THE ORIGINAL CRUISER RACER

One of only two Island One Designs in commission, Trasnagh still lives up to their 1911 description of ‘rattling good boats, fit to go anywhere’

- NIGEL SHARP

Having written of his distaste for the smaller Metre boat classes in the October 1910 issue of Yachting Monthly, the following month the correspondent known as MINA was clearly delighted to be able to write about “another case of the realisation of ideals”. MINA was reporting on a new design by Alfred Mylne, several of which were about to be built by John Hilditch of Carrickfergus. “The founding of this class is a notable event,” he wrote, “and its working will be watched with great interest. The owners will be able to race or cruise at will, and the little yachts fittingly materialise the suggestion recently offered in these columns.”

This new class – officially called Island One Designs but often referred to as the Yawl Class – was adopted by two clubs in Belfast Lough: the Royal Ulster YC and the Royal North of Ireland YC.

Hilditch built five of these new boats in time for the latter part of the 1911 season, but he didn’t produce the sixth and final boat until 1913. In the spring of that year Yachting Monthly anticipated her arrival by predicting that “racing in this class will be very keen” as her owner, Colonel Sharman Crawford, would be “in his element, for no one is fonder of a hard sail and a good match”.

This new boat was named Trasnagh, which in common with the names of her sisterships, came from “one of the 365 ‘Pladdies’ in Strangford Lough”, according to Yachting Monthly. “Nobody knows anything about it or where it is, except the Colonel, and it is suspected that he has made its acquaintance through the kind offices of the keel of one of his previous boats.”