Last Bucks Ledge lugger saved

After working for Ashley Butler for a number of years, Chris Frisby has started out as a self-employed boatbuilder based on the north coast of Cornwall. Chris’s first commission is based on a small working boat from his native north Devon. She’s a Bucks Ledge lugger that worked o the beach in the small village of Bucks Mills. The commission came after the client remembered seeing a Bucks Ledge lugger in the long-defunct Exeter Maritime Museum and wanted a similar boat built. The museum boat turned out to be Flying Foam, back in north Devon after the dissolution of the Eyemouth Museum where she was kept after Exeter. She’s thought to be the last

Bucks Ledge lugger in existence. Flying

Foam is now in Chris’s workshop, as a possible restoration, alongside her near replica. “The new build is clinker rather than carvel as requested by the client” says Chris, who had just finished planking at the time of writing. “She’s quite small at 11ft 6in (3.5m) but quite shapely and will have a standing lug main with a mizzen. She’ll also be a lot lighter, the original Flying Foam has rugged 5/8in-thick oak planking on the bottom, while I’m planking in 3/8in Sitka spruce. Other projects in the shop include an Aberystwyth-built clinker dinghy in need of new garboards and other work, and a Percy Mitchell motor launch in for restoration and sale. See more at cfrisbyboats.co.uk.