team dory/southwester

Hello!

I was just daydreaming about a Great loop trip on a southwester dory and feeling cramped lol

Is it possible to combine the motorwell kit and sailing rig kit to a team dory?

Im curious what everyones thoughts are. Or is it possible to scale up the SW dory a bit?


10 replies:

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RE: team dory/southwester

   I am a proffessional furniture maker/woodworker so I'm assuming I can handle the modifications. Just wondering what an experienced sailor's opinion would be.

RE: team dory/southwester

   You'd have to make a lot of modifications to turn the Team Dory into a sailing craft that has the safety and comfort features of the Southwester Dory. Personally, I'd probably choose Autumn Leaves for the Great Loop. The interior sleeping, cooking, lounging arrangements would be just what you need for a long excursion like that. And it is a very safe boat. A small outboard on the back would allow you to make some miles on days without wind.   

RE: team dory/southwester

The Team Dory is actually narrower than the Southwester, and I suspect somewhat more slack in the bilges, as you'd want with a pure rowing boat.  A modified Team Dory might prove more tender and not have a whole lot more volume in the end vs. the Southwester.  A Southwester scaled up to that length would be a much bigger boat, possibly too big for one person to row effectively (if the Team Dory isn't already).  It would also need a much larger sail area to maintain the same sail area to displacement ratio, as simply scaling up the sail plan would increase the area by the square, whereas the volume would increase by the cube.  Naval Archecture is a tricky business, and I'd want to consult a good NA before spending a bunch of money on those sorts of modifications.

If all you're after is something in which to do the Great Loop (there's a dream most of us have had, at least anybody who's read Nathaniel Bishop), I'd have to agree with Birch2 that Autumn Leaves might be a better bet all around...except I'd forget about a motor.  If I had time to do the Great Loop, I wouldn't want to make myself crazy by using the motor to keep some sort of schedule.  <;-)  Seriously, she only draws an inch more water, and all of these are two heavy for one man to drag up a beach, anyway.

.....Michael

RE: team dory/southwester

John Guider rowed and sailed the Great Loop in a Skerry...

 

RE: team dory/southwester

Four or five times I've sat down and tried to make a sailing rig work with the Team Dory, and every time it's come up as rubbish.

The features that make the Team Dory a good rowing boat--narrow beam, slack bilges, low freeboard--are completely at odds with the features of a good sailing boat. 

Adding another strake to the Team Dory would help some, but that wouldn't help with the underwater lines. 

A Southwester Dory with every dimension multiplied by 1.15 would make an interesting "big" open boat. It'd be a powerful sailer and a more-capable motorboat. 

I asked Dillon and Jay and we figure about 80 hours of CAD/CAM work to get a Southwester Dory 1.15 build-ready. Multiply hours times whatever you think naval architects should make.

RE: team dory/southwester

   Thanks for the replies, everyone!

Gramps, explaining scaling volume in relation to square footage really helped.

 Autumn Leaves seems like an amazing boat but Im looking for a simpler and cheaper option. I was inspired by john guiders trip on his skerry and Im not sure something with a cabin holds the same allure.

John, thanks for the reply.  As someone who is intimately familiar with CLC boats, would you recomend something else?

RE: team dory/southwester

 I am in the middle of a SW Dory build. I got the kit with the sailing and motor options, and even bought a new Susuki 2.5hp motor. But after a dry fit of both the centerboard trunk and motor well with motor I was surprised at how little room was left in the cockpit. The only practical place to sit is between the two with your knees pressed together. This would be a problem while sailing, when you need to be able to move around, often quickly. So I patched up the hole in the bottom and will leave the motor well out for now. If I miss it I can always add it back in later. And for those who are wondering, even without the motor it is still a better fit for me than the NE Dory, which I was enamored of for awhile.

RE: team dory/southwester

   Why not go full Viking with the Gislinge?

https://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/development-projects/gislinge.html

RE: team dory/southwester

>>>>>John, thanks for the reply.  As someone who is intimately familiar with CLC boats, would you recomend something else?
>>>>>

The Guider addresses every concern a sail & oar person might have with the Southwester Dory or Skerry Raid. And it's really not that hard to build.

You mention POWER as well as rowing and sailing, and that's tricky. The Guider, of course, has no provision for power. Good powerboat characteristics are directly at odds with features that make boats good for rowing and sailing. 

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE powerboats and own several. My feeling about a Great Loop or ICW trip is that if you're going to make an engine part of the design brief, why not just do the trip in a powerboat? A C-Dory 22, say. You could carry kayaks on top or tow a nice sailing dinghy for exploring while at anchor.

Either that or scrap the rowing requirement and do the trip in a sailboat with good integrated auxiliary power.

RE: team dory/southwester

John has hit the proverbial nail squarely on its proverbial head.  The Guider is a powerful adventure sailboat, not too big to row effectively.  Be the motor you want to see.  The formula worked for me in a Sea Pearl 21 for many adventures over many years, most of them motorless.  Great sailboat, passable rowboat, once I got the hang of it, and such a poor motorboat that I only tried a motor for a few seasons before passing it on to someone else.  You do need to learn how to row well, which has a learning curve.

If the motoring ability is that important, John is right, get a modest powerboat with no pretentions of sailing or rowing, and tow a good sailing and rowing dinghy along.  One could cover a lot of ground in relaxing fashion this way.  Up anchor at dawn, put the coffee on, get breakfast up while underway to the next anchorage, hopefully a few hours' motoring away, drop the hook, fix lunch, and rig up the sailing dinghy for an afternoon of exploring the anchorage when the wind comes up in the afternoon, back to the mothership for a liesurely supper and possibly a post prandial row before a wee nip of Maker's Mark to salute the setting sun.  Repeat ad infinitum, or until you run out of vacation days.  Great way to cruise a place like the North Chanel or Georgian Bay or coastal North Carolina or Maine or...?

.....Michael

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