Building a Dory

To those people who wants to build their own boat but are just starting out with no or less experience in building one, I strongly suggest you start by learning how to build a dory. And it is for the simple reason that dories are one of the easiest boats to build for a DIY person because of its simple lines.

It is also one of the most versatile boat type which you can easily outfit to something that is suitable for the purpose that you built it for.

But before building a dory, you have to go over some of the important things to keep in mind. Some of those things are:

BUDGET

I always stress this to anyone who wants to ask my opinion where a newbie at boat building should start. And always answer the same thing. I strongly suggest you start with a definite amount you will feel comfortable spending for the project.

Why? Well, I know for a fact that most people, aside from the sheer love of building things, wants to build a boat themselves is because it's way cheaper.

And it is. However, the best way to ensure it is to have a budget beforehand.


TYPE OF DORY

As mentioned earlier, dories can be designed to be pretty much what you need it to be. So, earlier on, you would want to have a clear idea on the type of dory you want to build.

Just to give an example, some of the traditional types of dories are, sailing, beach, river, bank, and motor dories.

Each has different purposes and each has different designs that would perfectly suit its use. Like, beach dories are mostly used for fishing operation in the beach. As a result, it has an almost round shape of its sides with a narrow flat bottom which makes it perfect to launch through a surf and even weather tough ocean conditions.

MATERIALS

The materials you will be using to build a dory will be hugely dependent on your allocated budget as well as your preference. As far as materials go, wood, aluminum and fiberglass are the more popular choice.

DESIGN

a good approach to building a dory is to have a very good and workable boat plan beforehand. I strongly suggest this as a good plan will help you determine your budget, anticipate the level of skills needed to build a type of boat and guides you to the step-by-step process of building a dory.

This will help you avoid the common mistakes and unnecessary frustration that mostly associated with building things on your own.

I personally worked with a very good set of boat plans with a very detailed instruction and pictures that leaves nothing to the imagination, making it easier to follow the steps to build a dory.

You may check it out here, and see if it's what you need as well.

www.BoatBlueprints.info

This boat plans has helped me immensely in learning how to build a dory so I'm pretty sure it can do the same thing for you too!