Hello John, it is good to read your thoughtful and illuminating post on this forum, and congratulations on submitting the winning design.
The Editor of the JRA magazine has asked me to write a series of articles, one for each of the dinghy design entries. I have thought it best to make each of these articles comprise the words of the individual designers themselves, and I can do this by editing the designers’ comments which they each submitted with their entries, together with comments they themselves have posted on the forum.
The editor has suggested about 1,000 words and perhaps 5 or 6 illustrations. There is probably sufficient material already contributed by the designers to make this possible – the hard part will be deciding what to leave out, as each of these unique little vessels has many features of interest.
In my mind, the purpose of the series will be to document permanently this rich portfolio of dinghy designs, for members’ future reference and use, on behalf of the designers. I Intend to keep any comments to a minimum (perhaps just in order to point out obvious good features which the designers may have omitted to mention, or were too modest to do so). If any of the designers would like to make further comments on this forum, now is the time. Also, in some cases, further photographs and drawings will be welcome. Where we do not have a photograph of the dinghy, I guess we can resort to a photo of a model, as a scale model for each has been made.
If any of the designers would like to take on the job themselves, of writing up and illustrating their own design within about 1000 words, then by all means please do so. Otherwise I will do it, based on what the designers have already written.
I think Arne’s specially-designed dinghy junk rig is worth an article in itself, either written by Arne or based on a compilation of what was written in this forum. In addition, there were a number of designs which were mooted, gave rise to discussion, but were not officially entered. I think they too are worth documenting, and with the designers’ permission I intend to do so.
Thank you to each of the contributors.
PS: as the series, at one dinghy per magazine issue, would stretch out over a period of more than a couple of years, I personally think it would be more useful to print a magazine supplement dedicated to the dinghy designs - with a copy sent to each of the members who subscribe to the paper magazine - and a digital copy to the other members, and to be added to the digital magazine archive. That, of course, is a matter for the Editor and the committee to decide. I have no idea what other members think of that idea.