Gaffling 4.1

Product Description

The Gaffling 4.1 is a new one-design class sailing dinghy designed to be built at home. The Gaffling distinguishes itself by its classic lines and traditional gaff rig. The design is promoted by the OGA, the Association of Gaff Rig Sailing, as an entry boat to sailing gaff rigged boats.

The Gaffling has a single-chine hull, like many popular plywood dinghy classes, but with a more classic appearance, with a sweeping sheer and a raked transom. With lots of bright work in the cockpit, she is lovely to look at.

The Gaffling 4.1 has been designed for the Old Gaffers Association by Andrew Wolstenholme, a leading designer of wooden boats, to give more young sailors the opportunity to experience this classic style of dinghy sailing. The OGA organise a series of rallies and an annual Gaffling Championship, where you can meet up and compete with other Gaffling owners.

It is a stable boat with a good turn of speed and a roomy cockpit that you sit in rather than leaning out, making it a relatively easy boat to sail. It can accommodate two adults plus children or three teenagers sailing together. It has a lowered deck and sidetanks, which helps to keep the lines from going overboard and provides more space for children.

At 4.1 m overall length (13′ 5″), the Gaffling is small enough to be comfortably built in a garage, yet large enough for family sailing. It is also easy to tow behind a small car, with the mast fitting inside the hull for easy transport. Its light weight makes it easy for two people to launch or retrieve the boat.

The Gaffling also makes a good boat for dinghy cruising and can be sailed single-handed.

The Gaffling rows easily or can be sculled using the sculling notch in the transom. The boom and sail can be raised with the topping lift so they don't get in the way while rowing. The boat can also take a small outboard motor.

The boat is a stitch-and-glue design where pre-cut and pre-drilled plywood panels are temporarily stitched together with copper wire before being glued together with epoxy fillets and fibreglass tape along the seams. The Gaffling is built around a temporary jig to ensure the precise shape of the hull will match the class measurements. All the plywood panels and the jig forms are precisely cut on our CNC machine. There is more information on the build process on the Gaffling website.

The Gaffling is a good choice for groups and sailing clubs. A group of teenagers from Arnside Sailing Club received lottery funding to build a Gaffling dinghy in our workshop. If you would like to try a Gaffling, you can contact Arnside Sailing Club or the OGA via their websites.

I would strongly recommend buying and building a Gaffling dinghy. As well as on the estuary at Arnside we have sailed our Gaffling on Windermere and Ullswater. She copes with the tides and waves on the estuary as well as the gusts and wind shifts on a lake.

Doing a course at Fyne Boat Kits is a great way of learning how to build a boat, especially if you have never built one before. Their tutors are excellent. The workshop has a controlled environment. They have all tools you need to build a boat, including some you never heard of.

Alasdair Simpson, Arnside Sailing Club

Before we can supply a kit for this boat, you will need to pay the £240 royalty fee to the OGA, who will issue you with a sail number, the building guide and a builder's plaque to attach to the finished boat. You can pay the royalty online, directly to the OGA.

We can also provide these boats ready-built, for sailors who just want to get on the water. They will be built to order, so you can choose a range of options from a bare hull for you to outfit yourself up to a fully-rigged boat, ready to launch.

• Mast length: 4.025 m (13′ 2″)
• Gaff length: 2.93 m (9′ 7″)
• Boom length: 2.7 m (8′ 10″)
• Sail area: 9.69 m² (104 sq ft)

The kit includes:

• Pre-cut wooden panels with pre-cut joints and pre-drilled tie holes
• Solid wood hull parts
• MDF jig for hull assembly
• Epoxy resin and activator
• Epoxy fillers
• Copper ties
• Woven glass tape
• Wooden blanks for spars
• Centreboard blank
• Rudder blank
• Tiller blank
• Inwales and Outwales
• Free technical support from a competent builder

Please note that there is currently no manual for this boat, so we only recommend it for experienced builders.

The kit does not include the following but we can supply them if required:

• Sails
• Warps
• Paint and varnish
• Rigging
• Sailing hardware

Plywood only

This option contains only the CNC-cut plywood panels. It does not include the MDF jig or any of the solid wood parts, nor any other materials that come as part of the kit.

Jig forms only

This option contains only the CNC-cut MDF jig forms.