Category: Seafly Design History

Abstracts: Seafly Design History – Click on the page title (or the accompanying picture) to view the whole of each article..

Seafly Design History – Introduction

The Seafly was designed by John Kelley and initially developed and built by John Kelley and Stan Herbert at South Devon Boatbuilders; eventually other boat builders were licensed, but the...

Dec Layout

Original Seafly Design

As originally developed by South Devon Boatbuiders, the Seafly was designed for construction in wood. As an example, these photographs from about 1963 show C59 which was constructed...

Sheet 1 General Assembly

Plans for building a Seafly

The original South Devon Boatbuilders plans used in building Seafly 59 (“The Dong”) in the early 1960’s are reproduced here. Many of the parts are shown on the...

UK Sail certificate

Seafly Sail Plan

The normal Seafly sail plan consists of a jib, mainsail with a full batten only at the top, and a relatively large spinnaker. Main and jib add up...

Who Designed the Seafly?

The Seafly, in design, is clearly a larger version of the Mayfly which was designed by John Kelley, a “successful 12ft and 14ft National Designer, builder and helmsman”...

Seafly 338: New look Seafly mast step

The “New Look” Seafly

Despite being a “One Design” Class it was perhaps inevitable that changes in building materials and sailing techniques would lead the Seafly Dinghy Class Association to approve various...

Cruising Seafly

During the 1980’s very few Seaflys were being built and the Seafly Dinghy Class Association sought ways to make the Seafly more popular. The July 1987 SDCA Newsletter...

New Seafly planing

A Recent Seafly Design

Around the year 2010 a few new Seafly Dinghies were built by long time Seafly sailor Tony Longworth and Pete Lawson (both based near Ullswater in the English lake district). The two...

The first Seafly SD (Southampton Boat Show)

The Seafly SD

In January 2013  John Claridge Boats, based in Lymington, bought the moulds for the “Modern Seafly” and the demonstration boat from Tony Longworth. Famed for designing the Magnum series of...