Following the interest in Donella which Jack had designed from Heywood’s detailed brief for a family cruiser Mr Bergerhout commissioned the Partners to create a version in steel and thus in October 1958 appeared Laurent Giles & Partners nineteenth concept proposal of that year.

Carola of Lymington was the fifth of the Donella class to start construction; a foot longer overall and nearly 9” more beam but with the same waterline length, the hull and deck of Carola of Lymington were to be fabricated of welded steel with wooden deck works. The steel scantlings were light as was often the case with Giles: for Carola generally 3 mm hull plating with 4 mm sheer strakes and 5 mm in the fin sides, but the keel base was always heavy and contributed to the mass of ballast. Giles by and large specified double plate rudder fabrications and these were always oil filled keeping them essentially corrosion free, but rather on the heavy side. The toe-welded angle transverse framing, plate floors and engine beds and 2.5 mm & 3 mm plate bulkheads and decks potentially increased Donella’s service displacement by nearly two extra tons and Giles filled the body sections to accommodate the augmented the extra weight, increasing the displacement/length ratio from just under 380 to a little over 418.

To avoid a loss of performance resulting from the (marginally) greater hull wetted surface and displacement added by the increase of construction weights Giles also increased the sail area but retained a cutter rig choosing to up the main and head sails aspect ratio.