Evelyn
Historic Falmouth Working Boat
Evelyn's History
125 Years Old
Evelyn was built in 1898 on the beach at Yard Point on the Restronguet Creek by Frank Hitchens, a master shipwright, with the assistance of his son Tom. Another son, James Hitchens a fisherman, had a daughter called Evelyn and it was after her that the boat was named.
Constructed of pitch-pine planking on oak frames she was built with the specific aim of being the working boat to beat all others.
Registered for nets, lines and crabbing by Thos. & James Hitchens (Feock) she was sold in 1905 to the Billings family of Flushing who, as well as using her for trawling and crabbing, commissioned Jackits of Falmouth to put on an iron ballast keel to further improve her sailing performance.
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In 1935 Evelyn was sold and for the next 30 years she had various owners along the coast who used her for fishing and recreational purposes with additions such as the fitting of a marine engine, a coachroof with cooking stove, a single bunk and heads.
Winning Streak
In 1965 she returned to Flushing from Penzance, and under the ownership of Kenny Corke she was 'reconverted' with the engine and coachroof removed and the foredeck rebuilt so that she could start dredging for oysters in the Carrick Roads.
A few years later, he decided to start racing her having been repeatedly told that she was the fastest working boat in the fleet, and in the late 60s she won her very first race at the Mylor Village regatta.
Over the next 20 years or so Evelyn spent the winters dredging for oysters and the summers racing in the Falmouth Working Boat fleet, winning in one season over 21 trophies!
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Modern Times
In the late 1980s she was sold to Bernie Trenoweth who wanted her solely for racing. In his yard at Penryn, to further improve Evelyn's competitiveness, he added a two ton iron keel, a new teak foredeck, new spars, several frames and fastenings . All of which paid off handsomely with Evelyn having many very successful racing seasons.
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But in the end this success was not to the complete delight of her owners because Evelyn's triumph resulted in the introduction, in the early 1990s, of a racing handicap system for the whole fleet as a way to even up the competition.
Coincidentally at around this time, and when the Roseland Working Boat Syndicate was being formed, Bernie decided to sell Evelyn. As soon as Evelyn's availability became known to the Syndicate plans to purchase a GRP boat were immediately dropped and in 1994 she was sold to the Roseland Working Boat Syndicate and a new chapter in her long life was to begin.