Tsk, tsk, Annie, you gave the private link, not the public link to the album.

http://www.junkrigassociation.org/Sys/PublicProfile/
2781717/PhotoAlbums/59982584

Offcuts is seriously small, at 5ft 4in. I reckon most people would be better served by the mark 2 Scraps, at 6ft 3 in.

This is obviously the ideal time to talk about the tender that John Welsford is designing for the JRA.  He has drawn the initial plans, but usually likes actually to build the boat before he offers them to builders.  If you go here, you can see a couple more photos taken of the plans.  Unfortunately, the quality isn't all it should be: John still prefers to draw on mylar sheets, which are hard to photograph.

The design concept is that of a safe tender, which is a good load carrier and a joy to row.  (Knowing John's designs, I think we can be assured of that.)  There is a single off-centre board, so that there is still room in the interior of the boat for shopping bags, jerricans, etc.  The design has built-in buoyancy for additional safety, particularly when being used under sail.

Our thinking was that it would be fun if several people were to build this boat, which, being designed as a tender, could be taken to junkets with the mother ship and then sailed together for light-hearted races and rig comparison.  The rig shown in the boat is a rough sketch, not a serious suggestion.  John reckons that people in the JRA who would be designing a variety of rigs to be tried!

As designed, it's not a particularly light boat, but John says that any builder who has some knowledge of building dinghies, could reduce the scantlings if they wanted a lighter boat.

John has offered to make the plans available for free to JRA members, which is really generous of him.

I am quite tempted to build this for my own tender, but feel she might be a bit bigger than I really need.  John's design, Offcuts at about 6ft, would possibly suit me better.

Has anyone had experience of the collapsible ones from Flapdoodle etc?

Whilst not specifically about the junk rig I thought I would fish for good ideas about something we mostly all need when we do go boating, and that is our dinghy, or tender. On 'Footprints' when cruising we have an inflatable dinghy. While many people do not necessarily approve of inflatables they do have advantages. Relatively light weight which makes them easy to get on or off the boat; the ability to be rolled up and stored in a very small area on the boat while passage making, or for transportation by vehicle, stable and with good load carrying ability for their length. Hmm, those seem to be the good points! They don't row very well, they are actually quite fragile, and they can be quite expensive to purchase.

Our current inflatable I bought new 7 years ago and it has served us well, but now the glue which attaches the plastic pieces to the rest of the dinghy is starting to fail. When discussing this problem with the dealer from whom I purchased the dinghy I was told that my inflatable had probably reached it's life expectancy. I was a bit shocked by this statement, as quite apart from the original purchase cost, it would seem that the inflatable dinghy is just another piece of 'throw away' consumerism destined eventually for the land fill site. Compare this to a hard dinghy which can potentially provide decades of useful service.

So, now I am on the search for a viable alternative to my inflatable. Admittedly I can probably repair the failing glue joints, but it is obviously going to be an ongoing process.  What is needed is a hard dinghy which can carry three adults, rows reasonably well, is lightweight for getting onto the boat for deck storage when passage making, has good stability, is able to handle a little bit of rough sea conditions when going to and from the boat, and is not too large. I have been looking at all the obvious sources for inspiration, including nesting dinghies, but so far have not found the ideal solution. There is a company in New Zealand which builds a type of solid inflatable which has many of the attributes I am after, but the starting price of about NZ$8000 does not really appeal to me!! octenders.co.nz I am thinking I might be able to build my own inexpensive plywood version of their smallest tender which is 2.7 meters in length. 

But has anyone out there found the ideal tender??