What Is a Grand Banks Dory?

A Grand Banks dory is a flat-bottomed wooden fishing boat designed for the open Atlantic. Fishermen launched them from schooners on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland starting in the 1850s. They are simple to build, remarkably seaworthy, and still built by hand today.

Built for the Grand Banks Fishery

The Grand Banks dory came out of a practical need. Cod fishing schooners needed small boats that could be stacked on deck, rowed out to the fishing grounds, loaded heavy with fish, and brought back safely through open ocean swells. The dory solved all of those problems with a dead-simple design: a flat bottom, high flared sides, and a narrow transom.

From the 1850s through the early 1900s, this was the workhorse of the North Atlantic fishery. One schooner might carry a dozen dories nested together on deck. Each morning, fishermen launched out in pairs, set their lines, and rowed back loaded with cod. A single dory could hold well over 1,000 pounds of fish.

What Makes the Design Special

The genius of the dory is its simplicity. The flat bottom and straight, flared sides mean every plank is a straight piece of lumber. No compound curves. No steam bending. No lofting. That made them cheap and fast to build in the boat shops of Lunenburg and Gloucester, and it makes them one of the best boats for a first-time builder today.

Despite that simplicity, the shape is incredibly seaworthy. The flared sides give the hull increasing stability as it heels, and the narrow bottom lets it cut through chop instead of pounding over it. Loaded with weight, a dory tracks straight and handles heavy seas. There is a reason this design survived unchanged for over a century.

The Dory Today

People still build Grand Banks dories. Some want a real wooden boat they can fish from. Some want a project to do with their kids or grandkids. Some just want to build something with their hands that is not a birdhouse. The plans for a traditional 16-foot Banks dory produce a boat that is roughly 300 pounds, carries about 1,200 pounds, and looks as good on a lake as it did on the Grand Banks.