A
lthough Dublin Bay yachtsmen were
not generally impressed by the
appearance of Huff,” wrote an Irish
Times correspondent in September
1951, “they are bound to admit that
she moves, on occasion, faster than
anything else in the bay.” The boat in question, which
had been launched just three months earlier, was Huff of
Arklow, a Flying Thirty designed by Uffa Fox and built
by John Tyrrell & Sons of Arklow for Douglas Heard
who was a member, and future commodore, of Dublin
Bay’s Royal St George Yacht Club. And it is certainly
true that her appearance was (and still is) somewhat
unusual, and that she was (and still is) fast.
Huff was by no means the first boat Uffa designed for
Heard. Between the wars he had produced four
International 14 designs for him, at least one of which he
also built. Uffa’s most famous International 14 was, of
course, the 1928 Avenger which is generally
acknowledged as the world’s first planing dinghy, and in
1947, Uffa was encouraged by the commodore of the
Island SC to design something bigger than a 14 which
“will not capsize....a sensible, safe boat, that was fun to
sail as well”. The result was the first planing keelboat,
the Flying Fifteen, but Uffa also produced designs for
“Flying” boats of various other sizes, all with a
