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Search engines seem to track our entire lives. Some also trawl the web for images. Here are some that Google found on 11th March 2013. Click the mosaic for today's update - there are lots to explore.

     

Formed in 1979 at the Southampton Boat Show by a group of junk rig enthusiasts, the JRA (Junk Rig Association) is for its members and about their boats and their rigs. We aim to: promote the use of the junk rig by encouraging members to organise 'rallies' and 'junkets' (see About Us) and via our tri-annual Magazine and this site; encourage the development of junk and related rigs, the building or conversion of boats to the junk rig, and the use of vessels with the rig or its derivatives; create an international community of people who've already 'junked' their boat, are thinking of doing so, or are just interested in learning what it's all about.  

Summing that up, our main job is to get the rig talked about. Former Chairman David Tyler certainly helped there: the Ocean Cruising Club recently awarded him their Rose Medal "for the most meritorious short-handed ...and exceptional voyage on board Tystie [from the UK to New Zealand]. You will  have inspired many others, some of whom may well adopt a junk rig." David's follow-up voyage to and around Alaska was tracked here. Tystie and David are now in Canada.

We were formed in the UK, and although our 'office' address and banking remains in the UK we are run by an increasingly international Committee via the internet. A number of posts become vacant in 2014 so if you choose to join you could also put your name forward to help run the 'club'. It doesn't run itself. Our membership is now more than   50% outside the UK. Click the chart for detail.

Our "Boat of the Month" for this month is the Chidell's Tin Hau a Colvin design with Hasler type sails. When Lynda and David built Tin Hau there were not many large junk rigged boats in the west so their voyage and their building of the boat were pioneering efforts. Lynda subsequently wrote a book Cutting the Dragons Tail that can be purchased here or if you are a member you can download it in pdf form from the JRA library.

Lynda writes: Our idea when building Tin Hau in South Africa was to create a unique charter boat for working in the eastern Mediterranean. Our original plan was to sail north through the Atlantic, entering the Med via the straits of Gibraltar. The hope was that the boat would be well proven by the time we started chartering. Fate (in the form of bureaucracy) stepped in and changed our plans, forcing us to leave at the wrong time of year for the westerly route. The maiden voyage, therefore, took us to Mauritius. More bureaucratic nonsense sent us on our way via Agalega and the Seychelles to the Chagos Archipelago. Here we spent several idyllic months anchored off a desert island. At the change of monsoon, we headed north-east to Sri Lanka, there to await another monsoon change to take us across to Aden and onward to Cyprus via the Red Sea. Tin Hau was hauled out in Cyprus and, working through a very hot summer, we overhauled everything that needed attention after two years in the tropics. We fitted in a brief visit to Turkey before returning to spend the Winter in Larnaca. Spring saw us on our way to Greece via Turkey and a year was spent working our way round the islands to Corfu for the next winter. It took a whole summer to cross the Mediterranean and out into the Atlantic, all plans to charter having been abandoned. We made landfall in Cornwall in 1990 and regretfully sold Tin Hau. She returned to the Med with her second owner who enjoyed sailing for a good number of years before passing her on to her current owners who have made many changes and sailed her extensively around Greece and Turkey. Sadly, she is now looking for another loving family to care for her. Our Boat of the Month Archive is here.