About the Zephyr

The Zephyr dinghy is an icon New Zealand yacht that has been around for nearly 50 years. The first two hundred or so hulls (#1 to 233) were personally built by designer Des Townson. A table of offsets and lines exist for construction, but all were taken off the one (maybe more) building jig(s). In the mid 1970s Christchurch sailors Maurice Hines, Austin Ebert, Bill Bain and Ken Maynard built #301-304 off a male they built themselves modelled on existing boats. This jig passed to Ray Frost, (#308-320) then Ian Franklin (#322-331). A small number of boats were built off this jig by amateurs (#305,307,321). About the same time a North Island jig was produced by Ian Cooke and used for # 234-239. The Christchurch jig was sent to Auckland and compared with the North Island jig and the North Island jig retained. This was used until the advent of a new jig for the cedar glass boats. Noel May and then Class Secretary Gary Adams built the jig used by boat builders Noel May, Gary Mathews and Pearson and Way to produce the "250 series" boats.

To reduce dependence upon a single jig, the ZOA commissioned Brett Bakewell-White to update and detail the original line drawings produced by Des Townson. A new mould for producing Zephyrs was constructed with builder Robert Brooke appointed to build new Zephyrs. Details of his progress appears elsewhere.

More info can be found at the www.zephyr.org.nz website