Forty years on from her debut in the 1974 One Ton Cup, the radical Bruce King-designed twin centreboard One Tonner Terrorist is sailing again. Salvaged from a boatyard several years ago, Terrorist has been expertly rebuilt and refurbished by her new owner US yachtsman Paul Tullos. Her history and rebuild is documented in an earlier post here. When re-launched in 2013 she was fitted with twin rudders, and while these worked well when sailing, they proved to be of limited assistance when manouevring within the marina. Tullos has since reverted back to a single rudder. Although still reliant on internal ballast, Terrorist carries plenty of beam and Tullos reports that the boat loves sailing to windward in a good breeze, and this is leading to some good results in local racing. Tullos comments that it is hard to overpower the boat - "the boat's old mast was 2 feet longer than on the drawings - I now see why". The new carbon spars and stiff new sails are also helping with her upwind performance.
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| Terrorist sailing again recently (and still sporting her original sail number - US 7150) |
An inspiration to anybody interested in high performance lifting keel, daggerboard or bilge board yachts. I watched, in my role as Editor of Seahorse, at the One Ton Worlds in 1974, as Terrorist emerged from the middle of the start line and proceeded to walk away up that first beat. A broken mast in the middle distance race probably changed history and certainly led to the powers that be within the IOR changing the rating system. I paid tribute to this classic of modern times with my own bilge boarder in 2000 called Revolution 21.
ReplyDeleteJulian Everitt
One of my favourite one tanners along with America Jane 111. Really pleased to see she id back in the water.
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