CLASSIC RESTORATION
Mike Taylor charts the
gallant history, fall into
disrepair and now
recent restoration of a
historic motor cruiser
well as the design and construction of
various leisure craft. In 1937 R J Perkins
was commissioned to build a 37ft pilot
cutter using clinker construction
techniques with oak frames and teak
planking. Called Nayland, after a village in
the Stour Valley in Suffolk, she was to be
used in the waters around the Thames
Estuary where her duties would include
shepherding the myriad vessels that
frequented these dangerous waters.
The start of hostilities in 1939 marked a
change in the activities at the Whitstable
boatyards and they moved on to
manufacture military craft such as MTBsMike Taylor wrote
his first article in
1979 for Motorboat
& Yachting. Today,
he is a respected
and established
photojournalist
who contributes to
magazines in the
yachting and classic car fields. He
has written five books and publishes
maritime club magazines.Saved from a
watery grave
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W
hitstable, a picturesque
working harbour on the
North Kent coast, had an
established fishing and
boatbuilding industry
when the railways came in the 19th
century, growing the population and
adding to the holiday trade. Soon the
community boasted three boatyards:
Collars; Anderson, Rigden and Perkins;
and R J Perkins established by Richard
John Perkins around 1918 on Island Wall.
The mainstay of Whitstable’s marine
industry during the early 1900s was the
repair and manufacture of fishing boats as