From collection Maynard Bray Collection
LB2013.1.327.7
Lance Lee's Albury-built sailing dinghy, at Lance's dock on Man 'O' War Cay ABACO / BAHAMA DINGHY "Sweet lines" is often the first thing out of the mouth of classic-boat aficionados having a first look at an Abaco dinghy. It's no wonder legend has it that this traditional Bahamian workboat had a role in inspiring Capt. Nat Herreshoff's famous 12 1/2 day sailer. Dinghy owners call them little jewels and will lavish hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars on full restorations. During the mid-20th century, yachtsmen began gravitating to the Sea of Abaco in the Bahamas. Lying between the Abaco Cays-Green Turtle, Great Guana, Scotland, Man-O-War, and Elbow-to the east and Great Abaco Island to the west, the Sea makes a sheltered cruising ground. Visitors found friendly islanders with accents like Cornish fishermen, clear blue water rife with reef fish, and good breezes. They also found a vibrant wooden boat building industry on Man-O-War Cay and in Hope Town on Elbow Cay. The yachtsmen and expats proved a ready market for local workboats to be used as daysailers and racers. Nobody knows for sure when the first Abaco dinghy was built, or who built it, but the type has been around as a small fishing boat since the late 1800s. Dinghies are traditionally either 12' or 14' overall, with a 5' beam and a 2' draft. During the middle decades of the 20th century Abaco boat builders like Maurice Albury on Man-O-War Cay and Winer Malone at Hope Town launched hundreds of dinghies for fishing, day sailing, and racing. Some builders had government contracts to turn out dinghies to supply the Bahamian fishing fleet. An Abaco dinghy carries a catboat rig on an un-stayed mast. The large three-sided sail (about 200 sq. ft.) has a nearly straight leech and a long, loose foot with a deep roach. The sail's large headboard, known locally has a "banana board," can be adjusted to tension the leech for different wind conditions. Sails were traditionally cotton, but today they are Dacron or Oceanus sailcloth. Hope Town-built boats are fully open; many Man-O-War boats have the bow decked over to just aft of the mast partners. The dinghies usually have a notch in the transom for a sculling oar. With their carvel plank-on-frame construction, full keels, and wineglass transoms, Abaco dinghies are more like little ships or scaled-down versions of the bigger Abaco fishing smacks than actual dinghies for harbor transport or towing behind yachts. Like bigger Bahamian smacks and sloops, Abaco dinghies are built without plans from the keel up by what local builders often refer to as "mother's wit." Boatwrights work from a traditional formula. The beam is half the keel length. The transom measures three-fourths of the beam. Mast height is twice the length of the keel. Abaco dinghies have subtly curved stems; they're raked on Man-O-War boats and nearly plumb on Hope Town boats. Abaco dinghies have a graceful sheer, low freeboard, and keels with moderate drag. The greatest beam is slightly forward of amidships. To begin construction, builders lay a keel and attach a stem, a sternpost, and a transom. Then they construct a mold or use one handed down over generations for the center rising-frame. Many builders add a forward frame and a stern frame, too. These three frames are connected by ribbands to the stem and transom. Once the ribbands outline the shape of the new hull, the rest of the frames can be hand-cut to fit before the hull is planked. Planks are 3/8" to 7/16" thick. Builders use natural crooks shaped with hand tools for frames. These frames are 1" wide with varying depth and are set on 12" to 15" centers. Traditionally, builders used local mahogany they called Madeira or Madera (Portuguese and Spanish for timber) for framing crooks, but in more recent years they have used corkwood. Planking, gunwales, and decking are either cypress or Caribbean pine. To season the lumber, boat wrights soak it in the harbor for six months. In the past, builders used iron boat nails and brass screws. Restorations use bronze. Getting the planks to make the sharp twist running aft into the wineglass stern is not for the novice builder. Similarly, shaping the garboards and the planks at the sharp turn of the bilge requires advanced boatbuilding skills. A few decades ago the demand for dinghies fell sharply. Abaco fishermen had turned to speedy fiberglass runabouts, and easily available wood began to disappear. Few orders came to the builders and aging boats began disappearing, but fortunately, Hope Town cherishes its strong maritime and sailing tradition and booms as a mecca for cruising yachts. Here, with the support of the active Hope Town Sailing Club, local lovers of traditional Bahamian small craft have been reviving the fleet of dinghies. In the U.S., boatbuilding programs like The Apprenticeshop in Maine began teaching a new generation of boatwrights how to build and sail the Abaco dinghy. Local builders don't use plans but lines drawings, offsets, and construction details are available from The Apprenticeshop. Construction is challenging, so if you want one of the Abaco boatwrights or the Apprenticeshop to make you a new dinghy, keep this in mind: Sweetness comes at a price. https://smallboatsmonthly.com/article/abaco-dinghy/ The Indefatigable Lance Lee: Boatbuilder, Mentor, Teacher Lance Lee, founder of several incarnations of The Apprenticeshop, of Atlantic Challenge International, and of the Tremolino! Project, has worked on dozens of projects with hundreds of students and boatbuilders from all over the world, but perhaps his strongest legacy lies in the work he has done along the coast of Maine. In his late sixties, an age when many men would be resting on their laurels, Lee is going strong. Among other projects, he's working with boatbuilder Brady Gow to build a smaller version of Tremolino, the lateen-rigged balancelle (a Mediterranean workboat) used by Joseph Conrad to run guns for the royalist cause between Marseilles and Catalonia in the late 1800s. https://maineboats.com/online/boat-features/lance-lee-tremolino
