BLOODHOUND through the Ages

In 2019, while wandering among the towering shelves of the library at the Robbe & Berking Yachting Heritage Center in Flensburg, Germany (see WB No. 258), I spotted an interesting model yacht vaguely resembling one of the third Marquess of Ailsa’s most famous yachts, BLOODHOUND—a William Fife II design to which I have been inextricably drawn for three decades. Beginning in 1976, my wife, Karen, and I had lived for a short time in Flensburg aboard our 38' Danish ketch, SVANEN, and this recent visit was a nostalgic return. But the sight of this model stirred memories for me of another time and place.

Enthralled, I began photographing the model. The only other person in the library was a woman working quietly at a desk nearby, and her voice suddenly broke the silence. She asked me why I was taking photos of this particular model, and I answered that it was of the same era and shape as BLOODHOUND.

     “BLOODHOUND!” she exclaimed.

Thus began a couple of hours of eager conversation with Clare McComb, an English yachting historian. She asked what I knew of BLOODHOUND and, on her smartphone, showed me numerous photographs and masses of information related to the yacht. At that time, I knew very little about the original BLOODHOUND. At the time of my visit to Flensburg, I had been associated for years with a replica of BLOODHOUND in southern California. Clare, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the original, knew nothing of this replica. We thus embarked on the mission of joining together the two halves of the story of this bewitching yacht.