Sailing the Argie 15

I designed the Argie 15 in 1988 for the Argus Newspaper Group in South Africa. They named it after the street corner sellers of their newspapers, the Argie Boys, as a dedication to them. In the more than 30 years since many hundreds of these boats have been built and they are to be found in 60 countries.

I was the first person to sail an Argie 15, the prototype that was built by journalist David Biggs. He produced the weekly DIY supplement for the newspaper and commissioned the design as a DIY project for his readers.

That is a young me at the helm, journalist David Biggs as crew, on the maiden sail of the Argie 15 prototype.

We sailed among the moored boats of False Bay Yacht Club, in about 8-10 knots of breeze, with the boat behaving beautifully. Many boats were built from the articles in newspapers and magazines, as well as plans bought from us, generating a strong following.

I didn't get to sail an Argie 15 again for nearly 30 years, when we launched our own boat three years ago. In all that time I only heard good reports about the handling characteristics of boats to this design. Then, a few months ago, a new builder asked me about the comments that he had read of these boats having lee helm and how to remedy it. I had not seen these comments and told him that I would do some testing with my boat when on a planned sailing trip to North Carolina in June.

That sailing trip was a few weeks ago. I went out by myself in light and fluky conditions that gradually built to about 15 knots and gusty afternoon sea-breeze. This gave me opportunity to test in a range of conditions.

I like to sail from well forward in my boats in light conditions, so I fitted my long tiller extension, a 6ft length of bamboo connected to the tiller by a short length of flexible hose on a pivot bolt. This would enable me to sail from anywhere in the cockpit, from far aft through to sitting on the centre thwart. I had seen in photos that some owners helm from aft, alongside the tiller, so I needed to test this position although I knew it would create problems.

This proved to be the case, with fore/aft trim having a big effect on helm balance. With weight aft, she trims bow-up and the bow gets blown downwind because the centre of lateral area moves aft. The hull should float close to the attitude shown on the sail plan to get the balance between sails and underbody correct.  If sailing alone, sit well forward, alongside the daggerboard. With other people aboard and sitting toward the front of the cockpit the helmsman can move aft, as seen in the photo of the prototype, keeping the boat fairly level. Just because you can sit next to the tiller is not a good reason to do so, trimming the boat level is what is needed.

Trimming the boat so that it heeled to leeward or windward also had a large effect on the helm balance. Sailing in steady light breeze while sitting on the windward side gave me lee helm but sitting on the leeward side gave me weather helm. In light but gusty conditions, sitting on the windward side, I had lee helm in the lulls and weather helm in the gusts. I then sailed downwind, standing in the middle of the cockpit, with one foot on each side of the cockpit. This allowed me to push down on either foot to change the heel angle. With the rudder on centreline I was able to steer the boat to either side as much as I wanted, with my feet. Pushing down on the windward side heeled it to windward and gave lee helm, pushing the bow toward the leeward side. Pushing down on the leeward side did the opposite.

This results from changes in the shape of the immersed portion of the hull with changes of heel angle. When heeled over to leeward, which is the correct attitude when sailing, the leeward side of the hull becomes more curved and the windward side becomes less curved. The neat symmetrical hull shape when upright changes to somewhat of a banana shape when heeled and that banana shape turns the boat toward the high side.

At the same time the centre of the sail area, through which the wind drives the boat forward, moves off to leeward of the hull. The drag from the water, holding the boat back, stays at the hull. This results in a lever with the sails pushing forward at the one end and the hull holding back at the other end. This causes the boat turn to windward, i.e.to have weather helm.

Those two effects from heel that create the desired weather helm will also work in reverse. Heel your boat to windward instead of to leeward and those effects will move to the other side of the boat and give you lee helm.

The effect of fore/aft trim and heel on helm balance is common to most boats of all sizes that have a fin keel, centreboard or daggerboard. I used these affects on my Didi 38 "Black Cat" to maximize boat speed in light to moderate conditions. In light breeze I had most of my crew to leeward on the foredeck. As the wind increased I gradually moved crew aft and to windward, one person at a time, thereby adjusting the amount of weather helm by changing the fore/aft trim and heel angle. It works exactly the same in a dinghy like the Argie 15.

