WHO WE ARE

Journeyman dinghies have been designed and built by Graham Cross and Megan Ward, who set sail from South Africa in 2015 onboard S/V Onyx a 1972 Phoenix 42 sloop which was home built by Graham's grandfather H.E Cross. 

While in the Caribbean they realised that their inflatable was becoming more of a deflatable and Graham had wanted to build a nesting sailing dinghy and started looking at the options. Nothing quite satisfied his desire for a tender with maximum stability, high load carrying capacity and utmost simplicity. 

Having 10 years working experience in boat design in Cape Town he designed the Journeyman while cruising the Eastern Caribbean. Upon arrival in Panama in 2018 they ordered the CNC cut sheets of plywood from the United States for the first 3 Journeyman dinghies, one for themselves, one for some boat buddies and one to sell to cover the costs. The first dinghies were built under a tree and tarpaulin at Bocas del Toro marina amid clouds of mosquitoes and chitras (no-see-ums). 

After the 3 dinghies were completed he was convinced by some jealous cruising friends to build some more and the design was slightly modified to be suitable for fiberglass production. This all happened shortly before the world shut down with COVID 19 and we locked ourselves up in our large warehouse workshop and kept busy for the next few years.

In April 2022 we packed up our workshop and left Bocas to continue on our Journey and in August of 2022 we crossed the Panama Canal and entered the Pacific for the second ocean and longest passage of our circumnavigation.