In the spring of 1984 Warwick Collins approached Laurent Giles Ltd to develop a hull and rig that would most efficiently show off his Tandem Keel design which was patented in August of that year. Previously he had experimented with a simple inverted fin on the Rob Humphreys designed MGRS34 Aladdin Sane.

The Flying Boat design emerged later in that year; a lightweight, low resistance unrestricted hull with larger than average sail area/displacement ratio. It was to this high performance platform that the prototype tandem keel was bolted.

The fractional rig is simple with single swept back spreaders and an adjustable backstay. In her first season Flying Boat lived up to her name and was highly successful in the races that she entered. In the Lymington Town Sailing Club’s Solent Series, racing in Class 8, she was never beaten by a monohull and sometimes she proved faster than many multihulls. In her very first race she finished six minutes ahead of the nearest trimaran and sixteen minutes ahead of the next monohull. In the final race of the series the crew volunteered to compete in Class 7 and she still managed to finish third!