Sailing Magazine
By Richard Crockett
Local yachties have a lot to thank Jack Koper for as he was the inspiration behind the evergreen Dabchick Class and the Tempo. Both great boats in their own right as the Dabchick took the country by storm as the youth boat, with the Tempo sitting well between the Sprog and the Flying Dutchman.
Koper was a highly talented man, as this feature shows, as does the opening paragraph too: “Few men start a new career at the age of 55. Even fewer are lucky enough to do for a living what was formerly a hobby. Last year Jack Koper, South African yachtsman, sailing dinghy designer and backyard boat·builder did both – he left the printing trade in which he had worked all his life, and became a professional sailmaker.”
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: 1967 04 22 – Cape Times – Dabchick – stitched final – S&A – OCR
