Last year, for his senior project, a friend of mine by the name of Josh Hillebrecht ’16 restored a 17’ Swampscott Dory. After his graduation, he gave it to me with the caveat that I had to build a sailing rig for it. So, when it was time for me to submit my Tabor senior project application, I knew exactly what I was going to do. At least that's what I thought.
As I filled out the application, I realized that I had no idea how I was going to build the rig. I had no experience sewing or designing a rig. I had a little experience varnishing and painting boats and spars from my days on TABOR BOY, but that was about all. After to talking to Dave Bill (nautical science department chair and my advisor), Zane Randall (one of the Captains on board TABOR BOY), and Ben Sperry (owner and CEO of Sperry Sails), I started to have a sense of what I had to do.
The Senior Project period started on April 3, and after just a few days I realized I really had a two part project. One part is the internship at Sperry Sails where I am building my set of sails and designing the rig with Ben. The other part is all the maintenance required on the dory I was given! After a few days of basic introduction on the art of sailmaking with Ben, I was ready to get started on my own sail. Ben and I drew up a ⅜ scale drawing where we designed the rig and detailed the sails. I decided on a Marconi sloop rig with a club footed jib. Ben suggested being as traditional as possible to match the dory and recommended vertical paneled sails with square patches. The sails are well on their way, however, the maintenance work has been far more time consuming than I initially anticipated. As of now, two weeks into the project, I am almost done with the sails; all of the panels are taped together and just need to be sewn. Next, I’ll sew on the hardware to prepare them for rigging lines. But before I can rig the dory, I still need to put a great deal of effort into the hull. So far I have re-varnished everything and sanded the interior. Now I need to seal the seams from the inside of the hull, paint the interior, flip the dory and re-paint the bottom, keep adding coats of varnish to the mast and boom, fit the spars and dory with hardware, design and build a club for the jup….and so much more. Overall I am off to a solid start, and while there is still a significant amount of work to be done, I know that with my new knowledge and skill I can get it done and be out sailing by mid-May!
