Cockwells’ Heart of Wood

What we’re doing is providing a good working environment which is dry, warm, and—most importantly for all boatbuilders—has a flat floor. Because you’ve got to provide a space that people want to go to, so they’re happy to go to work.”

Dave Cockwell is showing me around his new boatbuilding shed at Tregatreath on the banks of the Fal estuary near Mylor Bridge in Cornwall, England. When I last visited the site 20 years ago, it was a series of rickety old sheds where Martin Heard (and before him his father, Terry) of Gaffers & Luggers built rough-and-ready fiberglass gaffers inspired by local working boats. Cockwell bought the yard just before Heard died in 2010 and set about creating a modern boatbuilding yard. The transformation of the site, from rustic time warp into a 21st-century creative hub, could hardly be more dramatic.

In place of the leaky sheds, a spectacular three-story building, with wooden siding and a central glass office tower, rises beside the river. Inside, the main shed feels cavernous, though, as Cockwell points out, it will soon be filled once they start building the 60' motorboats that are currently on the drawing board. The building is designed to be energy-passive, and its vast, sloped, south-facing roof is covered with solar panels. Cockwell reckons the savings in his energy bill alone will pay the interest on the loan he’s taken to build the building, as well as powering the radiant floor heating he’s so proud of.

Cockwell is a man with ambition. His fiberglass Duchy range of motor launches is selling faster than he can build them, with 17 Duchy 27s sold in seven years, five Duchy 21s and nine Duchy 35s sold since they were launched last year, and one Duchy 45 sold before the molds have even been built. His radical new wooden motor launch, the Titian Tender (see page 64), has just won the concours d’élégance award at the Cannes Yachting Festival and is headed to Monaco next.