The take-away lesson from this is that you can adjust the helm to suit yourself, between lee helm, neutral and weather helm, by moving weight around the boat. For the Argie 15 the main points are:-

1) It should not be sailed bow-up but it does not mind sailing bow-down. In light conditions I would sail it bow-down but would trim it level fore/aft for most other conditions. In strong conditions downwind I would get weight further aft, as is normal with most boats.

2) It should not be sailed heeled to windward. Crew don't have to sit on the windward side, they can sit wherever needed to get the nicest feel for the helm in light conditions. In stronger breeze the boat will naturally have weather helm and will need the crew to windward for stability. Again, this is the same for most other boats.

There are also sail adjustments that can affect the helm. More power from the sails increases weather helm. Sails that are full (lots of camber) generate a lot more power than sails that are flat, so they create weather helm. Increase power in the mainsail for light breeze by slacking the foot to increase camber. With a jib that has the forestay inside a sleeve at the luff there should be a line at the bottom of the luff, tying it to the eye of the stay. This line is used to adjust the tension of the luff, which adjusts fullness of the sail. Tighten the line to flatten the sail and loosen it to make the sail more full for more power. If you have Cunningham lines rigged on your boat for jib and mainsail you will use them to adjust luff fullness.

Whether you have an Argie 15 or some other dinghy or small keelboat, you can test these principles on your own boat. When you know the characteristics of your boat you will improve its performance and your racing results.

To see our range of boat designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Another Argie 15 Build in Russia

Our designs have been built in 90 countries, including well over 300 boats across the length and breadth of Russia, even in the middle of Siberia. They span most of our design range, from the little plywood Dixi Dinghy yacht tender through to the steel Dix 57 world cruiser. Nearly half of those boats are to our ever-popular Argie 15 design.

The most recent launch of an Argie 15 was by amateur builder Ilia Bogdanov, who lives in Khadarovsk in Far Eastern Russia, 760km north of Vladivostok. Ilia is a cardiovascular surgeon in his day-time job and built his Argie 15 in his spare time. Compared with the very delicate and intricate work of repairing a patient's heart, building a wooden boat must be a big change of scale.

Ilia has built a good boat of nice quality, in sometimes unpleasant conditions, certainly far from optimal. Seeing what Ilia has accomplished, with the help of a friend, should be an inspiration to boatbuilders in other faraway places, where finding suitable materials and build location can be a major challenge. It shows how fortunate we are if we are able to build our boats in a moderate climate or a heated/cooled/dry workshop and with a wide choice available to us of plywoods, epoxies, hardware etc to craft into a beautiful and safe vessel.

I see criticism sometimes of materials and methods used by builders in other countries but those resourceful builders have to hunt out the best materials that they can find to go into their boats. Those materials may not be as workable or as aesthetically pleasing as what more fortunate builders may choose but they are available and they do what is needed by the builder.

I will let Ilia's photos and my captions tell the story of his build, an achievement of which he can be proud.

Ilia's workshop was his garage, 2nd from left. It has water in it when the snow melts or when it rains.

Ilia started with a kit, bought from Peter Tatarinov, our Russian kit supplier in Irkutsk, Siberia. The water on the slab is snow melt.

Ilia unpacking his Argie 15 kit.

Hull completed, seat framing going in.

Scuppered gunwales with a difference, the slots are on the outside rather than the inside. 

Ilia filled the side seat compartments with foam flotation.

Home-made access covers using the details on the drawings.

Ilia and his children ready to use their new Argie 15.

Running under power from the 6hp outboard.

And here Ilia is racing in a mixed yacht club fleet on the Amur River.

Congratulations Ilia on your project.

