Wooden Drascombe
The famed Drascombe Lugger Beautifully restored daysailer takes to salt water
by Geoffrey Toye
Seventh-century home
They rented an ancient Devon Long House, so called from days when people and livestock lived in the same building, each warmed by the same fire in the common wall. The place was called Drascombe Barton, a place of habitation with records to the seventh century.
It was here that John designed his famous daysailer. She would be beachable, seaworthy, safe, and pleasant to be aboard with the noise and smell of the auxiliary engine confined to a well. She would be inexpensive to own in a climate of increasing berthing and yard fees. The prototype was built and named Katharine Mary, after Kate. Thus began what would expand to form a theme of successful designs, crossing continents and oceans, but ever faithful to the original Drascombe concept.
The demand for Drascombe Luggers, ultimately around 2,000, would not be met by individually built timber boats. Construction in fiberglass became a natural stage of the Drascombe evolution, taken up by Honnor Marine, a respected name in British fiberglass boatbuilding.
Drascombes appeared in the United States after Harold Wilson's government levied a 25-percent tax on boats sold in the United Kingdom. This tax caused the British boatbuilding industry to look to export as an attractive avenue for sales, if not survival. Drascombe Boats Inc. was formed in Camden, Maine, later merging with the Lincoln Canoe Company to form Maine Marine Corporation. They were to build the Drascombe Lugger, Longboat, and the smaller Scaffie.
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Last updated: 18 September, 2006
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