Ticonderoga: Tales of an Enchanted Yacht

Launched as Tioga in 1936, this glorious ketch finished first in twenty-four of her initial thirty-seven races. Renamed Ticonderoga in 1946, she went on to set more elapsed-time records than any ocean racer in history. Ticonderoga held more than thirty course records in races on several oceans, surpassing even the best performances of the hard-driven nineteenth-century clipper ships. But Ticonderoga wasn’t designed for racing. Her creator, L. Francis Herreshoff, shaped her for genteel afternoon sailing, giving her uncommon elegance of form with a clipper bow, elliptical transom, raked rig, gilded garnish, and a bathtub. It is these qualities of unsurpassed opulence and beauty, combined with her astonishing speed, that have made Big Ti so incomparable.