Two men row a Marblehead gunning dory on the water.Jack Crawford

This classic view of a Marblehead gunning dory shows the type as it was originally intended to be used. The boat, a copy of REPUBLICAN, shows her elegant sheer and lovely stern.

John Gardner wrote about Will Chamberlain’s Marblehead gunning dories for several magazines and books. Each version revealed a little more about the boat’s history and qualities. Designed for gunning the ledges for sea ducks during New England’s early winter, the Marblehead gunning dory had to be rugged. It also had to be lightweight, so that once you had rowed out to where the ducks were, you could pull the boat onto the ledges.The boat that originally captured John Gardner’s attention was sitting on Marblehead’s Barnegat beach in 1942. Built by Will Chamberlain, it was the “ultimate dory,” in Gardner's view, a boat that for “rough water ability, easy performance under oars, respectable speed and capacity, capped by handsome appearance…is one of a kind.” My personal experience, along with that of others who know the boat well, hasn’t proven otherwise.

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