This was Giles first racing design for Illingworth with whom in the following twelve years he collaborated on a further three race winning projects before Captain Illingworth started his own yacht design practice.

The Laurent Giles Archive bundle for this design includes the official reports of the hull design which was tank tested by Giles in February 1938 at the Stevens Institute, New Jersey, and an extensive wind tunnel evaluation which was undertaken on the rig in September of the same year at Fairey Aviation, Hayes in the United Kingdom.

‘The Maid’ had a very successful racing career but sadly in 1973, while on passage between the Galapogas and Marques Islands, Maid of Malham lost her rudder and started to ship water through the hole left by the rudder trunk. She was about 1,000 miles from the closest land and the chances of her two crew sighting a ship were very slim. After two days sailing with a jury rudder and tiller she was taken alongside a British registered steamer with an idea to crane her aboard but the steamer’s master considered that with her mast stepped the lifting operation to be too dangerous for the ships crew. An attempt was then made to cast her off astern on a long tow but she stayed close to the hull and would not fall away. Collisions with the ships hull first broke one cross tree, then the second and then the jib stay, she finally drifted back but getting deeper in the water until finally becoming just a speck on the distant horizon and it is assumed eventually founded.