First to come off the new slip in 1948 was the 4l-foot sloop, Lass O'Luss, built for the late John Colquhoun. She was a Robert Clark (UK) designed ocean cruiser launched just in time to compete in the Sydney to Hobart. She was later bought by Bill Psaltis of the Cruising Yacht Club, who raced her very successfully out of Sydney before being sold to Victoria. Like Patsy,who came later, Lass O'Luss was at her best close-hauled and at her worst under hard downwind conditions.
Waltzing Matilda
In the same year as Lass O'Luss, the cutter Waltzing Matilda was built, one of the yard's most famous yachts. She was similar in design to Westward but with a counter stern and the overall length increased from 42 feet to 46 feet. She was built for Phil Davenport of Sydney who was planning a world cruise. He later immortalised her in a book: '"Ihe Voyage of 'Waltzing Matilda.' (Published by Hutchison's Pty. Ltd. of London and Sydney and printed by the Anchor Press Ltd, Sydney, in 1953). In one chapter in the book, Davenport wrote: "...Waltzing Matilda had proved her self a marvellous sea boat, not a buoyant tub which could shoulder her way through the seas with as much grace as a coal barge, but a thoroughbred which could take all the driving her crew could give her..." Both Westward and Waltzing Matilda were evolved from the same general underwater shape as Jock's first ocean-going cruiser, the Colin Archer concept ketch, Westwind. Waltzing Matilda won line honours in the 1949 Sydney to Hobart race and finished second on corrected time to Trade Winds. She also went on to finish a creditable fifth on corrected time in her division of the 1950 Fastnet Rock ocean race after sailing to England via the Magellan Straits, the first Australian-built yacht to do so. She cruised to Norway and back to England and then crossed the Atlantic in winter gales with Phil Davenport and his brother, Keith as the only crew. Before the Fastnet race her Australian rating was dramatically reduced.