To see more of this and out other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Argie 15 Nearing Completion

It has been a long time since my last post about our Argie 15 project. Work has been going on but big life events have taken away from the time needed to write blog posts. The main event was a change in the status of builder Kevin  Agee, now our son-in-law after marrying our daughter Michelle last month.

Newly-married, our daughter Michelle and new son-in-law Kevin Agee.

OK, time to get life back to normal. The Argie 15 is nearing completion and looks very different from when you last saw it. It took its first road trip, on my Paper Jet trailer. The destination was my own garage, for painting.

Ready for preparation for paint.

After turning the boat upside-down, final inspection, masking the rub-rails and other bright-finished surfaces, blowing off the dust with a leaf blower then cleaning with acetone, it was ready for spraying to start.

First coat was a high-build epoxy primer, to give an easily-sanded layer to form the foundation for a good finish.

Next came a white primer. This was needed to cover the grey epoxy, which can cause blotchy problems with finish coats.

When I sprayed my Lotus, I changed the colour from the original red to yellow. I sprayed the yellow over a grey primer and found that yellow paint has problems covering grey. What initially looked like good cover is a bit green and blotchy in low-light situations. The green tone is the grey primer showing through and the blotchiness is caused by variations in the yellow film thickness. I must spray another coat over the car to get a uniform yellow colour. Lesson learned, we added a coat of white primer to the paint schedule of the Argie 15 to ensure good cover.

A coat of high-build epoxy primer also went onto the vertical surfaces of the cockpit because these will be gloss white. The horizontal areas will be beige non-skid, so a perfectly smooth surface was not needed.

The transom was to be white, so that was sprayed first, then masked off with paper before spraying the rest of the hull.

Completed hull painting, with yellow hull and white transom

The varnished rub-rails laminated from cedar and poplar set off the hull nicely. The holes through the hull sides are to drain the leeward side seats if any spray comes aboard when sailing in lumpy and breezy conditions.

 The new boat made its first public appearance by doing bar service at the wedding. It worked as a giant cooler, holding beers and soft drinks on ice for the wedding guests.

The other work that has been going on is building the spars. I am doing that work, having decided to make wooden spars using the birdsmouth method. In keeping with the varnished woodwork on the hull, I have made the mast and boom from alternating strips of cedar and poplar. I won't go into the details of building the spars in this post but will do that in later posts on my Boatbuilding Tips Blog. The Argie 15 plans show the mast in two sections, so that the rig can be stowed inside the hull. I could have made the mast in one length by scarphing the strakes into long lengths but elected to stay with the two-part mast. This allowed me to work with lengths that fit more comfortably inside a single garage.

Gluing a mast section using the bidsmouth method.

Mast sections and boom shaped and being epoxy-coated. The one closest to the camera is the boom, the other two being the two sections of the mast. The long mast higher up in the garage is my Paper Jet mast, built by a similar method.

Launch day is approaching. The sails have been made and hardware will soon start going onto the deck and rig.

See more of this and our other designs on our main website or our mobile website.

Argie 15 - Fitting the Daggerboard Casing & Rub-Rails

Moving on with the Argie 15 project, I covered the bottom runners in my previous post. The runners serve multiple purposes, which I forgot to explain. The runners give some protection to the bottom when beaching the boat, by lifting it a bit when pulled onto rough beaches. They strengthen the bottom by serving as stringers but, being on the outside of the boat, they keep the bottom of the cockpit clean for a more comfortable sleeping space when camp-cruising. They also help to improve the efficiency of the planing surface by channeling the water parallel to centreline rather than losing energy by moving off to each side.

At this stage we also checked the fit of the daggerboard. It slid nicely through the slot in the hull. Kevin had glued the end spacers to the one side of the daggerboard casing but the second side was still loose. When we checked the fit, the board wouldn't go through. Checking the sides for straightness showed that they bowed inwards a few millimeters, enough to jam the board. That gave warning that care had to be taken when gluing it all together to ensure that the sides remained straight throughout the height of the casing.

