First published in WoodenBoat's Small Boats 2008 edition
By Shelly Randall
If you have seven days to race 90 nautical miles through the
Canadian Gulf and San Juan islands in a small craft powered
solely by sail or oar power, this is the boat to enter. A Mower
dory has been the top-finishing sailing craft in one such ardu-
ous race—called the Shipyard School Raid—each of the past
two years.
Then again, if racing the clock doesn’t appeal, but you’re looking
for a classy yet practical camp-cruiser for extended gunkholing—
and perhaps an amateur boatbuilding challenge—this could very
well be your boat.
The 18’ plank-on-frame Swampscott sailing dory is not only good-
looking, it also sails fast and rows tolerably well. And nearly a cen-
tury after its racing hull was conceived by noted yacht designer
Charles D. Mower (pronounced with a long “o,” as in “lawnmow-
er”), the Mower dory is still competitive.
“It was built to be a Raid winner,” said dory co-owner and Raid racer Quill Goldman. Raid
organizer and yacht designer Tad Roberts concurs that “the Mower dory is a competitive
Raid boat because it can be rowed very quickly when required and sails really well in both
light and heavy wind—in fact, she sails better than most with an experienced crew.”
Inspired by a fellow racer’s Mower-designed 21’ X-dory, Goldman and his friend and business
partner Richard Lyons picked the 18’ Mower dory out of the line-up of small boats John
Gardner presents in his well-known series, Building Classic Small Craft (International Marine,
1984). “I remember paging through the book and thinking, ‘That would be a great boat,’”
Goldman said.
Then the two co-owners of Barefoot Wooden Boats—a boatbuilding, restoration and charter
company—set about making modifications to the Mower dory plans based on their
requirements for long-distance racing. Goldman and Lyons swapped the leg-o’-mutton main
for a sliding Gunter rig, added a kick-up rudder extension and a second set of oarlocks, and
called for sheathing the plywood bottom with Kevlar for superior abrasion resistance upon
beaching.
The Silva Bay Shipyard School on Gabriola Island, B.C.,
which graduated both Goldman and Lyons in the early
2000s, is where the men turned to commission two Mower
dories. Students at the school built one Mower dory,
SWORDFISH, in 2005-06, and another, BARRACUDA,
one year later. Further modifications to the second boat
included lowering the profile of the centerboard trunk so it
was flush with the thwarts, enabling a second rowing thwart
to be installed forward of the first.
When rowing long distances as a team, Goldman and
Lyons find it most efficient to sweep only two oars with
rowing stations staggered, switching sides when their arms
tire. When under sail, the jib sheets are long enough for
the helmsman to handle from the stern, so the dory can be
single-handed.
“It’s really versatile, the way it rows, the way it sails,” said
Goldman. “It’s light enough that two people can drag it up
the beach and push it back in the morning.” “And the un-
stayed rig is so simple, one person can ship and unship the
mast,” added Lyons.
For this review, we sailed and rowed SWORDFISH on Port Townsend Bay, the finish line for
the 2007 Raid. Surprisingly, the Mower dory wasn’t as tender as it looked, as we found when
switching places and tucking in a test reef. The helm was responsive in a light breeze, and
the hull rode high and light. (With the centerboard up, the Mower dory draws only 4-6”,
depending on the load.) The wide laps made for a quiet ride. And the hull’s graceful curves
drew admiring looks along the waterfront, as the sheer lines of a Swampscott dory are bound
to do.
History of the design
Charles Mower was destined to become design editor of Rudder magazine in the first decade
of the 1900s, but he was only 23 in 1898 when he designed a 21’ racing dory for the
Swampscott Club. What came to be known as the X-dory was highly competitive against the
Alpha dories of Salem and the Beachcomber dories of Marblehead, and although it was
Mower’s first commissioned design, it has stood the test of time.
This 18’ Mower dory is essentially a scaled-down X-dory, John Gardner concluded after the
40+-year-old blueprints came into his hands in 1978. “In fact, it appears that Mower had one
basic dory hull that he considered to be the ultimate Swampscott dory hull,” he wrote in
Building Classic Small Craft. “In adapting it to a number of varying requirements he made
some minor and superficial changes, but always without altering the fundamental
characteristics of his original 1898 design for the Swampscott Club.
“The success of the X-dory was so outstanding that there was little incentive to attempt to
improve upon it, and good reason not to risk spoiling it, even to a minor extent.”
