It was about the middle of the summer of 1873 that the writer's attention was first drawn to small racing yachts under 7 tons, and the way in which they could face almost all weathers. It had been, as it is at the present day, the custom to decry and run down racing yachts as unfit to be made into cruisers. 'The scantlings were light,' 'the framework was weak,' 'the plank, especially at the garboards and towards the run under the counter, may have been dubbed down to almost the thickness of brown paper.' This latter process was often resorted to some twenty-five years ago, so that ballast in the form of lead sheeting might be padded on to the keel and garboards. More than one large yacht at that period had been so treated that she was supposed to have not much more than half-an-inch planking at her two lowest strakes. 'I would not buy an old racing yacht if I were you.' Such were the comments and never-ceasing advice dinned into the ear; 'besides, they are fearfully wet in a sea-way, and most uncomfortable,' and, therefore, at that time the writer's vessel was a strong, able, high free-boarded schooner of 11 tons. In that year there could not have been a dozen yachts, taking our coasts round, which were being raced as 5-tonners, but there were classes made up of yachts of 7 tons and under, which took in some stray 3- and 4-tonners, and here and there a casual 5- or 6-tonner. One of the best of these 6-ton yachts (and this is including all the Scotch and South-country boats) was a little vessel built in 1871 for Mr. W. A. Tomlinson, by Mr. Dickenson, of Birkenhead, the well-known builder and designer of the principal pioneer Liverpool 10-tonners. Unfortunately her dimensions cannot be correctly stated, but she was about 32 feet between stem and sternpost on deck, some 6 ft. 6 in. in beam, and had a draught of 5 feet or a little more--that is, she was as nearly as possible the size of the 5-tonner of a five or six years' later date. The occasion on which the 'Wyvern' came under the writer's special notice was one long to be remembered on account of the anxiety created among the little yacht's admirers at Kingstown, owing to the severity of the gale that blew after she had left that port for Liverpool. There had been a regatta in Dublin Bay, where, as is usual, all the small boats of the St. George's Channel had collected to do battle. The 'Wyvern' had come over from the Mersey, and having won, her owner (at that time Mr. Colin Napier, of Liverpool) had left her in the hands of his two men, that he might hurry back to his business by steamer. The men were ordered to make the best of their way to Birkenhead, as the yacht had been entered for a local regatta the same week.