The Dory Story
March 2, 2010.Life offers us certain magical treasures that cannot be duplicated. Eating a fresh, warm, buttery croissant in a Parisian café. Sharing your first glimpse into Yosemite Valley with someone special. Sharing a pennant victory on home soil with your baseball-loving kids. Experiencing a whitewater river trip in a sleek, classic dory.
Smooth, solid, surreal…As stylish as it is burly, a dory is to the river what an Italian sports car is to mean, urban streets and rowdy rural routes. No other boat is as capable, safe or elegant on the wild waters that O.A.R.S. explores. Beyond their stout, thoughtful design dories hold a soulful connection to the river and a heritage of western exploration. Combined, the qualities of the vessel make for an unmatched and unforgettable journey.
Dories are made for rock and roll. They’re also finely tuned to provide classic amenities. Hardwood-hulled but ultra-buoyant, they slice walls of wave, buck through rapids and land large drops with ease (and more than enough splash).
In rippling waters and inconsistent currents—conditions that would make other vessels more unruly—a dory is unbelievably sleek and lounge-like. Sincerely smooth sailing. Decked over, there is room for hundreds of pounds of gear, dry and out of sight. Above board, there’s ample space for four passengers and a central cockpit for a guide manning two powerful oars.
Aside from the incredible places these boats will take you; aside from the wonderful experiences you will have there; aside from the dories’ heritage and elegance; these boats, more than any other on the river are just plain fun.
-Excerpt from the O.A.R.S. Dory Catalog, 2004
O.A.R.S. dory boats are descendants of the original Portuguese fishing dory—a flat-bottomed, splay-sided rowboat with high upturned ends. In the early years of commercial river running in the Grand Canyon, two veteran rowers of the old Cataract boats, Martin Litton, and P.T. Reilly, saw the need for a more practical craft, but wanted to preserve the dignity and grace of the wooden boat.
According to a wonderfully detailed account of the dory’s history, written by Grand Canyon boatman Brad Dimock, Martin and P.T. worked with boat builders Keith Steele, and later, Jerry Briggs, to develop larger, decked-over versions of the McKenzie dory. They found the boat to be perfectly adapted to the rigors of the Colorado River, and it could carry four passengers and plenty of gear below the decks. In 1964, inspired by the canyon’s grandeur and driven by a will to save it from proposed dams and inevitable destruction, Martin Litton received authorization from the National Park Service to row dories commercially in the Grand Canyon and Grand Canyon Dories was born.
Rigid, keeled cutwater boats first made their appearance on the rivers of the western U.S. in 1869 during the Major John Wesley Powell expedition through the Colorado River canyon. Powell and the expeditions that followed were able to navigate the Colorado in these heavy, unwieldy boats. Then in the 1890’s a Utah trapper named Nathaniel Galloway revolutionized whitewater boating by utilizing a light, flat-bottomed boat. In the late 1930’s Norman Nevills took the next step by creating a far broader craft called a Cataract boat, using it on the first commercial Grand Canyon river trip in 1938. Though the Cataract boats were run in the Canyon for more than 30 years, their poor carrying capacity forced them to succumb to the new competition: inflatables.
The river dory evolved on Oregon’s McKenzie River. In the 1920’s Torkel Kaarhus, a Norwegian boat builder, began to modify the awkward flat plank boats then in use. He bent the ends up, giving the boats "rocker" and making them easier to spin. He raised the low square stern to help ward off the waves.
A few years later Woodie Hindman, who got his start with Kaarhus, began to modify the design. After running a trip on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River with its bigger rapids, he returned to Oregon determined to design a better whitewater dory. First, he converted the high square stern into a higher, pointed stern to better cut through the waves. Next, he squared off the low pointed bow to accommodate a motor. In a sense he turned the boat around backwards. Lastly, he lengthened the boat for better handling. This became the McKenzie style dory, or "drift boat," which is now common on rivers throughout the Northwest.
In a recent conversation with John Blaustein, one of Martin Litton’s original dory guides, I asked him why someone might appreciate a dory. He stated from his home in Berkeley: “They are simply the most beautiful and graceful boats on any river. You feel details of the rapids, and you certainly get a feel of the water more intimately because of the way a rigid boat responds to the current. However, whether a person chooses to travel downriver in a dory or in a raft, they will almost certainly have an amazing whitewater experience. Adventurers will still explore side canyons and share a campfire with newfound friends. They will fall asleep under the stars and awaken to the sound of water flowing downstream. However, dories are elegant, classic and graceful—a word that Martin often uses. In fact, you should call him.”
It took very little encouragement from John to get me to pick up the phone and call Martin. As predicted, he immediately described the dory as “graceful.”
“Dories are spirited,” he added. “They have individual personalities. Each one is named after magnificent wild places. All your gear is stored below deck in watertight compartments which makes it a very sleek and elegant-looking boat.”
He continued, “A dory reacts to the water, and as you grow accustomed to your boat and learn its unique quirks, you always know how it will respond. It has a direction to it. Dories are made to go over the waves. They were made based on a history of going through ocean breakers. The dory’s design—the rake, the slant of the sides, the width, the gunnels—all these characteristics influence how the boat handles and how it keeps the water out. This doesn’t mean that you won’t get wet, certainly you will in big rapids.”
Martin spoke with animation about his years spent in the canyon, sharing with me a history of one of his legendary boatmen, Kenton Grua (a.k.a. “The Factor”). He suggested I read Colin Fletcher’s book, “The Man Who Walked through Time: The Story of the First Trip Afoot through the Grand Canyon.” Of course we discussed John Blaustein’s book, “The Hidden Canyon.” Somehow the discussion led to alpinist Lito Tejada-Flores, but neither of us could recall how we found ourselves on that topic. We touched briefly on politics before Martin shared tales of two of his young guides in the early 1970’s — Curt Chang and Regan Dale. These two aspiring guides learned the ropes from Martin, who had introduced commercial dory trips not only in the canyon, but also on rivers in Idaho and Oregon.
After independent adventures of their own, Curt took over the reins in Idaho, and Regan managed Grand Canyon operations. Today these gentlemen continue to carry on the Grand Canyon Dories and O.A.R.S. Dories legacies and are part of one integrated family born of the Grand Canyon.
Nearly two hours had passed since Martin and I discussed the dory, so I asked him again why he thought someone might consider joining a river trip by dory and he said with a laugh, “Well, they’ll just have to experience it to find out!”
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