Dory question

Hi, I have a question about my dory. It's a solid fiberglass seine dory, 22 ft. long on the bottom and 28 ft. overall, 8 ft. at the widest on the sheerline and 5 ft. at the widest below the waterline. It's powered by an air cooled single cylinder 9 hp Lister with a shaft through the bottom with a strut and an internal bronze rudder. I use it for fishing. My question is, how feasible would it be to put a mast and lug sail on it just to sail downwind when possible? It's quite stable, I've hauled 100 lb. halibut over the side with no problem and it's a good seaboat. I know dories are unique boats, and not everyone's cup of tea, it only does 6 kts. but it also only uses a pint of diesel fuel an hour. I interested in sailing as a get home if there's a breakdown method (though not likely with my Lister) but also for the quiet and fuel savings. I'm interested in ideas, Thank you in advance, Jim

 

Shouldn't be a problem to have a modest amount of sail. A lug sail will use a short mast and can be easily stowed. I would use a self standing mast to avoid the complication of standing rigging.

 

Calculate the wetted surface area of the hull, then multiply by 2 (a modest motor sailor), for a sail area figure. Of course, then you have to figure out where to stand it up and some appendages, etc.

 

That, and other formulae based on displacement explained here

http://www.kastenmarine.com/_pdf/sail_area_ratios.pdf

 

Excellent information, I did a rough measurement of wetted surface and came up with 60 square feet, the boat only weighs 1600 pounds empty, so it seems like I don't need to much of a sail to accomplish my minimal purpose.

 

hmm. 22' * 5' * .68 = 75sqft, + about 50% more for the sides = 112 sq ft.


<edit> in light of PAR's post below, the 112 I estimated was for wetted surface area, your 60 sqft seems a bit low. It is probably just a coincidence that PAR pointed to a rig with the same sail area, but I wanted to be sure folks didn't think I was proposing a rig of that area.

 

A beetle Cat sail is a gaffer with a high peak, but relatively short mast. It is 112 sq. ft.

beetlecat.com/store/prodimages/beetle_cat.jpg

The mast is less then 12' from deck to head, the boom about 13', the gaff about 9', the luff about 7'.

 

A dory under sail was a common sight growing up in Newfoundland. Most every grand banks dory as well as the inshore fishermen dory were equipped with a auxiliary sail. Generally a basic Marconi loose footed rig of an area that certainly required no reef points but still with enough power to drive on a beam wind or running. The free standing mast was passed thru a round hole in the far forward seat and locked into a socket affair in the floor.

 

That pretty much sums up what I'm looking to do, the simpler the better. I've looked for pictures of examples but there aren't many.

 

I'm not a designer but I am familiar with dory work and use. A typical west coast NFLD. dory would be 20ft. overall and from a foggy 50yr. recall the mast was about 3/4 the length of the boat when laying on the "tots" (seats). The loose footed sail was somewhere around 12 or so feet along the foot. Please don't hold me accurate on this but it would be a simple matter to experiment and find a comfort zone where you weren't too on edge under sail. Something I forgot to mention to reef they simply turned the mast rolling up the sail and locked it in place using the squared bottom in a square base. (Roller reefing long before the Yachting Dandies laid claim) You might also make use of a mast hold down to keep it in it's base socket. Either a dowel thru the mast under the "tot" (seat) or a rope thru the mast above and fed /tied around the seat or some other secure tie point. As a younger, I've sailed many a mile in old discarded dories using borrowed painters canvas drop cloths from my grand fathers paint shop. Have Fun --- Geo.

A yacht is not defined by the vessel but by the care and love of her owner----

 

Thanks Viking North, I love Atlantic Canada, took a wonderful motorcycle trip on the Cabot trail 40 or so years ago. Great information, as I mentioned I use my dory for commercial fishing, longlining and handlining for groundfish so it's definitely a work boat so I like things to be simple, rugged and cost effective.

 

You're most welcome, any chance of a couple of photos of your vessel, having spent most of my youth old school fishing Lobster, cod, salmon, and halibut with my father and uncle i'm always interested in the harvest from the briney. Biggest halibut haul was a 250 and 550 pounder on the same day and the same long line trawl, biggest cod hand lining was a 75pounder on an old lead double hook jigger. ---Tnx. Geo.

 

Well Geo. you've whipped my halibut numbers, biggest here in the Gulf of Maine 135# and in AK 440, I've caught a number of cod around 80 to 90# on draggers but on a hand line 35# is the best I could do. The dory is right outside my kitchen window on it's trailer, I'll snap a couple of pics and see if I can figure out how to put them on here. By the way I found an old jib in the barn, about 60 square feet, I already cut a fir tree to start the mast, it ought to move me downwind anyway. Best regards, Jim

 

The loose footed rig is a sprit rig (with a low sprit to a snotter) or a leg-o-mutton (sans sprit), but people tend to call both types either one. If I was going with this, considering you have a rather big dory, I'd go with a mast that can stow in the boat conveniently. 24' is probably as big a stick as you want to try to handle solo at sea anyway, and you might have to do a bit more than just bore a hole in a seat to be able to manage that much. I would use a small pole at the top of the sail to get a shorter mast. Call it a club or a gunter pole or a gaff - about 5 foot long (the main difference being how you go about shortening sail, because you can't just wrap the sail around the mast with these). The sail should be lashed back and forth around the mast in the traditional manner. If the sail was 23' hoist and 17' perp, you would have about a 23' mast, a 5 foot club, and a 20' sprit to deal with. That's getting to be a handful for that type of rig.

If you want to reduce the size of the sail, I'd recommend you look at the stick-up rig used quite a bit on old working skiffs. It looks a bit odd, but it is dead simple and very versatile and it would reduce the size of the main by 25%. This gets you a similar but lighter mast, no club, a shorter sprit, wrap around the mast furling, but now you need the foremast and foresprit. When working the boat, the main sprit is brailed up and the sail rolled up on the mast, and the silly little foresail is completely out of the way and can be used to set the boat drifting the direction you want or just left to weathervane over the bow so you aren't spinning all about as you pull on a line.

 

Phil, I call the Bermudian version a sprit boom rig, while the loose footed version just a sprit rig. A boomless version of the Bermudan is just a boomless Bermudian.