| The genesis of this design grew out of my experience with my Michalak
Sportdory. Sportdory is a wonderful rowing boat, but it is a little too long
and heavy to be cartopped easily. It is also a little too tiddly for fishing
to be relaxing.
I have a friend who happens to live on a lake and who also harbors some affection for my Sportdory but needs a smaller, more
forgiving craft than the dory. So I imagined him as my client and came up with
Blackberry.
 To adjust for his needs, I started with the general form of a
dory built for rowing fast, that is long and narrow across the bottom, and
shortened it from 15 to a little over eleven feet. I kept the breadth across
the gunwales at 4', but widened the bottom from 24" to 34". This has the
effect of increasing initial stability to where the solo fisherman can move
around the boat with fewer worries about dumping his tacklebox. Being able
to get out closer to gunwale also makes landing the big ones a little easier! One day I'd like to build Blackberry and present it to my friend
as a gift.
This is a pretty straightforward design and I anticipate no problems for
either the beginning or the experienced builder. I've already modeled it
in cardboard which confirms the pieces will go together to make a boat. The
conversion to PDF made some of the curved lines on the panel expansions a
little jagged, but the information need to make the boat is all there and
should be accurate. I can send a DXF format if some really wanted it.
 I don't have the time to do a step-by-step how-to for this one right now
since I'm busy working on my Duckworks Design Contest entry (and it's looking pretty special, if I do say so!). But there are a lot of resources
out there explaining the general how-to with taped seamed plywood boats
that anything I might add on the subject would likely be superfluous.
I don't want anyone to pay me for these plans. They are free for the
asking. I'd like one of these myself, but I've got my eye on a 16'
mulitchine wherry I designed as the next boat to come out of my boatyard
(garage).
Hopefully someone will take a chance and build one so I can see Blackberry
on the water someday. |
