Professional Essex boat builder, restorer, travelling boat maintenance man and enthusiastic weblogger Simon Papendick (read his stuff here) is setting up a register of vessels built by the Whitstable firm of Anderson, Rigden and Perkins, and is calling for owners to get in touch.
Contact Simon at jstarboatservices1@gmail.com .
The boat photographed above is Simon’s Anderson, Rigden and Perkins-built Gadfly II before its current refit.
Part of the the aim is to demonstrate the range of yachts that Anderson, Rigden and Perkins built, and to provide a forum for yacht owners to get in touch with each other, piece together bits of history, help each other with technical issues and so on.
The company is the subject of a book by Faversham boat builder Alan Staley, but I gather there are gaps in the history because many of the records were burnt in a fire at the boatyard, while other material was destroyed after a local library was unable to provide a home for them.
Looking around the World Wide Web, I notice that there’s this article from The Whitstable Times that neatly summarises the Anderson, Rigden and Perkins’ history – which includes motor boats, vessels for the Admiralty and a lot of repair work during World War II. However, it likely dates from before the period of its success with the well known fibreglass Anderson 22 lifting keel sailing cruiser and racer.
Hope he has a copy of Alan Staley’s “Last One Down The Slip” The Story of the Anderson, Rigden & Perkins shipyard published by Friends of Whitstable Museum & Gallery. My last but one boat Welcome Two was converted there after the war, she was an Admiralty cutter shipped from Plymouth to Whitstable by train at a cost of 12 shillings, two tons six shillings per ton, try asking for that at your local station today!
He has – but I haven’t. Is there anyone whon still has stocks, do you think?
Gavin
Silly question but have you asked Alan? Does the museum have any? I wonder if it was produced electronically, it might be possible to get a copy that way.
Good question. I’ll email him. The Whitstable Museum website seems to be shared with the Canterbury museums, so I’m not confident that an email sent that way would be noticed, let alone land on the right desktop. Thanks for the thought, Gavin
Hi Gavin my name is Lysa and I am the daughter of Francis Rigden who was a shipwright and his family were part of Anderson Rigden and Perkins in Whitstable! I have a copy of the Last One Down The Slip! I am trying to find out which boats my Father built and was interested to read your page!
Hi Lysa. I’ve been trying to get a copy of ‘Last One Down The Slip’ for a while. I own ‘Anderson Affair’, an Anderson 22 built in 1977 and sailed by Bob Salmon on the inaugural Minitransat race from Penzance to Antigua. If you have access to more copies of the book I’d be interested in getting one. If you’d like to hear the story of ‘Anderson Affair’ just get in touch.