Jenny (with modifications)

I had admired the lines of Jenny, as shown in the thread started by Tony Hadley and he had kindly sent me some further photos of his lovely model. The boat was originally designed by Douglas McGhee and I purchased plans from Sarik.

However I Wanted to make a few modifications. Firstly wanted to hide the sail control within the boat itself (the original shows an arm coming through the hatch. Secondly I replaced the long keel with a fin and lead weight in the hope of improving its sailing performance. In order to do this I had to incorporate a fin box using ply doublers. Thirdly I replaced the nylon stocking reinforcement with lightweight glass and epoxy. Finally I enlarged the rudder slightly.

The inside of the boat before gluing the deck:

At the bottom of the photo is the sail arm servo, an inexpensive 180 degree one.  I cut a slot in the bulkhead just forward to allow the full movement of the arm.

Edited By Garth Thompson on 28/06/2021 07:37:45

Nice neat and tidy construction. Just be sure that nothing catches you out and you cannot access it after the deck is attached.

This tends to happen when you make modifications to a plan and you haven't envisaged every eventuality!

Here is the finished model showing the fin keel and the larger rudder:

and the boat sailing:

I'm pretty pleased with the performance although I have no way of comparing it with the original design.

Richard, you are so right! My problem was that, when the sheets are eased the slack isn't necessarily taken up, especially in light winds. The sail control strings could then get tangled with other parts, e.g. the rudder servo. My (rather Heath Robinson) solution was to insert a piece of thin card to separate the sail control mechanism (which is higher in the boat) from the rest of the stuff.

She looks lovely on the water though.

Here's another

Garth,

A superb result, your model looks extremely graceful on the water. The gaff rig is a very neat feature of this model. Must agree with the modifications you have carried out, especially the stability improvement with the modified keel. Douglas McGhee did pass comment in the original magazine article about the model only being a fair weather model and mine was the same.

Unfortunately I no longer have mine, The Secretary of the local model boat club bought it and he was exhibiting it at shows before Covid appeared.

Douglas later built a slightly larger version with a schooner rig.

At the end of the magazine article Douglas's comment reads - "Finally, Jenny is a lightweight fair weather yacht, so look out for your 1920s style striped blazer and straw boater".

Thanks for showing the photographs and I am really pleased that you have got so much enjoyment from the model.

Tony

Thank you Tony for your kind words. I haven't got any photos of it sailing to windward but it makes good progress in lightish winds. The gun'l has certainly got wet. However it remains only suitable for fairly light winds; the sail area is quite large for the size of hull.