Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

I finished building my Northester Dory 2 years ago, and I couldn't be happier with it.  I've made five enhancements to my dory that make it easier for me to maintain and sail that I thought others might be interested in.  Here's a link to descriptions and photos:

http://smittypaddler.com/dory/d160705.htm


11 replies:

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RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   Nice post, Smitty. I've made my own daggerboard plug and may try one or two of your other suggestions -- though some are a bit hard to implement without inwales. I have one idea of my own to (possibly) add after I test it on the next windy day.

Thanks for the tips.

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

  Smittypaddler,  Great looking boat.  Thanks for sharing your tips.  I especially like the rudder stop!

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

Sculling notch.

 

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   Some excellent improvements, thanks for sharing.  A couple of questions?

  1. How did you form the Ethafoam?  From your photo it looks really clean, with a tight and uniform fit.  Not familiar with the product, so am I correct in assuming it is permaently bonded to the thwart?
  2. Looking at the photo with the rudder stop block it appears you have added addtional epoxy to the top of the rudder where the tiller meets.  Was this do to breakage or some other issue? 
  3. Does the daggerboard plug simply sit on top of the daggeboard trunk?

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   What do you do with the long tiller stick when the rudder stop block is in place? Is it attached to a side block, tied, or taken off? Dan

Ethafoam and tiller stick

   The closed-cell ethafoam comes in sheets or planks. You can cut the stuff with a razor knife, or even a bread knife with a serrated edge, and I glued the pieces to fit.  We use ethafoam a lot in whitewater canoes and kayaks, which is where I first became familiar with it, and why I bought mine at nrs.com.  I bought 6 planks of black 2x12x54-inch, $24.95 each; as I said before, it isn't cheap, but to me it's been worth it.

The yellow epoxy you see attaching the rudder arm to the post was sort of a mistake.  I ran out of wood flower during the build and didn't want to wait for an order to arrive, so I used some microsphere filler I had on a shelf from a prior build.  I didn't know it was going to turn out that ugly yellow.

The daggerboard trunk plug is tied down, as you can see in the photo.  It's a half bow knot, easily tied and untied. The line is nylon so it stretches a bit like a rubber band, and there's a trucker's hitch in the line so I can snug it up tight.

The tiller extension or stick just lies in the boat, and the preventer line you see in one of the photos keeps it from falling over the side.  There really isn't any interference between the rudder stop block and the tiller extension.  The rudder stop block isn't tied or pinned in place, but held in by gravity.  The line you see attached to the pad eye on the upper end is just tied to the boat so if I capsize I don't lose the stop block.  When I'm ready to sail I just pull the stop block out of the "sculling notch" (thanks to Laszio for that :-) and that frees up the rudder.

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   Thanks for the link to NRS.  I have another question.  Did you consider using the minicell foam as opposed to the ethafoam and if so, why did you choose ethafoam over the mini?

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   I'll add my take on a few tips for dory sailers.

1. My dagger board trunk plug is decidedly low-tech. I simply cut a plug from some spare foam and wrapped it with duct tape. (Down the road I'll add some bling by wrapping it with black duct tape instead of the ugly gray stuff.)

2. I like to sit on the back thwart while sailing, but the knobs for the removable thwart are in the way. Again, I used some spare foam to make a "seat" can be placed over these knobs. The round cut from the center gets reinserted on top for comfort. (I'll glue it to the foam seat once I sand it to the right height.)

3. When not in use, these foam pieces get stored in my lidded bailing bucket, which is a repurposed five-gallon TidyCat Litter container.

4. Finally, a double-wrap of the main sheet around the tiller extension comes very close to making the lug rig sail self-tending. When I took this picture, the boat was sailing nicely by itself for at least two minutes while I fumbled around with my phone camera.

This "cleating" system holds the main sheet very securely even in the most windy conditions. In fact a single wrap will do the job and is quicker to loosen in a high wind. Steering the boat is a matter of push-pull adjustments when necessary. Normally, of course, I do keep my hand on the tiller.

 

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

Birch2,

You may want to re-label your bailing bucket as a storage bucket. In an actual one-person bailing situation a 5-gallon bucket is too big. Completely full it's 40 lbs. How quickly and how many times can one sling that much water over the side without a back injury? Add in the fact that in a solo emergency bailing situation, one usually needs three or four hands to tend to various things at once, so there's usually only one hand for the bailer.

I find a 1-gallon milk or water jug with its bottom cut off to form a scoop a more useful size and shape. It can be used one-handed and moved quickly enough to dump significant amounts of water.

Even better is a fixed pump that can be operated with one hand.

Have fun,

Laszlo

 

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

   Agreed. I used the one gallon jug in my previous rowboat. So far in the dory -- even when sailing in very windy conditions -- I've never needed anything more than a sponge.

RE: Five things that enhance my Northeaster Dory

"Did you consider using the minicell foam as opposed to the ethafoam and if so, why did you choose ethafoam over the mini?"

No, I've never worked with minicell foam.  All my experience has been with ethafoam in whitewater canoes and kayaks. 

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