As early as January 1969 Tyler boats were placing advertisements in the yachting press illustrating the complete range of yachts they either did, or in the future would produce and including what they termed the "Victory Series" of yachts..

We are indebted to Neil Marchant for the above information. He was the engineer on the Victory 40 project at Tylers and was responsible for overseeing the engineering aspects of the first nine hulls.

Tylers started full production of Victory40 hulls in 1970. They installed Perkins engines, Paragon gearboxes, propshafts, and Mathway Torquetube steering gear. In this form the hulls were sent 400 miles north to Scotland where Aberdour Marine finished and marketed the boats .Most went by road, but some were motored under their own steam as bare hulls containing bundles of fittings.

Although this arrangement continued until Aberdour Marine went out of business, from 1973 onwards, and following the first oil crisis and the start of a deteriorating British economy , Tylers also supplied 103 Victory40 hulls to the boatyard of Anne Wever in Holland. These were subsequently completed and sold as the Trintella IV.

Tylers had also broadened their customer base from mid 1970 by selling small numbers of hulls to various other boatyards, who completed them and marketed them as Victory40s. From about 1973 Tylers also made hulls available to private individuals for subsequent home completion.

We would love to hear from any individuals who had any involvement in the construction of these boats.

Aberdour Marine.

Aberdour Marine, based at Hawkcraig Point on the west side of Silversands Bay in Fife, Scotland, was formed in 1966 by Don McLachlan and others out of the ashes of Graham Finlayson`s company Marine Services.

Marine Services had produced well built wooden boats in the town of Aberdour since before World War 2.

Aberdour Marine quickly established a reputation for turning out a high quality grp motor cruiser, the "Norseman”.

The Norseman came about because Don McLachlan was also a partner in Viking Marine, a company which had made fibreglass lifeboats and launches for cruise liners.The 'Norseman' cruisers were produced from the moulds used to make the launches for the Cunard liners Carmenia and Franconia when they were refitted. http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Saxonia1954.html.
At the completion of the refit the mould was redundant and Don thought it would be a good idea to start building and fitting out these launches as motor cruisers …...the first of which he produced for his own use before Aberdour Marine was formed.

In 1969 Aberdour Marine started fitting out glass fibre Victory40 hulls from The Tyler Boat Company of Tonbridge, England.....The first, named `Scarab`, was completed in 1970.

The boats were in many respects `bespoke`...
Even though there was a drawing of a `standard layout`, potential new owners would be presented with an almost bewildering array of choices of cabin layout, fittings, equipment, materials, fabrics and finishes.
Hull colours offered included, (but were not limited to), Canary Yellow , British Racing Green, and Duck Egg Blue,as well as standard Mediterranean White.
The decks could be supplied in matching or contrasting colours.
The inventories must have been huge.

The quality of the joinery and finishing work and the attention to detail was superb. This was almost certainly down to the fact that all of Aberdour`s workforce had come from Burntisland Shipyard barely 3 miles away and which had gone into receivership in 1968.
This yard had produced high quality ships for the merchant marine industry. These were highly skilled craftsmen ..the best quality Scottish “shipbuilders turned boat builders”.

Potential purchasers of Victory40s were encouraged to visit the factory in Aberdour, to discuss their requirements, and to go for a short demonstration sail on a newly completed boat.

All this, of course, came at a price, and in 1973 a Victory40 would, in round terms, cost about £22,000....roughly equivalent to the cost of an ordinary house in outer London.

The 1970`s , after the first oil crisis in 1973, became a time of huge financial turmoil in Britain . Inflation went into double figures, wages spiralled, and many companies went out of business.

Don McLachlan and his team made many changes to reduce costs, including attempting to produce a `standard boat` with a much more limited range of options. They struggled with the economic conditions around them..
During the coal miner`s strike of 1974 the yard maintained its productivity despite a legally imposed 3-day week and power cuts.

However, despite their best efforts, and even though the boats were extremely well thought of, the profit margin on each boat became ever lower, and the worsening economic climate meant that sales became fewer and further between.......

Between 1970 and 1975, Aberdour Marine turned out 23 Victory40`s......The first was Scarab, Bignor Breeze was No.2.....and Sunbird II was No.23.
Construction of Norseman motor cruisers also continued during this period....(and this explains the apparent anomalies in the boat numbering system).

In 1975, Aberdour Marine was taken over by a local builder, Denis Thain, and then in 1977 after the company went bankrupt and following the involvement of Gordon McPherson it became Aberdour Yachts.

Although a very small number of Victory 40s followed after 1975, Aberdour Yachts mostly fitted out Colvic Victor hulls ...until they too went out of business in the 1980s.

We are indebted for the information above to Fiona Lees who is both the daughter of Don McLachlan, and the former wife of the yard foreman and manager Erskine Johnston. Fiona also worked for a time in Aberdour Marine as the office manager.

We are also grateful for the assistance of local Aberdour historian Peter Drumm

Home completed by

R.W.Hood

formerly Frou Frou II,.. part completed by Aberdour Yachts,.. finished by McGruers of the Gareloch....commissioned in 1984