Edgar Cove Boat Builder: Rise and Fall of Family Business

SAILING AT SALCOMBE BEFORE THE WAR

At Salcombe in the 1920’s and 1930’s sailing racing was divided between the Salcombe Sailing Club and the Salcombe Yacht Club and three classes were initially developed.

-The ‘A’ class were clinker boats of 20’ length with very heavy cast iron centreboards with gunter mainsails and carried spinnakers which were very different from the modern balloon spinnaker. These boats needed a crew of three to race them. During the later 1930’s other 20’ boats with fixed keels began to be raced and the class became a handicap class. After WW2 the original clinker ‘A’class boats were never raced again, although four or five of the deep keeled dayboats continued to race in the handicap class for some years.

-The ‘B’ class were 16’ boats otherwise similar to the 20’ except that they did not carry spinnakers. They carried a lot of canvas and were a handful for three crew in strong winds which usually required taking in a reef or two . Eddie Distin, who survived the 1916 Salcombe lifeboat disaster and went on to be coxwain of the lifeboat in later years, was much in demand as a helmsman in the B class.

-The ‘C’ class dinghies were 12’ long and carried 100 sq. feet of sail in a single gunter mainsail mounted right forward. This made them quite a handful to sail downwind in strong breezes but they were very popular and were raced from the 1920’s right up to the war and again for some years postwar before they were displaced by boats such as the 12’ National and Firefly dinghies. The sail numbers of the ‘C’ class reached no.42 before they ceased to be built and the main builders were Edgar Cove and James Stone, both of whom were very active helmsmen in the class, which led to a number of design improvements as they each sought to build faster boats for themselves!

'C' class dinghies racing about 1948 (John sailing C23)

In 1935 the Salcombe Sailing Club started a class for sailing canoes with the idea of introducing young people to sailing. A specification was drawn up and one item was the requirement that the whole boat complete with sails must not cost more than £7! Several were built but John Cove believes that his canoe, which he still owns in Norway is the only surviving example.

Salcombe B-class racing in late 1920's.

- A further class was added about 1937 when people started class racing with the old cruising yawls which were developed from fishing boats for pleasure use. Then certain of the ‘B’ class boats were converted to yawls with sail area reduced to more manageable proportions and a couple of new 16’ boats were built with yawl rig by J. Stone (Y14) and Morgan Giles of Teignmouth (Y7). These boats and their successors outclassed the old boats and for a while the racing was divided between ‘old yawls’ and ‘new yawls’. When racing resumed postwar the B class no longer raced and instead the yawl class became very popular. The prewar ‘new yawls’ became the prototypes leading to the development of the present day rules governing the Salcombe Restricted Yawl class.

Salcombe,'B'-class 'Blue Peter', built in 1937.

John sailing his canoe, about 1938.

Yawl 'Priscilla', Richard helming.

Yawl class racing, about 1948. 'Priscilla' leading.

For more information about the yawl class follow the link to articles covering the history of this class on the Salcombe Yawl Owners Association website: http://www.syoa.co.uk.

John Cove
September 2009