Welcome to Berthon, Lymington, United Kingdom. Berthon has been trading continuously since 1877, and occupies a riverside site mentioned in the Domesday Book. Berthon,is a versatile and comprehensive yachting business with a solid financial base and an uncompromising ethos to deliver the very best service to our yachting clients. Shipbuilder John Coombes bought what is now the Berthon site in 1667, described then as "all that piece of mud or sea oozy land, bounded on the North by the town slip, on the East by the sea or river, and on the West by the King's highway". Estate agents obviously weren't what they are today! When on the 29th June 1849 the SS ORION was wrecked off Port Patrick, a friend of Berthon, the Rev Clark, was saved and wrote "Can not you think of a way in which boats, enough for all on board, be stowed on a passenger steamer without inconvenience?" Thus was born the Berthon Collapsible Lifeboat.
When demonstrated to Queen Victoria, the Prince Consort, the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, the latter commented that a cannon ball would go through it easily. The Rev Berthon asked him what a cannon ball would not go through, and the Queen was reported to have been greatly amused. The Navy, however, did not accept the design until Berthon had perfected it in 1873. The Lymington shipyard is reputed to have been in use since Roman times. During the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) the Lymington shipyard supplied nine ships to the Defence of the Realm, more than Portsmouth.
John Rogerys owned the shipyard from 1513; he later sold to Charles Guidot. In 1667 it was bought by John Coombes, all the while continuing the building of wooden ships. In 1819 Thomas Inman bought the yard, building customs cutters and gentlemen's sailing yachts. The three most famous were Alarm, Arrow and Lulworth, all of which raced against the schooner America around the Isle of Wight on 22nd August 1851, the forerunner of the Americas Cup. Sadly Arrow ran aground cheating the tide, Alarm went to her rescue and their race was over. America cut inside the Nab light, Lulworth was beaten and the rest is history. Mr Courtney took over the shipyard in the late 19th century.
Meanwhile in 1877, the Rev E L Berthon started his company in Romsey, building folding lifeboats and "other floating machines". Earlier inventions of his include the screw propeller. After his death in 1899, his son Edward ran the business. Frank Aubrey May was wounded in the trenches in 1917 and was invalided out of the army due to the loss of an arm and a shattered knee-cap. He came home and bought the Romsey-based Berthon Boat Company as a nominee for his American-resident brother George, Edward Berthon having just died. His partner was to be his other brother Harry, the present-day owners' great-grandfather, who was too old to serve in the war. Harry was formerly a boat builder on the Thames at Chertsey (May, Harden & May), then at Hammersmith where he built International 14s with Morgan Giles under the name Giles and May, before moving Giles and May to Hythe on Southampton Water where he now traded.
Harry May bought the Lymington shipyard in 1918, and the next year moved Berthon Boat Company from Romsey, merging it with his new Lymington shipyard. Under the Berthon banner, Harry developed a diverse business of yacht and commercial boat building, repairs and mud berths. As well as one-off yachts such as the beautiful Vera Mary, a large class of West Solent one designs was built, and the Gauntlet series began. Tugs, pilot boats and naval launches also provided a mainstay of work. Harry's son preferred banking, becoming a director of merchant bank Guinness Mahon, so the Lymington shipyard business was passed on to Harry's grandson, David, who took over in the late 1950s. He was an active yacht racer who built many winners, often sailing them to victory himself. In 1967 David May revolutionised Lymington by dredging the shipyard foreshore and building the marina. David's sons, Brian and Dominic May, took over in 1990. They have modernised the shipyard and consider themselves as tenants for the next generation.
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