Flying Junior

The International Flying Junior or FJ is a sailing dinghy which was originally designed in 1955 in the Netherlands by renowned boat designer Van Essen and Olympic sailor Conrad Gülcher. The FJ was built to serve as a training boat for the then Olympic-class Flying Dutchman. The FJ has a beam of 4'11" and an overall sail area of 100 square feet (9.3 m²). These dimensions make the FJ an ideal class to teach young sailors the skills of boat handling and racing.

World Champions 2007, San Francisco Bay, Peter Wanders / Gisa Wortberg, GER 361

Flying Junior

FJ Class symbol
Int. FJ's, Worlds 2007, San Francisco Bay
Boat
Crew	2
Hull
Hull weight	210 lb (95 kg)
LOA	13 ft 3 in (4.04 m)[1]
Beam	4 ft 11 in (1.50 m)[1]
Rig
Mast length	20 ft (6.1 m)[1]
Sails
Spinnaker area	80 sq ft (7.4 m2)[1]
Upwind sail area	100 sq ft (9.3 m2)[1]
Racing
D-PN	97.9

Coen Gulcher helming one of the first Flying Juniors (1955)

In 1960 the Flying Junior formed its own class organization and by the early 1970s the Flying Junior was accorded the status of an International Class by the International Yacht Racing Union, the precursor to the International Sailing Federation. This status indicates that the class applies to strongly restricted class rules and holds regularly scheduled international regattas.

All documents about the history of the International FJ (Flying Junior) accessed in the Nederlands Scheepvaartmuseum in Amsterdam.

Today the FJ is sailed in Japan, Canada, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia, and the United States. In the US, many high school sailing and Intercollegiate Sailing Association programs own fleets of FJs. The college and high school programs in the US use a version of the FJ known as the Club FJ, or CFJ. This boat is slightly different from the International FJ in that it does not use Trapeze and it has a smaller, non-spherical Spinnaker, may have different hull dimensions, and shroud and forestay locations, with respect to the International FJ.

Limitations to the equipment series for an FJ are: 1 mainsail, 2 jibs, 1 spinnaker (optional), 1 mast, 1 boom, 2 spinnaker poles, 1 centerboard and 1 rudder.