1960's and 1970's - The First Telstar Trimarans

Tony Smith built his first 24 ft. plywood Piver trimaran in a shed in England. In 1966 Tony sailed in the first 2,100 mile Round Britain Race finishing in fourth place. Later in 1967 Tony designed and built another 25' trimaran for the Single Handed Transatlantic Race.

In 1969 Tony engaged in extensive research and development with foam-sandwich construction and fiberglass molding resulting in the legendary 26' Telstar folding trimaran.

Following further development of the Telstar, Tony starts regular production of the folding Telstar 26, nearly 300 of which were sold world wide. During this time Tony also engaged in the production of numerous custom sailboats of all sizes up to 70' - all built to Lloyds 100A1 specification.

1974 marks the beginning of production for the 35' Telstar. This prototype of the Telstar 35 finished 10th out of 100 in the 1974 Round Britain Race - one of the most difficult races in the world.

1978 - The high-tech Kevlar Telstar 26 entered the 1978 Round Britain Race, and despite being the smallest boat in the race, finished in the top third of the fleet - despite a mast failure midway through the race. This boat was still sailing into this past decade.