The daggerboard casing glued up, including the top and bottom framing. The blue pieces at the top are spacers to force the sides against the framing, to ensure that there is no curvature in the surfaces to reduce the width and jam the board.

The casing glued in place. The blue spacers were left in place until the glue had cured, so that there would be no chance of the casing distorting and reducing the width of the slot.

Next on the "to do" list is the rub-rails. These are laminated to the outside of the hull, at the gunwales. They stiffen the hull, changing a fairly flexible plywood edge into a robust gunwale that is capable of taking a knock if needed. Some builders of the Argie 15 don't use this detail from our drawings, instead changing it to an internal scuppered inwale detail. That is a very pretty detail that is well-suited to traditional rowing boats and similar craft, adding the benefit of tie-off points anywhere that you want along the gunwales but is more difficult to do. For the Argie 15, which will be sailed with the crew sitting along the sides of the cockpit, the inwale creates an uncomfortable surface to lean against instead of the clean surface of the original design.

Kevin called on me to assist with fitting the rub-rails. The laminations are fitted in single lengths (scarphed from short pieces), so are awkward for one person to handle in a confined space. Getting them correctly positioned on the wet glue while also working with clamps calls for some ingenuity if working by yourself. It is simpler to call in a pair of extra hands.

This job calls for lots and lots of clamps. We did both sides in one evening, which needed all of Kevin's clamps as well as all of mine. If you are brave and short of time then you might want to laminate all layers at the same time. This is risky because it needs slow-setting glue that won't set before you are able to wet-out all strips, get them into place, manipulate three or fours slippery lengths into proper alignment and get all the clamps in place and correctly tensioned.

We chose instead to do one layer at a time. Rather than four layers of equal thickness, Kevin prepared inner and outer layers of poplar and a middle layer of cedar of double-thickness. This gives a nice stiff gunwale with a tougher outer surface than if all layers were cedar. It is also very pretty.

Kevin with the Argie 15 after clamping the first layer of the gunwale.

Two days later we also glued the second layer of the rub-rail. We managed to break one of the scarphs even before starting with the gluing. The epoxy was not fully cured yet so the epoxy was well short of final strength. We were able to still laminate it onto the  first layer by carefully clamping at the joint to hold it closed against the bending loads applied by the curvature to which it had to comply.

When gluing all laminations after the first one, it is best to get the bottom completely flush and let the top look after itself. The reason is that it is very easy to clean up and neatly finish the top  but much more difficult to do the same to the bottom of the rail because of the adjacent plywood.

That's all for now. To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Shaping the Argie 15 Foils

I said in my previous Argie 15 blog post that Kevin Agee laminated the blanks for the foils from strips of cedar and poplar. Aside from making very attractive foils, it also has the benefit that they can be made from relatively inexpensive wood that can be bought at your local hardware store. Cedar that is available from Lowes or Home Depot is generally of inferior standard that may not be suitable for foils. Laminating strips of timber of differing characteristics can use the one to strengthen the other, at the same time serving a decorative function.

Daggerboard blank, cut to outline shape and sanded smooth, ready for shaping.

I won't go deeply into the shaping process for the foils, I will do that in a separate post on my Boatbuilders Tips blog. That should be posted in the next few weeks. For this post I will show only the basics.

The daggerboard is shaped to an airfoil section below the hull and rectangular where it is inside the daggerboard slot. Similarly, the rudder blade is foil-shaped in the water and rectangular where it is inside the rudder stock. I did this shaping with a hand plane, a belt sander, a Japanese Shinto rasp and hand-sanding with a sanding block.

The shaped daggerboard, foil section over most of its length, rectangular in the hull.
Note all the sanding dust on the floor, which must all be vacuumed up before any glassing starts.

The shaped rudder blade. Holes are for pivot bolt and up- and down-haul lines.

The next stage was to sheathe them in fiberglass fabric, in epoxy resin. The rudder is small enough to clamp in a vice, leading edge upward, then to drape the epoxy-saturated glass fabric over both sides of the blade at the same time. This I did by wetting out the glass with epoxy on a flat sheet of plastic, then moving it to the rudder, which was firmly clamped in the vice fitted with soft jaws. The top of the rudder is in the vice, so can't be glassed at the same time and must be glassed as a separate operation later.

