https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/northeaster-dory/ Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:23:14 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.2 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/northeaster-dory/#comment-152302 Sat, 18 Jan 2025 15:42:59 +0000 https://smallboatsmonthly.com/?post_type=article&p=239850#comment-152302 The NE-Dory is surely something special. I built it in 2021 from a kit, first for rowing, and then rigged it with the sloop rig in 2022. I learned to sail with this boat, as I disliked the 420 dinghy that I bought at the same time (and sold very fast).
The NE Dory is such a beauty and absolutely unknown in Germany, so people ask about it all the time. The Dory is astonishingly fast. The handling out of the water is a pleasure due to the low weight. On the other hand, I felt very unsafe at the beginning, as it feels very tippy at every little gust. As a new sailor, you need at first to learn to trust the secondary stability. In three years I never capsized, but at capize tests it didn’t work well to be honest. No chance to get back in the boat back again with only the foam under the seats, as J. Harris describes. With three additional flotation bags from the Optimist, you can get back into the boat, when it’s nearly completely full of water. I have installed an electrical pump, but it needs 13 minutes to empty the swamped boat. The problem is the sloop rig, which can’t be taken down, so when the boat is full of water, the swinging boom submerges the boat on one side. Maybe the lug is better as you can take it down. As I sail mostly with my wife and dog, I didn’t want to imagine what would happen after a capsize in heavy winds. So in 2023 I built a Goat Island Skiff… but that is another story.

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