The Morgan Giles Register Dinghy

The article on the Home Page, ‘Kind of magic’ from Classic Boat magazine, gives us a very comprehensive idea of Francis Morgan-Giles love and expertise in the design and construction of small boats.

Early records show that sailing dinghies came in to fashion in the late 1880’s and were being built in Shaldon and Teignmouth from these early days. Abraham Pengelly was at the forefront of Dinghy design and one of the best boat builders of the day. Francis learnt his trade from Pengelly and by the early 1900’s was designing and building his own boats. Kelly’s Directory for 1901 records him as a Yacht and Boat Builder in Shaldon. There was a great interest at that time in the West of England Conference Class, later becoming the National then the International 14ft Dinghy Class which gave a great start to Francis’s early design days. Francis took part in many of these races as did his future wife, Ivy. Both with a high degree of success (see Jane Shaddick’s book ‘Ivy’s Journal').

In those early days Francis concentrated mainly on dinghy design, with great success and in 1909 joined partnership with Harry May with offices in London and a boat building yard in Hammersmith. A few years later there was a surge in One-Design class around the UK and further afield including The USA and Australia amongst others. Francis was at the forefront of these designs.

From the inception of the Morgan Giles yard in 1920 the Morgan Giles job book shows well over 250 of these National, International and One-design dinghies were constructed in the yard, the last in 1956. Francis not only designed and built these fine boats but also sailed and competed in his boats with a great deal of success for many years. Below are just some of the designs that Francis produced and some of the sailing clubs they were made for. There were many more designs that he produced which were produced by other builders.

In addition to the sailing dinghy design Francis also produced a great many Rowing Dinghies.  It is quite difficult to define these in the job book as they went under many different names such as Pulling Boat, Pulling Dinghy, Dinghy, Pram, Rowing Pram, Rowing Punt and Rowboat. All no doubt to a different design to suit the customers requirements and were made as tenders to the bigger boats made at Morgan Giles and other builders.  Some have survived and show the care put into these were just the same as all the boats produced at the Morgan Giles yard.