GOING IT ALONE

We’ve got good news and bad news,” wrote Tony and Val Williams to naval architect David Alan-Williams in March 2015. “We’ve sold the boat but we didn’t really mean to!” The boat in question was the 42ft Brychan they had built themselves (just as they had their previous boat Breock) and which David had designed for them. They were now turning their attention to another boat and, once more, they wanted David to design it.

Tony and Val’s involvement in boatbuilding began before they were married when, as teenagers, they played truant from college to work on a canoe, then built various small boats including an Enterprise and Fireball dinghy. Tony apprenticed as a toolmaker with Rolls Royce but by the late 1970s he was building boats full time. The first big boat they owned was a Holman & Pye ketch called which they lived on for four years with their two young daughters. After selling (to the TV presenter John Noakes) they decided to build , a Giles 38. When they went to Irons Brothers in Wadebridge, Cornwall to discuss the casting of the keel, Henry Irons suggested they build the boat on his premises. “He. They went to David Alan-Williams for the design not least, said Tony, “because he designs a boat for what you want, not what he thinks you should have.”