Glass fabric draped over rudder to glass both sides at the same time, meeting at the trailing edge.

The daggerboard is a lot larger then the rudder, so maneuvering a piece of glass fabric large enough to cover both sides and weighed down with epoxy would be very awkward, so I chose to glass that one side at a time. I laid the board on a sheet of plastic to protect my workbench from droplets of epoxy. Doing one side at a time allowed me to lay the dry glass over the whole of one side of the board, wetting it out with epoxy in place. I supported the glass that was projecting past the trailing edge with a spacer under the plastic sheet, to stop the glass from drooping, which would mess up the clean trailing edge that is needed.

First side of the daggerboard glassed.

Some of the edges of the rudder and daggerboard don't have glass covering them after this, so they are covered with glass tape to complete the covering. There is also a lot of sanding going on between these steps, to feather edges of glass fabrics and tapes and to generally make smooth surfaces.

Glass-taping the leading edge and bottom  of the daggerboard. This batch of epoxy went off faster than I expected due to warmer air temperature, so the glass is a bit rough in places, needing more sanding.

I added another two coats of epoxy over all the surfaces, with more sanding between coats and after the final one. As a last step on the rudder blade I blanked off one side of all holes with painters tape then filled those holes with epoxy. I let it stand for about 15 minutes for the epoxy to soak into the timber, then removed the tape to allow the excess to drain out. This step is to prevent (or at least minimise) the absorption of water into the wood.

Daggerboard and rudder after 3 coats of epoxy, before final sanding.

The daggerboard still needs a handle, so I cut this from a poplar plank, in two matching pieces. I glued these to the faces of the board along the top edge.

Shaped timber handle pieces glued to both sides of the daggerboard. The board has been sanded to ready it for finishing with varnish.

I have now sanded and epoxy-coated the handle and the foils are nearly ready for varnish as the final finish.

To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Update on Our Argie 15 Project

Kevin Agee is working hard at our new Argie 15, completing epoxy coatings on the inside of the boat, including sanding and other tidying up to give a nice standard of finish. These smoothing tasks are worth doing all through the build, or the runs and bumps will accumulate into lumpy surfaces and rough edges.

A few years ago I was asked to do a talk to a yacht club meeting. The club members were building some sailing dinghies at the time, which they showed me. The plywood stitch-&-glue hulls had been built and epoxy-coated. Later, during my presentation, the members were looking through my photo albums of my own projects. The photos of the Paper Jet, with its mirror finish, brought a few questions. They wanted to know how I had achieved such a finish, using the same build method as their lumpy boats.

A finish to make any builder proud of what has been achieved. Get there by simply sanding out all imperfections on each coat before applying the next. This is not an Argie 15, it is the prototype of the Paper Jet.

The secret is to apply enough epoxy in each layer to do the intended job and no more than that, then to ensure that it doesn't dry with runs to spoil the surface. If the coating is too thick then it will run. If you leave the runs then apply the next coat, the runs will become accentuated by the next coat of epoxy and you will have even more runs. After three coats of epoxy the surface will be so lumpy that you may need an angle-grinder or a bucket of filler to smooth it out. It is much easier and more satisfying to just sand out all imperfections on each coat before commencing the next one. The epoxy being used for the Argie 15 build is MAS low viscosity epoxy. Being mid-winter, we are using the MAS fast hardener to shorten setting and curing times.

MAS low viscosity epoxy with fast hardener speeds up curing in the frigid winter temperatures.

The first coat will take the most epoxy because it will soak into the wood. Add more epoxy to areas that look dry until a thin layer stays on the surface. The second and third coats will need less epoxy because it won't soak into the already sealed surface.

