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 arduous 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 century after its racing hull was conceived by noted yacht designer Charles D. Mower (pronounced with a long “o,” as in “lawnmower”), the Mower dory is still competitive.
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I built one of these a number of years ago. She was built light: laminated spruce for the sawn frames and glued-lap plywood for the hull planking. No intermediate frames. She did have a leg-o-mutton rig on a stayed mast, and yes, she was fast. The gunter rig looks like it would work well and would be easier to set up.
I built Mower’s 1932 design Snow Bird frostbite dinghy from plans published by The Rudder which consisted of 2 pages accompanied by the statement “Anyone who has had any experience building round-bottomed clinker-built dinghies will find sufficient information on these pages to enable him to build a Snow Bird for himself.” This left a lot to the imagination but I guess that’s how Mower approached small craft “plans.”
If someone has more info about this boat design, please let me know. It will be appreciated.
Hello from Geneva Switzerland!
Any idea if any available for purchase?
Best regards,
Paul
Moin Paul,
vielleicht hilft dir das weiter: How to Build a Swampsott Dory
Viele Grüße und immer eine Hand breit Wasser unterm Kiel
Raban Stumme aus Mülheim an der Ruhr, DE
Translation from German:
Hey Paul,
Maybe this will help you: How to Build a Swampscott Dory.
Best regards and always a handful of water under the keel
Raban Stumme from Mülheim an der Ruhr, DE
Having built Seahopper folding boats & a plywood fiberglassed skiff when younger with my father, who just gave me the Gardner book with construction plans for dories, I am looking to turn my carpentry workshop in the Czech countryside into a boatbuilding shop!!! I’m not sure if i’d like to start with a Beachcomber leg-o-mutton or a sailing Swampscott (will be for use in the Alceva lake in the Alentejo, Portugal.