She was later sold to an American buyer who, after spending several months in the Mediterranean, was re-crossing the Atlantic in the mid-sixties with the original galvanised backstay, when the spar fell, injuring a crew member. Following the owner's call for assistance, a large freighter came alongside and ordered all hands off the yacht. As the ship manoeuvred away from the yacht, the stern struck Matilda's bow and she was never seen again. It was a sad end to a wonderful craft. She was a sturdy 46-foot sailing cutter with one tall mast 53 feet above deck. She had a 12-foot beam and had about 20 feet of her length below decks devoted to living space. Aft of the cabin (which also housed four fresh-water tanks, stove, sink, shelves etc.) was the dog-house - six feet square with chart table and engine. There were seven yachts built to the Waltzing Matilda design. Her loss cut Jock keenly: "We've only had four that have sunk, Waltzing Matilda in the Atlantic, Solquest off the coast of Mexico and Kaiulani, one of my designs built by the Wilsons at Cygnet for Lindsay Masters, which sank at the mouth of the Tamar in northern Tasmania. The fourth, Pono, sank on a voyage to New Zealand."
Patsy of Island Bay
In 1950, Patsy, a UK Laurent Giles design, was built at the yard for Charles Cooper, one of the early instigators of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and a member of the Cruising Yacht Club, Sydney. She was built of Huon pine planking over hardwood ribs and backbone with a laid teak deck and originally an oregon mast which has since been replaced by aluminium. Patsy, now owned in Hobart by Gordon Beattie, is 46 feet long, with a beam of 10 feet six inches and draws 7 feet six inches. Charles Cooper, Jock and two of his shipwright apprentices, Bill Foster and Adrian Dean and the late Ted Domeney, former owner of the famous Max Creese-built eight metre yacht, Erica J, were all in the delivery trip to Sydney. As it turned out, Patsy was owned by Jock again twenty years later and became one of the better known boats of all the yachts he owned. "Over the years I did own numerous boats, mostly fishing boats - abalone and scallop - but I never had a lot of time to own yachts. I generally went to sea on other people's boats. "In fact, owning a boat is not an easy task - particularly when it's on a mooring and there is a hard westerly blowing, you're all the time on tenterhooks."