Bewley's Beach Boats

A Memory of Paignton.

I worked as a novice deckhand on this vessel in the school holidays in the early 1960s. This was the largest of Mr. Bewley's small fleet. He had two other launches that did bay trips and mackerel fishing. I remember I was paid £4 a week for a 12-hr, 7 day week!
I loved every minute of it. I usually worked selling tickets at the beach kiosk and then went on one the smaller boats, but occasionally I was allowed to help crew this one when we went on trips along the coast to Dartmouth. One of the smaller launches was skippered by an old retired Brigham fisherman called Sam and he did most of the mackerel fishing trips. He taught me some basic nautical skills.
We operated from Paignton beach between the pier and the harbour, working from landing stages with large wheels that we rolled in and out to suit the tide. The beach was very safe and quite flat in this area.
This vessel was specially constructed with a very shallow draft at the bow so she could come right up on the beach.