Hi, 

I've been following the discussion and seen some interesting thoughts and designs.

Well done to the Committee for coming up with an idea to get people animated and interested when most of us are locked down.

But what started as a competition to design a junk rigged 8 foot tender has morphed into something else entirely which I'm not quite sure where it is going.

Personally, I think putting a multi-sheeted Junk Rig on an 8 foot tender which is liable to capsize in a strong gust is a bad idea. 

Too much string in the water to get tangled in if you do capsize.

A simple balance lug rig or sprit rig seem the easiest and quickest to deploy and stow in such a small boat and less ropes to catch you if you do capsize.

On the other hand, a competition to design a proper sized junk rigged dinghy big enough to carry 3 people and quite stable, which could be trailed to junk meetings, as suggested by Arne, might the way to go to encourage people into junk sailing and attending rallies.

That may be the way to go with a competition with some fixed criteria.

Eg;

Ease of build for 1st time boat builders. (Stitch and Glue?)

Max sail size. Length, Beam

Ability to row and/or fit an outboard.

Ability to sleep aboard.

Centreboard or daggerboard.

Buoyancy tanks.

Weight. ( I have a Wayfarer, which is quite stable if you handle it at all reasonably, but it's 250 kg fully rigged and a lot of boat to launch and recover solo).

But again, there are a lot of dinghy designs with freestanding masts already out there which could take a junk rig.

So maybe a competition to design, as suggested by the Committee, or perhaps adopt one current dinghy plan as the suggested JRA dinghy to build, with some modification to the plan to be able to fit a mast in different positions for different rigs.

A dinghy I particularly like the look of is Ross Lillystone's First Mate or Phoenix III.

Light with a freestanding mast, seems stable in videos and build in either stitch and glue or plywood lapstrake, can be towed and take an outboard.

Weight and sail area about the same as a Laser, but more comfortable and drier.

It can also take a sprit rig, balance lug or, cough, splutter, a bermudan rig

Dave D.

Jan wrote:

Genuine question for the historians on here, the answers might be instructive; What did traditional Chinese junks use as their definitive tender? 

Here's a page from Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze, Worcester. The definition of a sampan is 'three planks', ie flat bottom and slab sides. 

I always watch Roger Barnes Utubes of dinghy cruising, and always keep an eagle eye out for a junk rigged dinghy..........There seems to be zero penetration into the Dinghy Cruising Association of the junk rig.   I can see some the attraction of the loose footed lug he uses....There's no boom to smack someone in the head. 

     It would be pretty cool if it were designed along traditional Chinese lines...

                                                                 H.W.

I have added a design of mine from 1981, called the Webb 14, that could be of interest to people looking at a dinghy of around 14 feet in length. It is in the members area. your files/Drawings/David Webb's designs/ Webb14. I was unable to download it directly to this post, maybe an administrator could do that for me? It is a PDF file and when I tried to upload it, it said it could not as it was not a picture.

I built this design when I was living in California and won 3 of 3 oar on gunwale rowing races with her, being timed at just over 5 knots for one two mile race. Under sail she was very well balanced and I could sail her for hours without touching the helm. I got her to plane on a number of occasions and she surprised quite a lot of people by her performance.

The rig could easily be changed to a junk rig by substituting the four panel junk sail from my entry in the dinghy design competition which I hope that the chair will post on this thread for me.

So, a consensus seems to be forming that we are being asked to do something that is not very useful, even if we could do it: to design an 8ft boat that cannot be a good sailing boat at the same time as being a good yacht's tender. Good mental exercise though it might be, the end result needs to be worthwhile.

Staying with a boat that's one sheet of ply in length, we know that the PDR is a suitable platform to carry a JR - it's a good load carrier for its length, so a skipper can take a newbie out at Junkets.

At one and a half sheets of ply in length, or thereabouts, the Kiwis have their Welsford Golden Bay design, and in the UK, Selway Fisher have a sharpie that is very similar, the Drake 13ft sharpie. Both would be quick and easy to build, both would carry three adults under sail at a Junket. As I've said, I don't see any point in designing a dinghy when there are so many good ones to choose from. It's very unlikely that there's much new to say about the overall concepts of boats of this size, and our efforts would be better concentrated on adapting existing designs, where necessary or desirable.