50' Nielsen Yawl (1954) - TIOGA

Tioga is a K. Aage Nielsen, 50’ CCA Yawl, originally built for Bradley Noyes of Marblehead in 1954. Within a month of leaving her fitting out yard, she was the boat to beat in the New York Yacht cruises for 3 years running. She proved to be very competitive in east coast racing and continued to do well racing under several different ownership’s in the 50’s and 60′ and again in the 80’s and the 90’s, racing under PHRF in the Puget Sound area.

She eventually found her way to the west coast after cruising through the Panama Canal to Tahiti and Alaska. I found her in Seattle in 1975 looking for a new home and after convincing my dad to buy a big wood boat, discovered later she had quite a racing history on the east coast. We enjoyed her for number of years, had to sell her in 1985 and bought her back in 1992.

Since buying her back, she has seen 2 major rebuilds, both done by Peter Christensen on Shaw Island in the San Juan’s and recently had some extensive maintenance work done by A&G in Brentwood, BC, Canada.
She continues to be a great boat that sails remarkably well, having excellent manners and an exceptional turn of speed.