Devon Yawl Buyer's Guide
The Devon Yawl on the used market is a 16-foot glassfibre one-design yawl descended from Salcombe fishing boats, still built in the UK and USA with around 400 launched since 1968. For a shopper the appeal is a traditional two-masted look with modern durability and a class that actively supports owners, but the details below matter more than the romance when you inspect a specific hull.
Layouts on the Used Market
Because the Devon Yawl is a strict one-design, the essential layout is constant: 16 ft overall excluding the 2 ft wooden bowsprit, 6 ft 2 in beam, with stowage under fore and stern decks and a centreplate case that takes little room. Early boats such as hull No. 85 carry a traditional wooden floor over a shallow flat bilge, while later UK and US production followed the same glassfibre clinker hull principle. The cockpit seats a family crew without crowding the helm, and the boat can live safely on a mooring.
Equipment and Common Upgrades
The rig itself is the headline: lightweight alloy spars with a wooden bowsprit and a drum-winch raised centreplate, and the working sail area runs 150 sq ft under jib or 167 sq ft with the genoa, enough to race or potter. Beyond the as-designed gear, buyers should look at canvas and sail handling for trailering and winter cover, and at navigation lighting if a boat has been used for extended estuary cruising rather than day racing. The flexible yawl rig means a used boat may show mixed sail inventories — jib, genoa, and mizzen in varying condition — which is worth weighing against a tired all-original set.
What to Inspect
The single most important safety fact is that a Devon Yawl will not sink provided the side tanks are sound, so confirming those tanks and any hull penetrations around them is the first job on any viewing. On older examples the traditional wooden floor and shallow bilge beneath should be checked for rot or distortion, since that construction differs from later practice. The robust clinker lay-up means hull integrity is generally a long-life item, but a boat from the original mould line should be noted against post-2014 moulded boats for production-era context.
Availability and Buyer's Takeaway
Active fleets exist at Topsham SC, Yealm YC, Newport Pembrokeshire, on the river Dart at Dittisham, Chichester harbour and in North America, which is where most used boats will surface. When you go looking, keep this short list:
- Verify side tanks are sound — unsinkable depends on them
- Inspect wooden floor and bilge on early hulls
- Confirm centreplate drum winch and alloy spars condition
- Check sail inventory covers jib, genoa, mizzen
- Prefer a boat with class-association papers for Nationals eligibility