White Heather (II) competing against Westward off Cowes, 1920

Westward, 323 tons and built by the great Nat Herreshoff at Rhode Island in 1910, was one of the largest racing schooners whose career fell into two distinct phases. Like King George V's legendary Britannia, she too had royal connections having been originally purchased - at the Kaiser's instigation - by a syndicate of German businessmen who renamed her Hamburg. In a brilliant start she won all eleven races in her first season and then enjoyed many other successes in the years preceding the Great War. Sold out of German ownership after the Armistice, her new American owner Clarence Hatry restored her original name and his first season in 1920 almost equalled the triumphs of 1910. It was after her sale to T.B.F. Davis in 1924 however, that she finally came into her own when she became a regular challenger to Britannia. Over the years Davis and the King developed a spirited though friendly rivalry and Westward became such a prized possession of Davis that he, like King George before him, stipulated that his boat also was to be sunk after his death.

White Heather (II), one of the classic '23 metre' creations and a slightly older thoroughbred than Westward, was designed by William Fife (Jnr.) and built in his yard at Fairlie in 1907. An equally impressive big cutter registered at 90 tons gross (179 Thames), she measured 95½ feet in length overall with a 21 foot beam and proved a remarkably successful boat well into old age. Originally owned by Mr. Myles Kennedy and then by Sir Charles Allom, by 1930 she was in the possession of Lord Waring and still one of the fastest regular competitors at Cowes until the end of her career.