With the launch of a 13-foot Lawton Dory, Carpenter’s Boat Shop (CBS) said good-bye to its 2024 class as it also completed a project started a year ago by its 2023 group of apprentices. 

“The dory build was an opportunity for the apprentices to work on a project that requires skills beyond those they use to build Monhegan Skiffs,” explained Matthew Dirr, CBS Wooden Boat building instructor.  

While the apprentices typically work in teams to build nine skiffs every season, CBS also has a sidetrack for constructing an “advanced” boat each year. In past years, teams of two would take a break from the Monhegan projects to rotate onto the advanced work and the finished products from past years have included past are Catspaw Dinghies, Weapons, and Dories.   

The Lawton Dory was designed and built in 1950 by Charles A. Lawton, a generational St. John, New Brunswick-born boatbuilder who, at the age of 90 and nearing retirement, sought to create a dual-purpose craft suited for both rowing and outboard use. The dory features a flat bottom with high, flaring sides as well as a sharp bow and a deep V-shaped transom. 

As such, it well suited for daily use in Northeastern coastal areas, inshore fishing and lobstering, and launching through surf. 

The 2023 apprentices “lofted” the new CBS boat, drawing the boat at full scale so that patterns and measurements could be taken before constructions. That initial group also made the pieces for the backbone of the boat—the bottom, stem, transom, and frames. 

This year’s CBS cohort followed through to the mid-November launch with more detailed work. Said Dirr, “We had to ‘fair’ all the mating surfaces”—the process of refining surfaces to a “fair” shape that blends perfectly into the overall contours of the boat—“so that the planks would touch everything perfectly as they were bent onto the boat.” 

One critical departure from CBS’ Montauk Skiffs: The current group of apprentices decided to build the Lawton Dory right-side-up, as opposed to upside-down. According to Dirr, “This was a mixed blessing, as it made it more difficult to set up the boat and fair the frames. But it made it easier to fit and fasten the planks.” 

To ensure that fit, the apprentices had to steam (and then shape) a cutwater at the forward edge of a dory’s prow, in addition to both planks and frames throughout the boat—steps that are not part of the typical Monhegan Skiff buildout. 

The 2024 apprentices assembled on the Round Pond down tock for a “splash-in”—an adventure that assured that there’s no leakage at the same time that it gave Dirr’s team of apprentices a chance to pencil in the dory’s waterline.  

With that mark in place, the new boat was ready a trip back to the Boat Shop campus and a paint job that would complete the two-year construction process. 

For more information about the Carpenter’s Boat Shop—or to inquire about purchasing one of the traditional Monhegan Skiffs or the freshly painted “advanced” Lawton Dory, email director@carpentersboatshop.com, log onto carpentersboatshop.org, or call 677-2614.