John Welsford: The evolving heritage of small boat design

WORDS: Paul Veart IMAGES: Dale Simonson, Creative Commons 2.0.

John Welsford has produced some of New Zealand’s most popular small boat designs. What role does heritage play in his work, and how has it been received by online boat building communities?

Even now, it’s one of the most famous stories in New Zealand sailing history: a young man, unemployed during the Great Depression, decides to build himself a boat and sail across the Pacific. Somehow, he pulls it off. His yacht, Ngataki, becomes a thing of legend, an “ugly duckling” that captures the hearts of 1930s New Zealand.

The young man in question is sailor, author and folk hero Johnny Wray, whose exploits are immortalised in the classic South Sea Vagabonds. Re-reading his story today is an exciting experience – and one that raises a question:

Are there any modern-day Johnny Wrays out there? Did two years of Covid-related lockdowns inspire a new generation of amateur boat builders?

If anyone would know, it would be John Welsford. For several decades he has been one of the world’s most celebrated small boat designers, producing plans for heritage-inspired, high-performing crafts that can be constructed by first time builders.

“We did see a slight lift in plans sales, but I’m not sure if there was more building going on, or if it was more just feeding dreams of freedom,” he says.

It’s not just the success of John’s designs that gives him this insight: it’s his work online. Since 2015 he has been an administrator of the John Welsford Small Craft Design Facebook group, a 6,600-strong community of enthusiastic sailors and boat builders from around the globe.

A brief search of the group reveals dozens of boats in various stages of completion. Members post about everything from how to sand the inside of a centreboard trunk to the pros and cons of roller-furled and hanked-on jibs, to what boat is best for beginner sailors (the consensus: not a laser).

“Between the other moderators and myself, and the general good manners of the membership, it’s a very pleasant group and one that is often very helpful to those with questions,” John says.

He’s right, it is a pleasant group – one of the friendlier places on the internet. The more time you spend there, the more you realise that members aren’t building boats because they’ve been forced inside by lockdowns: they’re building boats because they love them. Specifically, they love boats designed by John.

But what is it about his work that induces such support?

The answer – at least in part – is his pragmatic use of maritime heritage.

“By researching the boats traditional to the area in which my customer will be using their vessel, I can get a ‘picture’ of the conditions there, and I can design to suit their needs,” he explains. “The small craft of the Shetland Islands, to use an extreme example, will have evolved to work in large seas, strong tidal currents and strong winds.”

Central to this is an understanding of traditional boat designs not as static nostalgia but as a vital, evolving resource that can be engaged with – and put aside – as necessary.

Case in point: when commenting on historic construction techniques, John mentions that, “There is much to be interested in, and I encourage people to be interested in the traditional craft, but it’s only of limited value if not building a traditional boat.”

This leads to an associated aspect of his work: the ability to successfully reimagine these crafts using contemporary materials and design principles.

Gone are the chunky wooden dinghies you may remember from childhood –instead, he has embraced the wonders of plywood and epoxy.

“The possibilities for designing within this medium, which is where most of my work is done, are much wider than say, traditional carvel or clinker designs. We can today achieve shapes and weights that were, if not impossible with traditional construction methods, extremely difficult to build.”

One of the more recent examples of this is the Sei, a five-metre double-ended craft inspired by a set of plans John found in a museum in Hardangerfjord, Norway.

While the Sei has a distinct Viking aesthetic, the design adaptions and use of modern materials have made it more stable than its Norwegian counterpart and – crucially – 50% lighter. (This is also useful if you’re struggling to source traditional Viking construction materials such as animal hair, moss and tallow.)

Of course, the members of John’s Facebook page know all this already, not only via articles, but through their own constructions and sailing adventures. If a boat building project of your own sounds appealing, why not join them at www. facebook.com/groups/JWDesigns.

You can find John there, too, now he’s finished his move to dry land after a decade on the water.

“I do have a need for a really nice rowing boat, about 15 foot would be nice and I’ve started the preliminary sketches for that,” he says. “Rowing on a mirror calm lake, late on a warm moonlit summer’s night, is something that I’m very much looking forward to.” n