36 ft Sailing Dory Donna

Design number 127, drawn in 1975, and 31 ft 0 in on the waterline with a beam of 11 ft 0 in. She draws 4 ft 6 in on the fin keel, or 3 ft 6 in on the optional long shallow keel. Displacement in coastal cruising trim is 13,425 lb, of which 5,350 lb is ballast, a ballast ratio of 40%, for a displacement-length ratio of 201. She carries 700 sq ft for a sail area-displacement ratio of 19.83, has 6 ft 4 in of headroom below, and the drawings allow 27 hp of auxiliary with 110 gal of water and 55 gal of fuel. Donna was the first of the 36-footers and is the usual answer to how long one of these takes: a shoemaker in Alberta, 1,200 miles from the sea, with no boat behind him and nobody nearby to ask, finished her in under thirteen months. After several ocean passages she was re-rigged from the original gaff ketch to a taller Marconi ketch to work the lighter Pacific trades, which helped, at considerable expense; the designer suggests anyone with that in mind should start with the taller cutter rig. Aluminium and cored fibreglass scantlings have both been drawn for this size, and a steel version was done as a power fishing boat, which gained so much weight that there was no leeway left to ballast her as a sailing vessel. The dories are all built the same way, and the scheme is the point of the type: plywood planking glued and fastened to the bulkheads and the furniture, so the interior is the structural framing and there are no ribs and no deck beams to work around. Floor timbers run chine to chine to carry the keel bolts, and the ballast keel, cast lead or concrete and scrap metal, bolts on near the end, which lets the hull sit low in the shop for most of the build. The straight-line hull lofts in hours rather than days, and because almost nothing has to be fitted to a curve the joinery goes faster than it would on a round-bilge boat. Flat-bottomed boats are expected to pound, and these do not: heeled, the hull presents a V to the water.

The displacement above is coastal cruising trim, tanks full with the crew and their stores aboard, not a shipping weight. Loading down for voyaging can add half as much again. Plans are sold to owner-builders, and study plans are sold separately for anyone wanting to look before committing.