In readying the plans for publication, Gardner notes that his principal departure from the
original Mower blueprints was to suggest the addition of a rowing thwart “and the other minor
changes that will make it possible to row this boat.” Gardner also recommends the addition of
flotation if the vessel will see recreational use, especially by children. He is convinced the
Mower dory’s beaminess (at 5’, it is 8-10” wider than the average rowing dory of the same
length) makes it a stable sailing craft. And he points out that a number of sailing rigs may
work equally well on the hull, as the dory’s extra beam and her side decks and coaming mean
it can safely carry more sail than narrower dories of the same length that are entirely open.
There is one shortcoming: in his blueprints, Mower included but one sectional view of the
dory and only a few basic dimensions. Gardner included some additional drawings of his own
in his book, but a full set of plans does not exist. “Apparently he [Mower] expected that
prospective builders would be familiar with standard dory construction,” Gardner noted.
This assumption gave Al Brunt pause. “I wasn’t that familiar with dory construction to begin
with,” said Brunt, the head instructor at Silva Bay Shipyard School who oversaw construction
of the two Mower dories. “I sort of had second thoughts when we were lining up to do the first
Mower with the limited plans we had. [But Gardner’s book includes] a table of offsets, and that’
s all you really need."
Brunt said the dory was a good teaching boat, requiring a variety of techniques such as both
sawn and steam-bent frames, and a plywood bottom combined with cedar-planked topsides.
“Some pretty awkward angles” required full-size mock-ups; of where the transom meets the
bottom and garboard planks, for example. Again and again, the instructors, students and
owners put their heads together to problem-solve design issues in true team fashion. In the
end, Brunt said, “it was a wonderful, challenging project figuring everything out.”
Amateur builders considering the Mower dory are directed to Gardner’s The Dory Book
(Mystic Seaport Museum, 1987), which contains an extensive section on “How to Build a
Dory,” including how to read a table of offsets.
The last word goes to builder Brunt, who is mightily impressed by the performance of the boat
he’s twice taken from drawings to varnish. “It certainly scoots,” he said of the Mower dory. “It’s
surprising how quick it is. It sails like a witch!”
NOTE: This profile is dedicated to the memory of Richard Lyons, who passed away
unexpectedly not long after the publication of this article. His mark on the world is truly
missed.
To obtain reprint rights for this article, contact author Shelly Randall.
By Shelly Randall
If you have seven days to race 90 nautical miles through the
Canadian Gulf and San Juan islands in a small craft powered
solely by sail or oar power, this is the boat to enter. A Mower
dory has been the top-finishing sailing craft in one such ardu-
ous race—called the Shipyard School Raid—each of the past
two years.
Then again, if racing the clock doesn’t appeal, but you’re looking
for a classy yet practical camp-cruiser for extended gunkholing—
and perhaps an amateur boatbuilding challenge—this could very
well be your boat.
The 18’ plank-on-frame Swampscott sailing dory is not only good-
looking, it also sails fast and rows tolerably well. And nearly a cen-
tury after its racing hull was conceived by noted yacht designer
Charles D. Mower (pronounced with a long “o,” as in “lawnmow-
er”), the Mower dory is still competitive.
“It was built to be a Raid winner,” said dory co-owner and Raid racer Quill Goldman. Raid
organizer and yacht designer Tad Roberts concurs that “the Mower dory is a competitive
Raid boat because it can be rowed very quickly when required and sails really well in both
light and heavy wind—in fact, she sails better than most with an experienced crew.”
Inspired by a fellow racer’s Mower-designed 21’ X-dory, Goldman and his friend and business
partner Richard Lyons picked the 18’ Mower dory out of the line-up of small boats John
Gardner presents in his well-known series, Building Classic Small Craft (International Marine,
1984). “I remember paging through the book and thinking, ‘That would be a great boat,’”
Goldman said.
Then the two co-owners of Barefoot Wooden Boats—a boatbuilding, restoration and charter
company—set about making modifications to the Mower dory plans based on their
requirements for long-distance racing. Goldman and Lyons swapped the leg-o’-mutton main
for a sliding Gunter rig, added a kick-up rudder extension and a second set of oarlocks, and
called for sheathing the plywood bottom with Kevlar for superior abrasion resistance upon
beaching.
The Silva Bay Shipyard School on Gabriola Island, B.C.,
which graduated both Goldman and Lyons in the early
2000s, is where the men turned to commission two Mower
dories. Students at the school built one Mower dory,
SWORDFISH, in 2005-06, and another, BARRACUDA,
one year later. Further modifications to the second boat
included lowering the profile of the centerboard trunk so it
was flush with the thwarts, enabling a second rowing thwart
to be installed forward of the first.
