchor before raising the sail.  This way you won't be rushed raising the sail and can make sure that everything is set right before sailing away.  I might suggest that you get a second small anchor just for this purpose.  Even the smallest of anchors will effectively hold your dory head to wind for the couple minutes that it will take to raise/lower the sail.  A small drouge would also work.

Lastly, this highlights why a large number of sail/oar boats have a split rig.  Once you raise the mizzen and sheet it in, the boat will passively lie head to wind while you deal with the much larger main.    

RE: NE Dory help!

Thanks once again for all the advice.

Mark N, I understand what you are saying and that has been my goal, to gain the skills I need to sail up to and away from the dock. I just haven't got there yet :). I am learning as I go. It would be great if I knew of someone who could go out with me and give me some pointers, but I live in a desert. Not much of a sailing community here. If it doesn't have a gas tank and a throttle, to most people it isn't a boat. Anyway that little rant aside. The reason I was lashing the tiller down was because it kept falling overboard when I tried to row. I see my error now and feel somewhat foolish over my poor reasoning. I also think that for me trying to remove or insert the rudder while underway is a wet disaster waiting to happen. Would rowing with the ruder in place be improved if I just captured the tiller in a loose loop, so it could move freely back and forth but not fall overboard?

   

RE: NE Dory help!

   Mark N has the right of it, and there are a lot of good manuals w/ lots of graphics to visualize steps ahead of time.  In the case of no good instructors, get and read the books and use the graphics to choreograph in your head and try it all out in light breezes first, then bring people along.

The NE doesn't have a kickup rudder, right? That means it's always trying to steer the boat when in place. The skerry has a kickup rudder, but there's still enough in the water to affect rowing a bit.  If I want to row much distance, I can reach over the stern in light weather to pull the rudder.  With it and the daggerboard out, the boat rows much better.  

If you are going to row and sail, and have someone along who's willing, put them in the stern to mostly hold the rudder on center and move it slightly each way as you row from a forward station, and you'll soon see how it steers you.

By myself, I brail the lug sail up against the mast when I want to row for a short distance.  Not good in breeze due to the windage, but good in light air and keeps the sail out of my way while I row.  I sometimes use my feet to hold the tiller steady if the rudder stays on the stern.

RE: NE Dory help!

By default the dory has a one-piece rudder. A kick-up rudder is optional. I ordered it and will report on its use when I get my boat in the water. Epoxying the interior today.

RE: NE Dory help!

"I don’t like bad weather and I particularly don’t like it close to land.  I think that one of the truer litmus tests as to whether a person is a sailor is whether he seeks sea room in a storm.  But we as a species are generally afraid of the unfamiliar, and I don’t know any other way to get used to strong winds and rough seas except to sail in them."

--Webb Chiles

Webb Chiles is certainly the greatest dory-sailer alive. He sailed single-handed in a Drascombe Lugger (a boat about the size of the Southwester Dory) three-quarters of the way around the world! While I agree that one should learn to set sail from a beach and a dock and a buoy, in a strong onshore breeze I'd like plenty of sea room before I raise my sail. If one is only a few feet from land heading out into whitecaps, the slightest error will see your precious boat pushed up against that lee shore. And where I sail, that shore is always studded with sharp rocks that would make short work of my hull.

At least for me sailing from an anchorage is not a great option either. Norfork Lake gets very deep, very quickly so I'd either have to anchor almost on top of the shore or I'd have a couple hundred feet of line out and still be swinging too close to shore.

It's really not that hard to rig the boat on the water . . . and having plenty of sea room means that if things go wrong you can just row back into open water. The oars on the dory give you options you lack on a dinghy like a Laser or Snipe.

RE: NE Dory help!

 

   I always start off by rowing my dory out of the cove that my dock is in.  The cove entrance is narrow and often the wind is blowing right into the cove.   The way I do it to make rigging to sail a 30- second task while I'm underway is:

Boat mod: - mount a cleat on the inside of the gunwale about even with the forward edge of the stern thwart.    In addition to being useful for the next steps here, it's handy for tying a daft dock line to.

Another boat mod: install a pair of oarlocks where the instructions say to for a forward rowing station, even if you have no intention of rowing from there   Then you can stow your oars underway without remiving them from the center oarlocks by just sliding them forward and dropping the fwd end of them into the fwd locks  which means you can go from rowing to stowed in 5 seconds, and they stay out of the way (this requires open oarlocks forward, and works much better with closed oarlocks in the middle)

- hang the rudder before you go out, preferably before you even put the boat in the water   It is almost impossible to hang it in a moving boat

- After hanging the rudder and attaching the tiller extension, cleat off the tail of the extra line that holds the extension on (downstream of the jam cleat) to the cleat on the gunwale   That will keep your tiller from falling overboard.  Leave just enough slack so that your rudder can pivot a bit, so it can "freewheel" while you are rowing

- step the mast before getting on the water

- tie your downhaul loosely to its cleat on the mast.  Attach the halyard to the yard and leave your sail ready to hoist. Tuck the aft ends of the boom and yard into the boat. push the sail over to the side to keep it out of the way while you row. The sail, boom and yard will need to rest on the mast partner, so they are free to hoist.   Rig up the mainsheet bridle as well. 

- only after you do all of the above- row out to clear water with some working room to hoist. Ship your oars.   Remember to drop in the daggerboard!   Once you do, the boat will naturally lie beam-to the wind.

- make sure your mainsheet is attached to the boom, not fouled over the boom or under the tiller, and free to pay out.  Hoist away.   As soon as the sail is up the boat will start sailing beam-to-the-wind even if you're not steering and the main is luffing (because your rudder is freewheeling but more or less on the centerline).  You can now re-tighten the downhaul and coil and stow all of that halyard  while the boat sails along slowly by itself  

- grab the tiller extension, uncleat it, sheet in, and you're sailing!

 

 

RE: NE Dory help!

   Yes, indeed!

RE: NE Dory help!

NYyaker, what you are describing is exactly what I was attempting to do. The only difference being that I was tying the tiller down firm, so it could not mover. I have already modified my tie point so it will hold the tiller in the boat, but allow it to move freely. I am really excited about getting out for another trip, but the 4th is upon us. Here in Idaho that means that every redneck with a boat and a case of beer is going to be out on every body of water....no thanks. I can wait a week longer. O and by the way, just in case anyones PC radar is going off. Here in Idaho, being called a Redneck is a compliment.

   

RE: NE Dory help!

   Just to update this. I had my Dory out today. My new method of just capturing the tiller in a loose loop of line worked great. No problem with rowing or controlling my direction as I rowed.

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