The Naja

Naja is a sailboat that was designed by Sylvestre Langevin, French naval architect who designed Elf Aquitaine, the winner of the the Route du Rhum in 1982, and built at the Whisstock yard in the 80's. I own a Naja and would like to use this platform to gather information on the Najas that are sailing today around the world and display pictures of the boats.

This is an invitation to participate !

Roger Simard

Comments

[David Whittock]

I have a Naja 30 which I have owned for 10 years the sail number is 6346Y and was built in 1979 at the Whisstocks Yard Woodbridge. I would be pleased to here from you about your boat. Mine is out of the water for the winter at Gillingham Kent.

[Rory Sumerling]

I have a Naja called Mary Elspeth based on the Orwell River in the UK. I have owned her for 10 years. She was built as a kit around 1982. Hull completed at Whisstocks and then completed by previous ownwer. Having a young family we have not sailed very far, but previous owner sailed her to Casablanca and Western Hebrides. I understand that 70 were produced, 50 going to the USA. I know of 8 in existance in UK. Trilogy, Splinter Group, Skua, Saturday Slow, Acajou, Platapus, one in Wales and one 1/2 built in West Sussex. I would be interested to know of others and to exchange Naja experiences.

[George Whisstock]

It's great to see the ongoing interest in these boats and to see that so many are going so well into their second quarter century.

It was a pretty major (some would say foolhardy) decision at the time to invest in a construction project for a class of wooden boats, let alone plywood boats, just as everyone was predicting the total eclipse of timber by fibreglass. We had no computer aided design then, so we constructed all the patterns for the kits either off the loft floor, or when this wasn't possible, directly off the first boat we built as a prototype.

The introduction of the WEST™ system soon after the first few boats helped us a lot in our marketing and gave us a substantial case in the longevity/low maintenance argument. We were the first yard to build WEST™ system boats commercially in the UK and we went on to build several more custom wood/epoxy boats, before finally turning to aluminium alloy construction.

I am intending to publish the original building instructions and drawings on our current website as part of a project to complete a database of all the boats we built at the Whisstock yard from 1926 through to 1990. I suspect it will be a month or two before I get that done however!

By the way - as far as I remember there were about 40 kits and boats built to this design - but I will check this from the records (which are in store at the moment!).

[SUMO-TRANSIT (Dominique Rougès)]

Mr. Roger simard bonjour,
voici deux photos du transport de Bonita au mois d'Août passé.
J'ai pensé que vous seriez intéressé à les voir.
Bonne fin de rénovation.
Dominique Rougès
SUMO-TRANSIT
514-267-SUMO (7866)
www.sumo-transit.com

[SUMO-TRANSIT (Dominique Rougès)]

contactez moi si vous voulez je ne peux inclure les photos dans le message...

[William on Baumhauer]

I just bought a Naja 30 at Antwerpen Belgium for 850 Euro
It was build in 1979 in Suffolk
It need a paintjob thats all.
This will be my practice summer in Holland. Next year i will take my Naja to danmark for a holliday trip

[JOHN GIFFORD CLUTTERBUCK]

I HAVE JUST BOUGHT " PLEINE de VERVE " FROM DAVID WHITTOCK AND AM VERY PLEASED WITH HER

[Jim Howard]

Hi,
I used to own Splinter Group, what a brilliant boat
Really powerfull to windward and a bit of a handfull under Spinnaker but had great fun for over 10 years.
Sorry no photos.
Where is she now?
Jim Howard

[Gerald]

Splinter Group is currently for sale on Ebay,Item number: 370496700923. Looks like a bargain. Clearly a bit of a liability to its current owner