(from Watercraft magazine)

A number of readers enquired about the diminutive Joy on the cover of W20. One reader watched her carefully at the Portsoy Traditional Boat Festival in northeast Scotland and noticed how well she was sailing in a short, steep sea when other boats were having difficulty - and this despite having no centreboard. I contacted Joy's owner Ken Lowndes to learn more about her. Joy was bought back in 1983 by a retired friend when the Lochinver Fish Selling Company in Sutherland was receiving deliveries of boats other type, sent five at a time on the back of a wagon from her builder in Orkney who has since retired. Until 1997 when Ken inherited her she was used with a Seagull longshaft outboard as a family dayboat around the Summer Isles. "She's just a basic workboat," he explains, "never intended as a sailing dinghy. They were lightly constructed, clinker built of mahogany or larch with copper fastenings with a transom stern for an outboard. They were sold along with a pair of traditional Orkney 10' (3m) long square shafted oars for about £400 at the time, £25 less for larch. I decided to try her with sail, so with a 15' (4.6 m) secondhand mast and assorted spars, I gunter rigged her with a 30 year old set of sails I had bought for £10, though I later changed the large mainsail for a smaller one from a Mirror dinghy which is flatter so she points and tacks better. Under sail, she is nimble, responsive and easily driven up to her displacement speed. She needs a little adjustment yet but she is indeed a joy."

Her good yet centreboard-free performance comes in large measure from her Northern Isles design. She was built in Shapinsay, Orkney, by the now retired J I Hourston, with a shallow long keel and nearly vertical garboards fastened straight to the T-shaped keelson. She is quite fine underneath, sweeping out in a wineglass shape to a generous 5' 9" (1.75 m) beam on a length of 14' (4.3 m). Her steep deadrise makes her initially quite tender but she stiffens under load. Ken sails her with 112 lbs (51kg) of ballast just behind the mast step when there's a crew of two and she has safely taken six people and a dog.