TALLY HO REBORN

TALLY HO'S REMARKABLE REBUILD WAS A SEVEN-YEAR LABOUR OF LOVE THAT CAPTURED A HUGE, LOYAL FOLLOWING. LEO GOOLDEN TELLS HOW HE BROUGHT A 1910 GAFF CUTTER BACK TO LIFE

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On a Saturday morning in mid-August, there is a light breeze blowing in the Solent. A fleet of yachts is slowly working against the tide, waiting for their start gun. But there are no colourful spinnakers here; these are cotton sails flying from wooden spars. For it is 1927 and this is the start of the Fastnet Race - the world's oldest offshore yacht race, established two years before.

The weather deteriorates rapidly after the start, and most of the 15-strong fleet soon retire due to strong winds and heavy seas, leaving only the schooner La Goleta and the cutter Tally Ho to battle it out. After six days of sailing in continually punishing conditions, La Goleta takes line honours but Tally Ho, crossing the line just 50 minutes later, wins the Fastnet Cup on corrected time. The race is described at the time as 'the hardest fight between two yachts that had ever been sailed in English waters over so long a course and under such heavy weather conditions.

Sometimes I joke that Tally Ho earned her pedigree by being the slowest of two boats, but the real achievement for both vessels (and their crew) was to complete the course at all in such harsh weather.

Much of the credit must go to their designers; La Goleta was drawn by the American John Alden, famous for his schooners, while Tally Ho was drawn by yacht designer and artist Albert Strange as a 'deep sea fishing yacht, taking inspiration from the Pilot Cutters and other working boats that navigated British waters year round.