When rowing long distances as a team, Goldman and
Lyons find it most efficient to sweep only two oars with
rowing stations staggered, switching sides when their arms
tire. When under sail, the jib sheets are long enough for
the helmsman to handle from the stern, so the dory can be
single-handed.
“It’s really versatile, the way it rows, the way it sails,” said
Goldman. “It’s light enough that two people can drag it up
the beach and push it back in the morning.” “And the un-
stayed rig is so simple, one person can ship and unship the
mast,” added Lyons.
For this review, we sailed and rowed SWORDFISH on Port Townsend Bay, the finish line for
the 2007 Raid. Surprisingly, the Mower dory wasn’t as tender as it looked, as we found when
switching places and tucking in a test reef. The helm was responsive in a light breeze, and
the hull rode high and light. (With the centerboard up, the Mower dory draws only 4-6”,
depending on the load.) The wide laps made for a quiet ride. And the hull’s graceful curves
drew admiring looks along the waterfront, as the sheer lines of a Swampscott dory are bound
to do.
History of the design
Charles Mower was destined to become design editor of Rudder magazine in the first decade
of the 1900s, but he was only 23 in 1898 when he designed a 21’ racing dory for the
Swampscott Club. What came to be known as the X-dory was highly competitive against the
Alpha dories of Salem and the Beachcomber dories of Marblehead, and although it was
Mower’s first commissioned design, it has stood the test of time.
This 18’ Mower dory is essentially a scaled-down X-dory, John Gardner concluded after the
40+-year-old blueprints came into his hands in 1978. “In fact, it appears that Mower had one
basic dory hull that he considered to be the ultimate Swampscott dory hull,” he wrote in
Building Classic Small Craft. “In adapting it to a number of varying requirements he made
some minor and superficial changes, but always without altering the fundamental
characteristics of his original 1898 design for the Swampscott Club.
“The success of the X-dory was so outstanding that there was little incentive to attempt to
improve upon it, and good reason not to risk spoiling it, even to a minor extent.”
In readying the plans for publication, Gardner notes that his principal departure from the
original Mower blueprints was to suggest the addition of a rowing thwart “and the other minor
changes that will make it possible to row this boat.” Gardner also recommends the addition of
flotation if the vessel will see recreational use, especially by children. He is convinced the
Mower dory’s beaminess (at 5’, it is 8-10” wider than the average rowing dory of the same
length) makes it a stable sailing craft. And he points out that a number of sailing rigs may
work equally well on the hull, as the dory’s extra beam and her side decks and coaming mean
it can safely carry more sail than narrower dories of the same length that are entirely open.
There is one shortcoming: in his blueprints, Mower included but one sectional view of the
dory and only a few basic dimensions. Gardner included some additional drawings of his own
in his book, but a full set of plans does not exist. “Apparently he [Mower] expected that
prospective builders would be familiar with standard dory construction,” Gardner noted.
This assumption gave Al Brunt pause. “I wasn’t that familiar with dory construction to begin
with,” said Brunt, the head instructor at Silva Bay Shipyard School who oversaw construction
of the two Mower dories. “I sort of had second thoughts when we were lining up to do the first
Mower with the limited plans we had. [But Gardner’s book includes] a table of offsets, and that’
s all you really need."
Brunt said the dory was a good teaching boat, requiring a variety of techniques such as both
sawn and steam-bent frames, and a plywood bottom combined with cedar-planked topsides.
“Some pretty awkward angles” required full-size mock-ups; of where the transom meets the
bottom and garboard planks, for example. Again and again, the instructors, students and
owners put their heads together to problem-solve design issues in true team fashion. In the
end, Brunt said, “it was a wonderful, challenging project figuring everything out.”
Amateur builders considering the Mower dory are directed to Gardner’s The Dory Book
(Mystic Seaport Museum, 1987), which contains an extensive section on “How to Build a
Dory,” including how to read a table of offsets.
The last word goes to builder Brunt, who is mightily impressed by the performance of the boat
he’s twice taken from drawings to varnish. “It certainly scoots,” he said of the Mower dory. “It’s
surprising how quick it is. It sails like a witch!”
NOTE: This profile is dedicated to the memory of Richard Lyons, who passed away
unexpectedly not long after the publication of this article. His mark on the world is truly
missed.
To obtain reprint rights for this article, contact author Shelly Randall.
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The 18’ Mower Dory:
"The ultimate Swampscott dory hull"
"The ultimate Swampscott dory hull"
| Richard Lyons adjusts the Mower dory's rig while underway. |
| All copy and photos contained within this web site (c) Shelly Randall 2005-10 unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
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