The "Boy
Willie"
PZ 602: "Boy
Willie" represented the final and ultimate
development of the West Cornwall mackerel
driver. It was a wooden sailing lugger built in
Newlyn by Henry Peake for Newlyn fisherman
William Simons who was then 28 years of age. It was launched in
1896 and named "Boy Willie"
after William who lived to 102.
It was built close to the
shore for ease of launching in the Tolcarne area
of Newlyn .
The length was 52' LOA with
14' 6" beam and 47' keel, carvel built and
fine in the bows and stern, yet still with a good
load capacity. It was considered a
fine example of this type of craft although it
was about a foot narrower in the beam as Willie
Simons liked racing.
1896 was the year of the
historic Newlyn riots when Mount's Bay fishermen
were in revolt against Sunday fishing by the
East Coast boats which was to the detriment of
their own early-week markets.
During the first fishing
season of 1896 the "Boy Willie" was
mackerel driving as far as Kinsale in Southern
Ireland and in the following year the Newlyn men
took the lugger fishing in the North Sea.
The lugger was sold in 1918 to
the Pender fishing family of Mousehole and is
thought to have gone to Falmouth in 1941 for
wartime use and after that the history is not
clear.
Descendants of the Simons and
Peake families still live in Newlyn, but there is
no trace of the "Boy Willie".
The
original plans and line drawings taken off in
1936 by P. Oak were available at the National
Maritime Museum in London. They were retained
and stored after the loss of a Scottish fishing
fleet in bad weather as there were demands in
Parliament for improvements in the design of
inshore craft around the British Isles.
There
are two models of the "Boy Willie".
One was made by Mr. Simons' grandson, Percy
Harvey, the other by his grand-daughter
Leontine's husband, Vaughan Pender.
Boy Willie
in Mousehole in
1936 Bow view - note the sharp floors and round bilges
