I have to agree with Arne. The winner is a beautiful little sail boat, the perfect solution to a little cruising sail boat for a keen teenager. The plans are beautifully presented and details carefully thought out. In terms of safety as well as performance, this should win a prize for the best sail boat.

But it is (in my opinion) not particularly outstanding as a tender, probably the most expensive to build, by no means simple to build and therefore probably outside the very loose criteria of the competition.

I write this with respect to the judge of the competition, who has taken great care to be fair and transparent, and make clear his reasons for the choice. This shows how widely opinions vary on the subject of small boats, as does the wide variety of entries, all of which had their very good points.

It should also be pointed out that any one of us could have had the chance to participate in the judging, but chose not to. The problem for me is that while the criteria were clear enough to possibly eliminate a couple of the entries, they were loose enough that in the end it would never have been possible to choose a winner to everyone’s satisfaction. David Ch stepped up and did the difficult job impartially and creditably, so hats off to David.

It was never of much interest to me which of the entries would “win”. The exciting thing was the variety of response and the excellence of all the different entries. The depth of talent within the JRA resulted in a suite of lovely dinghy designs of all shapes and sizes, a permanent and valuable asset for all members. And also, the competition generated a fair amount of interesting discussion, the consensus being “its horses for courses”. I feel the “competition” was a great success and I offer my compliments to the instigators, all the entrants, the judge, and the eventual winner. But especially the entrants.

As an afterthought, it would be a shame if this resource were now to be quietly forgotten. The pity is, most of the publicity centred around the JRA forum, which is probably not followed by a large proportion of the members. The magazine, which we all read, would have been (and continues to be) the better repository for a permanent record.  It would be good now if the design suite, with drawings and brief comments from designers, could be published in the magazine in its entirety.

Well,

call me a grumpy old loser anyone, but I have to disagree with the committee’s choice of winner.

In the specification, under, Description, one can read:

“... Simple and cheap to build, (think along the lines of building on a beach when the inflatable gives up the ghost unexpectedly...)”

This description doesn’t inspire to make super-detailed plans. I thought that the idea mainly was to give enough dimensions to knock together the hull with the right shape. The interior had second priority as most builders will follow their own ideas and needs anyway. Two or three pages with lines and dimensions should be enough to get started.

To build John Perry’s GP Pram, one will need both a computer with a CAD program, and probably a CNC-cutter or full-size plotter as well. This is as far from the specs. “Simple and cheap to build...” as one can possibly get. Therefore, in my opinion, the GP Pram should be ruled out after just a quick glance on the plans.

As for that 3-panel ‘Halibut Special rig” which the judge regards to be on the small side; that sail can of course be scaled up or down, depending on needs  -  there is no need to spell out such details.

The same goes for “The ultimate drainage bung” (on this suddenly popped-up list of ‘boxes’): I and no one else but Mr Perry remembered to mention the bung. How dopey of us...

Arne

Competition Results

The Committee is delighted to announce the results of the dinghy design competition. The Winner is John  Perry for his design General Purpose Pram Dinghy. He is awarded the prize of £250.

The second and third best designs (DD and AD) both came from David Webb. A fantastic showing, and a contribution to the competition for which we are most grateful. As our prize fund received an unexpected external boost (thanks to our donor), the Committee has allocated an additional prize of €200 to to acknowledge his achievement with these designs.

The fourth home was David Tyler with his design Sibling. Again, a prize of €200 is allocated for this design also, with our thanks for the submission.

In truth, all the designs were excellent, each of them could be “just the thing” for the right member, and every one of them showed the ingenuity required to meet the complex and varying demands of the cruising sailor in relation to dinghies and tenders. What is a winner for one skipper in one boat for his/her sailing might be less ideal for another.

We are therefore particularly grateful to our judging panel who documented as objectively as one might reasonably expect the performance of each design against defined criteria. They were also kind enough to outline areas in which further design developments might make each design even better for the right use case. And we would very much like to acknowledge the wonderful models and videos produced by Graeme Kenyon which made the designs seem so much more concrete.

Attached are two documents which outline the general judging comments and then the comments specific to particular designs.

Many congratulations to all

Hi, any feedback from the judging committee, it was originally scheduled for a result in June?  

David.

This one's for Arne.

The name's been taken.

I noticed the other day there is already a dinghy called "Simplicity 8", its a Selway Fisher design, here .

Speaking of Arne's Simplicity 8 - I just knew this would happen - here is an almost identical design, boasting a 25hp outboard motor.

3m x 1.5 m and almost identical in design to Arne's.

Pity you didn't enter it in the design competition Arne, you might have won for the highest top speed - its for sale here on Trademe and the owner claims 41 km/hour. 

I hope never to see it in any peaceful bay in which I may anchor - at least, not with that motor on the back. Its already had a reinforced transom fitted (no surprise there) and the duck-shooter owner now claims it "will take all and any hp engines thrown at it..." Sigh... horses for courses, I guess.