The 36ft linear rater Pen Duick (formerly Yum) was designed by William Fife III and built in 1898 by Gridiron & Marine Motor Works at Carrigaloe in Cork Harbour, Ireland for Cork yachtsman W. J. C. Cummins. The gaff-rigged cutter was quickly noted as a successful racer in Irish, British and French waters. Tabarly's father acquired her when Eric was seven years old, and the boy learnt to sail on her. After World War II, she was put on sale, but finding no takers, Eric convinced his father in giving her to him. Years later, he was told her wooden hull was rotten, and being unable to hire a yard to salvage her, proceeded to save her himself, making a mold to build her a new polyester hull: It was the largest of its kind at the time. He refitted her entirely, with a loftier rig for the southern climes. In the night of June 12 to 13 1998, Eric Tabarly fell overboard and was lost in the Irish Sea, while sailing the hundred-year-old cutter en route to the Fife Regatta in Largs, Scotland.