Phil Bolger Designs

Spur II

Here is the text Phil wrote about Spur II, from "Boats With An Open Mind". Thanks, Phil and Susanne, for permission to use this.Drawings are in the Design section. Also below is the article Mike O'Brien wrote about Spur II in Boat Design Quarterly, #11. Thanks to Mike for permission to post this article, BDQ is a great little quarterly magazine on boat design.

2011-05-26

RIP, Dynamite

Here's a photo of Dynamite Payson, in his shop, October 2007

2011-03-29

Sad News

It is my sad duty to report that Harold "Dynamite" Payson died yesterday. He was a great friend of Phil's, and did a great job of promoting his boats, developing and selling plans. He built a lot of prototypes for Phil, refining designs and coming up with new ideas for boats. I only met him once, he was a true gentleman.

2011-03-24

Dakini

Dakini under sail

Dakini is a combination sharpie dory, or "Shory", designed by Phil Bolger for Mait Edey. I guess Mait had a lot of input on this design, there is some thrashing around on this design over on the Yahoo /Bolger discussion group. I built it in 1985, fir marine ply and South American Mahogany framing, solid Sitka Spruce spars. There was about 1,000 pounds of lead ballast inside, cast in bars and bolted in place. The bottom was double 1/2" fir marine ply- Mait thought it was pretty rugged, as he came down on pointed rocks and other assorted underwater debris several times, with no real damage.Displacement was about 6,000 pounds, as I recall. The boat has twin centerboards, and outboard power. The cabin was simple but roomy. The rig is a gaff yawl, the mizzen is sprit rigged. Mait sailed the boat for about 20 years, then sold it due to health problems. It is again for sale by the second owner.

LOA- 34'6"

Beam - 7'11"

Draft - 1'2"

Sail area - 384 Sq. Ft.

2011-01-18

Dakini under sail

Looking forward

Looking aft

Ticket to Heaven

The Gloucester Gull, aka the Light Dory, was Phil's ticket. Hundreds, if not thousands of this design have been built. I have built only 5. This is the last one I built, in 2005. It was built for a beach club in Rhode Island. Seems they have a dory racing series down there, with the only rules being no foot braces, and tholepins. they wanted a light dory, so I built them this stitch and glue version. It weighed 90 lbs. finished, and won the series the next year.

Check out the lines on the Design Page.

2010-11-24

Black Skimmer

Well, I guess I will just try to keep going with some more Bolger stuff. Here's the first photo of the Black Skimmer I built in 1978 or so. I'll try to post a few more, plus the lines, soon.

Update - lines have been been posted on the Design page

2010-09-21

Going the other way

Repost of Design page 1

I For the first of the Bolger Pages, I am starting with the recent article by Susanne Altenburger in Messing About in Boats, April 2010. This is about the Power Catamaran I had Phil design in 1985. The design requirements were : Shallow draft, good speed when light, ability to carry a big load - 5,000 lbs +, and a decent ride in 2’ chop. Protection from the elements and a big deck were also considerations. The clients had experience with barge type hulls, and did not want to go that way. Phil came up with this easily built, easily driven Power Cat, which I built in 1985-86. It was built mostly with 1/2” fir marine ply and white oak. We had the hulls fiberglassed by a local glass shop. Preservative was applied to the interior of the hulls, and the ventilation system Phil designed was built into each hull. The original design was for 22’, but we stretched her to 24’. The original 50 HP motors have been replaced several times, most recently this spring, 2010, with a pair of 50 HP evinrude E-Tec’s. The boat has been sunk several times, but has been refloated and repaired, and is still in regular use. The owner is still very pleased with the boat, and is looking forward to the coming season.

There is a MAIB web site, but they do not post recent articles. The original article was in MAIB April 15, 1993. I hope you can read the scans I have posted. Thanks to Bob Hicks and Susanne Altenburger for permission to post this on the web.

2010-08-20