Mark Foy, a wealthy department store owner was the founder of the Sydney Flying Squadron in 1891, and though he is associated in many folks' memories with the 18-footers he raced several different boats with the Sydney Flying Squadron in the 1890's. The strangest was his 24' catamaran which Charlie Messenger of Double bay built for him in 1894, though he never referred to it as a catamaran, it was usually described as "a double-hulled craft". It raced with the Sydney Flying Squadron in the 1894-95 season, winning at least one race. She was described as being slow upwind but whenever sheets were eased she moved off at phenomenal speed. Nothing in the fleet could beat her on a broad reach, but dead square she was a little slower. She was described as being like two whaleboats held together with large beams. She was not the first modern Western cat to appear, that honour goes to Nathaniel Herreshoff in 1876.
Having tried to get the Squaddie boats to wear coloured sails, but having to settle for colour patches after opposition, for the first season Flying Fish sailed with sails built from alternate panels of white and green cloth. For the start of the second season 1895-96 she emerged with a red Maltese Cross as insignia, which Foy kept as his insignia on all succeeding boats named Flying Fish. She was mainly off scratch or close to it that season which meant that she sailed well including winning one of the early races in the season run by the Johnsons Bay Sailing Club, and possibly others. Flying Fish nose-dived in spectacular fashion in January 1896. It may not have been the first time, as frequent newspaper reports describe her "humorous antics" and was regularly described as "shedding" her crew. Being the patron and Commodore of the Squadron did not stop him from being disqualified in a race that season.
Foy planned an extensive absence from Sydney in Britain in early 1897 and in January Flying Fish was advertised for sale along with three other boats Foy owned. Apparently she did not sell. The Intercolonial Challenge was on in late January and the major contest in that event was for 22-footers, so Foy had Messenger cut two feet off her stern(s) and made her a 22-footer. She won the last event of the Intercolonial regatta on Saturday 29 January steered by Arthur Thomas, an old friend of Foy's. Thomas continued to steer her in most races run by the SFS and the Johnsons Bay Club for the whole of the three years Foy was absent in Britain. She began to win more often as a 22-footer, which upset some of the members of the JBSC who tried to ban her in September 1897.
Foy returned in March 1900 and mostly sailed her himself for the rest of that season and most of the next, not as successfully as Thomas had. Flying Fish is last heard of in April 1901 described as lying on Double Bay beach with a broken cross-beam and her "nose all wrinkled" with the buckling of her planks. She had raced with some success but not enough to convince anyone else to copy her. Foy's energies went into plans for revenge for his defeat in his 1898 challenge in Britain, firstly with a boat called Southern Cross which proved to be a failure, and Southerly Buster which showed very promising speed but never got the chance to challenge, but that's a whole other YARN.
The first photo is from the ANMM's Hall Collection. The middle photo is from a postcard in my collection. The image below is a detail from a painting in the collection of the Sydney Flying Squadron.