STONE FAMILY; CLARE MCCOMBV
isiting Stones Boatyard in East Portlemouth,
South Devon, I find myself in a great
warehouse of a place, at least half full of
Salcombe Yawls. Tristan, fourth generation
of the Stone boatbuilding family, is showing me round
and it’s clear, behind an unfailingly laid-back demeanour,
that there’s a strong sense of pride. The custom-built
shed has an insulated roof to protect against the wood-
cracking heat of a Devon summer, while wooden-clad
sides allow ventilation to counteract humidity in the
damp winters. Underfloor heating in the workshop
means temperatures can be set to an exact 18 degrees for
varnishing, 21 for gloss. The boats are acclimatised for a
couple of days to ensure perfect conditions before
products are applied, and ‘daylight’ lighting minimises
shadows. It is not your average boatyard shed.
Tristan admits with a rueful smile that the science
underpinning the yard’s methods can create a rod for
his back – “imperfections have no place to hide”.
But imperfections are few at Stones. The order
books are full and customer relationships go back
decades, even generations.
Quality over quantity – it’s a philosophy that has
stood the family company in good stead since the late
1800s, when Edwin Stone made willow baskets and crab
pots for local fishermen. Three members of the family
served apprenticeships with Salcombe boatbuilder Edgar
Coves, before Tristan’s great great uncle James Stone
started his own yard in 1938. A year later his
11-year-old son, Alec, started beating all the adults
racing the famous Y14, Blackbird, in the restricted class
we know as the Salcombe Yawl. Alec Stone went on to
become a legend in small boat racing and the Stone
family has been central to the Salcombe Yawl story since.
Tristan grew up in family yards, run first by his uncle
and then by his father, Jim. (He reckons he was 17
before he was trusted with a paintbrush.) When Tristan
took over the business, something was needed other than
the boat refit work to make things pay and he put in a
planning application for a boat storage facility. Devon
County Council gave it the green light after being
inundated by letters of support for Stones from local
residents. Tristan recalls: “Then I had to work out what I
was going to fill it up with!”
Today ‘the barn’ is the biggest storage facility of
wooden boats in the country, housing around 50 boats
including 35 Salcombe Yawls. Walking around the
custom-made racks is akin to visiting an exhibition of
the development of the class from its beginnings to
modern times [See Salcombe Yawl profile on p72].
Overwintering there, too, are all sorts of other craft
including clinker rowing dinghies and motor launches.
One motorboat arrived at the yard as a rescue case,
given for free after sitting in the mud under
Hammersmith Bridge for 20 years. Now she’s re-decked
and seaworthy again. Stones’ refit, repair and
maintenance work remains a core part of the business.
But things took an unexpected turn 12 years ago
when Tristan’s father Jim emigrated to Vancouver Island.
Jim knew, as a lifelong boatbuilder, how hard it was to
source good quality Sitka spruce. Now, in British
Columbia, he found himself surrounded by it.
“He sent over a little bit of spruce to help make a
mast,” Tristan recalls. “Then the Cornish Gig
Association wanted some for some oars. One of the oar
makers was a mast-builder and he wanted some. Then
one of the big mast builders heard about it and they
wanted some too. Suddenly without us knowing about it
we turned into a timber supplier!”
As word spread that Stones could source premium-
quality, custom-cut, slow-grown vertical-grain Red and
Yellow Cedar, Sitka spruce and Douglas Fir, the requests
came from further afield and as we speak Tristan is
supplying wood for projects in New Zealand and Chile,
among many others around Europe.
“The timber is the biggest part of the business now,”
he says. “We could have grown a lot quicker but we
wanted to make sure the supply chain was there and that
we could always guarantee the quality. Everytime we get
a new customer we stop and rethink and ensure we can
really give them what they want. It’s still a pretty niche
business, but what sets us apart is the good people we
have at source, selecting the highest quality timber and
putting it aside for us. There is a lot more to us than
what you see in the yard.” (This, by the way, is as close
to immodest as Tristan ever gets.)
Father and son speak daily. Shipments from
Vancouver are checked personally by Jim, are air or kiln
dried, before containers are filled, half for stock and half
pre-ordered. In recent years things have expanded to
import teak from Myanmar and Khaya mahogany from
Africa. There, too, personal visits have created a network
of direct contacts in the sawmills who will set aside the
best timber for Stones and make specific cuts to order.
Stones offers something else over many volume timber
suppliers – a deep knowledge of boats and boatbuilding.
“We understand what people want in a boat and can say
to them: ‘We’ll need to cut the log this way, we’ll keep itLeft: Tristan
chooses teak in
Myanmar.
Right: Yawls and
others stored
inside the barn