The holes for the inspection covers have been cut. We have 15 of them in total for the boat, to get access throughout the inside of the hull. These under-seat spaces are not only buoyancy, they are also dry-storage compartments for clothing, food packages, tools etc. They need to be accessible for cleaning and to retrieve lost items; you don't want to have spots that even the longest arms in the family can't reach. I elected to use Viking 5" inspection hatches, which are currently in the mail. Kevin used a large hole saw to cut the openings. They can also be cut with a router fitted with a circle-cutting attachment or it can be done with a jigsaw. These latter two methods would be easiest done before the panels are glued into the boat but the hole saw method is easy enough to do in the boat.

Holes for access hatches (inspection covers) cut into all of the compartments.

The drains through the centre seat have also been installed. These were made from a length of 32mm ID PVC pipe that was cut in half lengthwise to make two U-sections. These have been glued to the bottom panel and then glassed over and epoxy-filleted. The ends project through the bulkheads and will be trimmed flush. Don't forget to paint your three coats of epoxy to the hull skin before gluing the half-tubes in place, don't leave this for later.

Drains passing through centre seat, glassed over and filleted.

Kevin has also been working on the mast step and partners, getting them ready to glue in when the hull is ready for them.

Mast partners on the left, mast step on the right.

For more on this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Argie 15 Seat Fronts

The seat fronts have now been fitted to the framing in our Argie 15. This is a fairly simple stage of the build, the groundwork having been done in constructing the framing and pre-bending the seat front panels, described in my previous posts. Builder Kevin Agee says that pre-bending the panels helped a lot in making this stage easy.

The side seat fronts are set vertically. Start by using a carpenter's square to draw a line on each seat riser, perpendicular to the top edge and at the position where the side seat front will intersect. Use those lines as a guide while fitting the side seat fronts.

Dry-fit each seat front to check for correct shape of the ends. You may have to trim a bit to allow it to fit in the vertical position rather than sloping in or out a few degrees. This can vary for each boat, depending on how accurately the transverse risers were installed.You also may have to trim the bottom edge to fit neatly against the hull. The neater, the fit the easier it will be to get a nice overall finish on your boat.

I have noticed that many builders don't install the side seats in the bow, possibly to give more space in the forward cockpit area. I have chosen to have the side seats full length of the boat for multiple reasons. 1) It makes the boat more suitable for rough water use by reducing the volume of water that can land in the forward cockpit to weigh it down if we take a big wave over the bow. 2) It will float the boat higher if capsized, so it will hold less water when brought back upright, less water to bail out and the boat will be safer immediately after being righted. 3) Spray that comes over the bow and lands on the leeward side seat will run aft along the leeward side of the seat to where I will have drain holes to take it out through the sides of the boat. 4) There are comfortable seats in the bow for when the boat is used for fishing or when children are aboard.

Side seat front being glued in place.  The bottom edge has been trimmed to give a neat fit against the hull and minor trimming was done to fit the ends to the transverse seat risers. 

Joints of seat front against hull and transverse seat risers bonded with epoxy fillets. The top edge is a bit high and will be planed flush after the glue has all cured.

All seat risers glued in place.

Same stage, bow view.

Our Argie 15 is now developing into a really neat dinghy. I look forward to getting it onto the water.

To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Pulling the Argie 15 Hull Together

Our new Argie 15 is coming along nicely. Kevin Agee is building it in his garage, shared with the Inlet Runner prototype that he built two years ago.

The hull has a bottom panel and two side panels each side. Assembly starts by joining the lower side panels to the bottom panel and to each other at the bow. This is a stitch-&-glue boat, so the panels are joined with plastic electrical ties threaded through paired holes.

The port lower side panel has been joined to the bottom panel. The ties are left a little loose at this stage, to allow fine-tuning when all panels are together.

Both lower side panels have been fitted and the port upper side panel is going on..

Bottom and sides all connected with electrical ties. The lines that are visible along the upper side panels mark where the stringer will be that supports the side seats. At this stage the hull panels are setting the shape of the hull. When the transom and bulkheads are installed they will reshape the hull to the intended shape. The grey patches on the panels are where the panels have been joined into single lengths with jigsaw joints.

