Extract from 'Sailing Boats' by Uffa Fox
Being past fifty I was along way round the Equator and this makes it difficult to move swiftly in a 12ft dinghy; so during the race, as well as the difficulties in tacking, I also realised that 12ft and 14ft dinghies were now no longer "my cup of tea" and what I needed was a more sedate boat, and while racing in all this wind I designed the 18ft Jollyboat. I could see in my minds eye just the sort of boat I wanted.
It was a boat with all the fun and excitement of a Firefly, but half as long again, because I reasoned that if a 12ft dighy took 12 seconds to go from one tack to the other an 18ft boat would take eighteen seconds and I would therefore have 50 percent more time in which to get across onto the other gunwhale.

Extract from 'Inshore Dighy Sailing'
No single hull dinghy has ever exceeded the timed speed of the Jollyboat over a measured distance. Sailed by Charles Currey in 1954 off Cowes in a Force 5 wind, the Jollyboat covered five cables at a speed of 13.4 knots. The sea was one in which the heights of the waves were between 4ft and 5ft, and it was not surprising that Ralph Vines later in the same year put up an average over three runs of 17.8 knots in the smoother waters of Edgebaston Reservoir.
Timed trials over a distance have now gone out of fashion and it is certain that more recent and improved versions of the Jollyboat have gone faster since 1954.

Extract from 'Inshore Dighy Sailing'
It is ironical to reflect that Uffa Fox designed the Jollyboat as a dinghy which would give him more room and time in which to move over the boat when tacking, advancing years being his reason. It is typical of the man that the dinghy then turns out to be the fastest which he has ever designed.

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