15' Double-Ended Gunning Dory (2020)

In 1978, my friend and extremely talented boat builder and designer Jon Blanchard built the first of this 15’ version of the Gunning Dory. Jon found a very old wooden gunning dory rotting away in the woods beside a lake on Cape Cod, dragged it home and redesigned it. Jon was one of those men with a talent and genius for creating perfect sheer lines and shapes in small boats. He built a mold for his new design, and from that mold we built several of these Gunning Dories in the late 1970’s for ourselves and a few very lucky friends. While the project eventually fell by the wayside under the pressure of other designs to build, the few that we built back then were really appreciated by their owners and all who rowed them. In the 1980’s, the Gunning Dory was the surprise winner of TWO Oarmaster Trials, a round robin race for fixed seat traditional rowing boats, beating all of the other boats that were supposed to be much faster. 2022 saw the Crawford Gunning Dory win its class in the most prestigious open water rowing race on the East Coast, the Blackburn Challenge, and back in 1991 a friend of mine took advantage of the seaworthiness of the design by rowing my Gunning Dory from Roque Bluffs, Maine across the Bay of Fundy to Digby, Nova Scotia! Those of us fortunate folks who have had a chance to enjoy this boat since 1978 have rowed it in flat water, rough water, surf, whitewater, strong winds, and she performed capably in all conditions and with a good load if necessary. The ocean hasn’t changed in millennia, and time-honored traditional dory designs work as well now as they did a century ago! You may only use this boat for recreational purposes, but it will serve you as well as it did the sporting and working watermen of previous centuries.