Next step is to fit the transom. There may be a bit of excess length on the side panels, some projecting aft of others. Dry-fit the transom with the bottom edge aligned with the end of the bottom panel and the sides aligned for a "best fit" situation. You will need to press the transom down into the hull so that it presses the aft end of the bottom panel into a slight V-shape locally and the corners of the transom fit into the chines (joints between the panels). The hull panels are then marked along the outer face of the transom to show where they must be trimmed to fit flush with the transom.

Dry-fitting the transom into the hull panels, tied in place for marking the panels for trimming to an exact fit, if needed.

Next the transom is removed from the hull and the panels trimmed along the lines that were drawn. Then the transom is fitted back into position and permanently tied with electrical ties. Now is a good time to check the hull, to make sure that it is straight, not twisted out of shape, comparing the two sides of the hull by sighting over the top of the transom. If out-of-true it can be adjusted now, before tightening the ties.

Panels all tied together and tightened once the hull is straight. Some of these ties are copper wire, where it was found that a bit more tension was needed than electrical ties could provide without breaking.

Installing the bulkheads is next, in positions described in the building instructions.

Bulkheads (seat fronts) secured in position. The planks are temporary stiffeners to keep the plywood straight. 

Our Argie 15 is now starting to look like a nice boat. My next update will be bonding the various panels together permanently.

To see more of this and our other designs, visit our Flickr Albums, main website or mobile website.

Paper Jet #100

Today we have shipped plans for Paper Jet #99 to a builder in Samara, Russia. To date we have sold plans for this design to builders in 21 countries, on all continents except Antarctica. This one is being built from a pre-cut kit supplied by our kit supplier in Irkutsk, in Siberia.

Another Russian Paper Jet, #65, belonging to Konstantin Denisov, near Moscow.

The next Paper Jet that we sell will, of course, be sail number 100. Who wants to be #100?

Dudley Dix

Paper Jet Prototype for Sale

I designed the Paper Jet to be an exciting junior trainer, capable of taking a young sailor through multiple skill-levels, from a basic free-standing una-rigged dinghy through to a high-performance trapeze skiff with asymmetric spinnaker. This it does without having to spend bundles of money to trade up to another boat, by doing it all on the same hull and adding or swapping rig and hardware components. She is extremely light, with the hull weighing only 94lb, easily manhandled by small crew.

Paper Jet in una-rig Lite format.

It has proven capable of doing all that I intended, although I have used my prototype #001 as a single-hander for myself. I have cruised it in sedate fashion in light breezes, when it reels off the miles. I have also blasted on trapeze at well over 20 knots just clipping the tops of the waves. And between those two extremes she has given me many hours of fun and exhilarating sailing.

Paper Jet in Turbo format, with asymmetrical spinnaker on the foredeck.

But, I have had knee problems since a teenager, from surfing too many hours in icy cold water without a wetsuit. Now, 50 years later, it has caught up with me. My knees won't let me get out on trapeze any more and my left knee dislocated at least 6 times while sailing this past weekend. In the middle of a tack is no time to be manipulating a dislocated knee back to its intended format.

So, the Paper Jet prototype, sail #001, is for sale. She comes with all components for all three rig formats as well as upgrades that I made to the design over the 8 years that I have sailed her. Included are:-

Standard mainsail
Turbo full-batten fathead mainsail
Jib on roller-furler
Asymmetrical spinnaker with sock
Mast with short and long topmasts
Boom
Retracting bowsprit
Daggerboards - three different lengths
Rudders - old and new versions
All deck hardware
All standing & running rigging
Launching dolly

Selling price is $8,000, which is not a lot more than the material cost to build her with all of the sails and bits that she has. She is in good shape, with totally watertight hull, just needing some minor paint and varnish touch-ups. We will have her at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic CT this coming weekend, from Friday through Sunday. After that she will be back at our base in Virginia Beach VA.

If interested, please contact me.