Category — Boats – sail number order

Not registered for a sail number originally although may have sailed as J357 in the end. Scrapped eventually:

Sailed from Roa Island originally, and then Ullswater.

Restoration – collection of photos from old posts – 2007 – 2008:

And more recently:

Photo below by Colin Urry

Unfortunately too flexible, after many years awaiting restoration so scrapped.

Auctioned in 2017 & likely exported to China.

Designed by Uffa Fox in 1953, and still actively sailed across the British Isles, Jollyboats here, now range from the thoroughly original, to one developed twin trapeze example, but the majority are still sailed within the spirit of the ‘one design’, utilising modern fittings.

The Jollyboat is a fast exciting boat designed for cruising or racing. In the British Isles, all the hulls (bar 1 under construction) were moulded by Fairey’s, in batches of 4. The boats were completed by, either Fairey’s themselves, or a variety of other boat builders/individuals. The shape and layout of the top deck was laid out in the rules, however the buoyancy could be either tanks or bags – as illustrated in the photos on the site.

Fairey built over 350 hulls, but the majority were exported, mostly to the USA and Canada. The few records and media we have access to indicate less than 100 boats were completed and sailed in the UK. We are hopeful that at least a quarter have survived. We know the whereabouts of nearly 20, and some of another 10 boats will probably be about. The rest have not be heard of for more than 50 years. All in all, a very good result.

On these pages we have endeavoured to provide basic reference material about Jollyboats, and plenty of photos. A more detailed archive of plans, association paperwork, newsletters and the like is being assembled.

The last organised British Jollyboat Association event (to our knowledge) was the 1971 Nationals, and while the association limped on for a few years after, its not existed formally for a very long time. That said, Jollyboat owners stayed in touch with each other, and with formation of the CVRDA in 1999 an umbrella association that most owners associate with has been there. Jollyboats are regularly sailed at CVRDA events, and other classic events such as the Bosham Classic Boat Revival.

The Classic Boat Museum in Cowes owns J80 ‘Comet’, so we are well served in that respect.

3 boats were owned by EISCA before the well known auction in 2017. 2 returned to private ownership and the water, 1 was lost to export.

We are always trying to expand our knowledge of the boats that survive, so if you have one and we are unaware of you, or lost contact, please make contact. Contact can be made via the main CVRDA website, or if you post on either on the CVRDA forum in the ‘Boat Chat’ section, or the CVRDA facebook page, we’ll see it.

I used to race (J35 Samantha ) in the late 60 s early 70s and we were using the new profile rudder blade which had a straight ( horizontal) base but still had the swept back leading edge . It was far superior to the old blob type rudder.

Terry

Keep in touch with Steve Moore’s incredible new boat.

http://steveboat.blogspot.com

To the best of my knowledge, this is the first Jollyboat to be built in the last 35 years in the UK.

It looks like a fantastic effort and we are all itching to see her on the water.

What number does she get? Now there is a good question and maybe one that Andrew Richardson – keeper of the records can answer….but not I!

I never knew the name for my Jollyboat…..and have normally called her ‘Effie’ after my mother.
I knew that it was made for Max Aitken and lived for a long while in his boat house next to Uffa Fox’s in Isle of White.  I knew it was sailed by Hillary Laing (Feranti) quite a bit before being used for development and research into ‘fast’ hull shapes when it was fitted with a speedo gland and presumably big clocks.  The clocks have gone although the place where they were is still evident.

But Andrew Richardson – Keeper of the Records for all things Jollyboat has found the original measurement form for J3 andnow I know she was called ‘Missy’.

Great news and hopefully we will be able to bring out more of this kind of information in the future.

Here is the Measurement Form.

J3 Missy Measurement Papers

cheers

eib

This image was sent to me by Justin Cetas of his Jollyboat in Canada.

More info as soon as I have it

These days most Jollyboats are using aluminum masts and stiff ones at that. But it wasn’t always that way, for a while the ‘wooden-tops’ were common in the fleet, but the earliest boats had wooden masts. Wonderful examples of wood-work. Amazingly light, there was not much weight advantage to going to an ali mast. They were made from two halves, some parts as thin as 1/4in. J3 still has its original mast, but is normally sailed with a Needlespar.

Unknown number or location.