Random Boats

And now for a portrait of one of the most iconic yachts of all time, certainly the best known junk-rigged yacht in the world.  Blondie Hasler conceived Jester, his carvel-planked, 25' Folkboat, after some years of conventional ocean racing, having decided there must be a better way to cross oceans that to spend hours at a time on the foredeck, often in less than ideal conditions, cold, wet, tired, and at risk of being washed overboard, while reefing or changing sails.

After flirting with the Lapwing rig, he devised a simplified version of the Chinese lug sail rig, or junk rig as it is colloquially known, and proceeded to prove its efficacy by sailing it to New York and back across the North Atlantic Ocean in the inaugural Singlehanded Transatlantic Race, later known as the OSTAR, in 1960.  He was also the organiser of the OSTAR, as well as inventing the servo-pendulum, wind-driven self-steering system, and the self-tailing winch.

Jester and Blondie Hasler at the start of the 1960 Singlehanded Transatlantic Race.

Jester's guiding principle was that the boat could be handled at sea entirely from the small, circular, central hatch, which he called the control station.  All running rigging led here, and there was a vertical whipstaff below decks, with lines running back to the tiller, which came in through a slot in the transom, sealed with a watertight gasket, allowing Blondie to steer when necessary from the comfort of the hatch.

The view aft while underway, with Blondie controlling Jester from the central control station.  The box on the deck behind him contains the tails of the sheet and halyard.  He also invented an ingenious, rotating pramhood for the circular, central hatch, which could be rotated so that the opening was always to leeward, allowing the hatch to remain open for watch-keeping and fresh air in all but the most extreme weather.

Blondie peering out of Jester's rotating pramhood.

Blondie Hasler and Jester at the start of the 1964 OSTAR.

Blondie Hasler sailed Jester in the first two OSTARs, coming second to Francis Chichester in 1960, who was sailing the 40' sloop, Gypsy Moth 111, with an elapsed time of 48 days, compared to Chichester's 40 days, a remarkably close race result for two very unevenly matched boats.  After the 1964 race, he sold Jester to his friend, Mike Richey, founder of the Royal Institute of Navigation, who sailed the boat in a further 13 transatlantic passages, the last at the remarkable age of 81.  Throughout all of this passagemaking, Jester remained the simplest of boats, with no engine or electrics.  In later years, Mike Richey took a hand-held GPS receiver with him, but no other gadget ever came aboard.

This is one of my favourite photos of Jester and Mike Richey, taken by Henri Thibault at the start of the 1992 OSTAR, and published in the February edition of Cruising World magazine, illustrating an article about Mike Richey written by Herb McCormick.

Like a monk in his cell, Mike Richey felt at home in Jester's minuscule cabin.  He once considered the life of a monk, and took solace in the solitude of the ocean.

For me, Blondie Hasler's simplified junk rig for western yachts is one of the most brilliant design developments in the cruising world,  and it is certainly ideal for older, or geriatric sailors like myself.  At the age of 72, I no longer feel I can work the foredeck on a small yacht at sea, and even going to the mast to reef the mainsail does not appeal.  Because I sail in tropical and sub-tropical waters, I don't feel the need to stay inside the vessel, as the skipper does in Jester, but am happy to have a rig that allows mew to stay in the cockpit, especially one with a solid dodger and cockpit roof, as I fitted to my Tom Thumb 24, Arion.

Arion en route from Middle Percy Island to Digby Island, in central Queensland, May 2016.  Photo by Helen Palmer, SV Alchemy.