The Best Wife Ever!

That's right bitches, I'm married to the most amazing woman on the planet. Eat your heart out.

My wife calls the sock that fits over the dragon head the "hostage hood."

Even though she lives in another state, my wife was able to make a pattern (with the help of Doryman's wife, Mary), buy exactly the right acrylic canvas (perfect color too), sew a huge cover that was almost a perfect fit the first time we tried it on, and put it under the Christmas tree and make it a complete surprise to me. I must admit, surprising me about anything is not a great feat; I usually have my head in the clouds (the less charitable would say another place). But the rest of it was impressive: this cover is truly a work of art!

I knew I wanted and needed a cover for the boat, but I had no clue how it could be done. My wife designed the cover so well that I can put the hood over the dragon head, unroll it the length of the boat and put a smaller hood over the stern stem and the cover is stretched perfectly down the middle. Then it's a simple matter to tie it down and I'm ready to hit the road. The stitching is very professional, even though she often had to sew through three and four layers of fabric. There are no raw edges anywhere.

The only thing I can take credit for was setting a few grommets, which is a pretty fun job.

I had an acrylic canvas cover on my Chamberlain dory that worked perfectly (also made by my wife). It was in very good shape when I sold the boat after eight years of service -- all of it outdoors. It looked like it could have easily made it another eight or 10 years.

Here's hoping this one will last as long, because it is a thing of beauty, like my wife.

A small Swampscott

It wasn't too many months later that my mother visited me. I was telling her this story, while we were driving past a boat yard. I'd just gotten to the part where my friend said he would help me build a Swampscott dory when I looked in the boatyard and there one was. I apologized to my mother as I put on the breaks and pulled into the boatyard.

There was the boat my friend and I were going to build – at least a smaller version of it. It was a 13-foot-5-inch Chamberlain dory designed by John Gardner based on dory-builder William Chamberlain's legendary boats. Gardner said of the boat, “For a rowing sea boat, you can't do much better within the 13-foot limit.” I put that to the test many times in the 12 years I owned her and she took care of me every time. For several years I would row eight miles with the boat loaded with camping and archery equipment to bow hunt for elk on an island in Willapa Harbor. I once rowed into some of the steepest wind chop I've ever seen and she didn't ship a teaspoon of water. I also entered a 13-mile rowing race and came in third in the fixed-seat class even though my boat was the shortest in the race.

In the first few years I owned her I did a lot of tinkering: I lowered the rowing thwart and the stern seat, added a carved back rest for the stern seat and reinforced the front thwart to serve double duty as a mast partner. I also added a mast step and made a mast and sprit to convert her into a sailboat. The spritsail rig worked well and I decided that rather than complicate a wonderfully simple boat by adding a centerboard and rudder I would sail her peapod style by trailing the lee oar and shifting my weight to steer. It worked well thanks to a shallow, full-length keel that terminated in a generous skeg. The rig even allowed her to go to windward pretty well.

The boat works well with one or two adults and a couple of kids, was OK with three adults and could even accommodate three adults and two small kids. But when kids and grand kids visit I yearned for a larger boat and one actually designed for rowing and sailing. A longer boat would be faster and increase my range.