JACK FRANCIS JONES
Jack Francis Jones made his name as a prolific designer of a wide variety of craft. These designs included dayboats, cruising yachts, motor-sailers, workboats and motor yachts designed between the years just before the war (he was called up to join the RNVR in 1941) and his death in 1990.
He grew up in Suffolk and fell in love with the river Deben at an early age. Whenever possible, he and his younger brother George Jones would cycle from their father’s farm to the banks of the Deben at Waldringfield where they learned to sail. After his father’s untimely death in 1933, Francis Jones went to Birmingham to work in engineering design and also fell under the spell of Yachting Monthly, whose editor Maurice Griffiths published his first two designs; a 15ft and 17ft dinghy. Francis Jones also wrote regularly for the ‘Canvas’ column before his call-up in 1941.
After an eventful war with the RNVR (during which he was seriously wounded on two occasions) Francis Jones bought a house in Waldringfield on the banks of the river that he had always loved. There he set up shop as an AINA (Associate of the Institution of Naval Architects), a title he preferred to ‘yacht designer’.
Later in his career Francis Jones moved his design studio from Waldringfield to the Ferry Dock in Woodbridge. His brother George Jones also ran his yacht brokerage business there and for many years wrote the East Coast section of ’s regular feature ‘Around the Coast.’ At that time George had become owner of Arthur Ransome’s Giles-designed ketch . Keeping her in the family, George’s daughter Julia.
