These are Jack Giles original notes from 1964:

This design was prepared in the middle fifties for a very experienced client who required a cruising yacht which he could handle accompanied by only his wife and in which they could cruise in comfort with a crew which might vary from a couple of children to an ocean racing team.

The arrangement below decks was therefore laid out with a comfortable after cabin for the parents, to which there was reasonable access below decks by way of a passage on the port side; children’s accommodation forward and a comfortable saloon which could be called into play to provide the necessary number of berths if a large crew were being carried. On deck apart from the usual aids to handling of runner levers, adequate winches and a hydraulic windlass, the sail plan was conceived so that the boat would be balanced under main and boomed staysail, a very handy rig when beating short handed into an anchorage; so that the main was sufficiently small practically never to need reefing and so that the large fore triangle could, when a full crew were being carried, be used to the best advantage by setting a maximum area genoa or big overlapping yankee. Power requirements in the original design were moderate, and based on approximately 1 b.h.p per ton displacement.

Since then, not only has the original boat (Donella 0279) sailed many thousands of miles in great comfort, but a further nine boats have been built to this design. The essential difference between Mia and Donella herself, are broadly speaking the provision of a pilot berth in the saloon, the increase in power to something in the order of 3 b.h.p per ton displacement (Mia was fitted initially with a Thorneycroft RTR.4 – Ed), and that Mia was built of choice hardwoods by one of the best building yards in this country (United Kingdom – Ed).

The sail plan, the clever use of cockpit seat height to give headroom in the passageway below, and the sheltered forward end of the cockpit so useful when piloting in restricted waters have all remained unchanged.

Since her launch, Mia’s owners Dr Fred Ellis and his wife have cruised very largely without any additional help from other crew, from England down to Spain, Portugal, Canaries, West Indies and just before Christmas, we heard from him that she was now swinging to her moorings in Parks Bay, near Seattle, all ready to set off next season for a cruise to Queen Charlotte and Vancouver Islands.
Unconventional though it may be for a purely cruising boat to be drawn with a fore triangle more reminiscent of ocean racers under the R.O.R.C’s pre-1957 rule, it is this sort of cruise which confirms the logical thinking of both architect and client that this is an ideal solution to the problem of pottering short handed when one wishes, or sailing at the maximum speed of which (the) boat was capable.