The boat was built in 1872 at Whites Shipyard at Cowes on the Isle of Wight as an Itchen ferry design, and used initially as a fishing vessel in the Solent.
[1] Ratsey lived aboard Dolly Varden in the summer of 1934 where King George V and Queen Mary visited him.
His son Chris continued to race Dolly Varden up to the start of the Second World War when it was sold to Claire Lallow's Boatyard on the Isle of Wight.
When the boatyard was destroyed by bombing, Dolly Varden was drafted into service as the family home until the end of the war.
After the war Dolly Varden disappeared, and there appears to be no record of the boat until 1965, when it was bought by a Dennis Riley from Southampton.
Following extensive renovation, Dolly Varden was moored on the River Hamble where volunteers from a local youth club became her regular crew.