When I bought my boat for JR conversion I picked a design I liked that was cheap and ugly, so I wouldn't feel bad ruining a good classic boat if I cut holes in the wrong place. In hindsight after all the conversion work, I shouldn't have worried about ruining any boat. They are just objects to help realize your dreams. Eventually they all end up in the junkyard, at the bottom of the ocean, or in your case, as firewood or furniture.

If your friends want to make offers to "rescue a classic" from your junk rig modifications, let them put up the money. Looking at the photos of your boat, any classic restoration to "original" condition would probably remove that funky raised cabin anyway. I doubt you are the first to customize this hull, you are just going further into the territory of unique, one-of-a-kind. I think it will look much better with a JR, I'm excited to see your results.

Introduction

Although we would have liked to build a boat from scratch, the costs and time frame of such a project really make no economic sense. Having said this, we wish Annie all the best with SibLim – we think there is real potential with this concept to come up with a unique design for a vessel not available on the market. We are happy to help with the construction of SibLim if we have the skills and are invited.

We started looking at secondhand boats suitable for conversion to junk rig. There are plenty of boats available to buy but not many small shallow draft keel boats with a bit of style about them. In the end we purchased a 6.6 metre yacht, with a generous beam of 2.4 metres and 1.1 metres of draft. She is a planked boat built in the early 1930’s to a Jorgenson/Hand design. At present she has a Bermudian rig with a large jib on a bowsprit but we believe she had a gaff rig in the past. Details of the boat’s history are sketchy but I reasoned if she is still going after all those years she must be well built and must be able to perform under sail with the ability to get herself out of trouble.

Hopefully nobody will object, but we have called her “Blondie” and she is moored in McLeod Bay in the Whangarei Harbour – the junk capital of New Zealand. The Hasler McLeod connection was instrumental in the choice of name.

We are sailing her with the Bermudian rig at the moment to get a feeling for the balance of the boat and how tender or stiff she is. We have uploaded some photos to our profile

Question 1.

When we have mentioned our plan to convert Blondie to junk rig we have had a few negative reactions. Some people are concerned that we intend to tamper with a New Zealand classic yacht. Are we doing the right thing?