Tern III One good Tern...

Insisting his design must be ‘moderate in every way’, Worth’s legacy is a well-honed and carefully considered compromise.

- JACK GIFFORD

Tern is a yacht that has become inescapable for me these past few years. Along with most other readers of Classic Boat I have never seen her in the flesh, yet she seems to me, and no doubt many others, to be very familiar. Since her launch there have been several versions of Tern. Whether replicated, shortened, lengthened or drawn heavily upon for inspiration, Claud Worth left quite the legacy in this boat. He himself developed the design into the larger and equally as influential Tern IV, both boats the result of many years of thoughtful sailing, a critical eye and brilliant intellect. Tern III followed two yachts of the same name (by different designers) because “One good Tern deserves another”.

Claud Worth is considered an ‘amateur’ yacht designer, if only because he already had a career of distinction in ophthalmology. He nevertheless practised yacht design with a detailed knowledge and appreciation for what it takes to create a good seagoing yacht. He would keep detailed records of measurements of his own yachts and of others he visited and sailed, and in 1927 stated that he had “visited at some point in construction, the majority of the cruising yachts which have been built in the south of England during the last 30 years”.