After Franks death the yard was absorbed by a business group and Michael Morgan-Giles took over as Managing Director until he retired two years later. During his time at the yard he had become Chairman of Teignmouth Urban District Council as the Shaldon representative and Chairman of the Harbour Commissioners. He was a Justice of the Peace and had received the MBE for public Service.
At this time Kenneth Collyer had designed the 30ft sloop rigged cruiser-racer Genesis, built of wood. Frank had approved this design before his death. This became the prototype for the MG30 the first of which was produced in GRP the following year and became a very successful design. Six were produced at the yard and many more are sailing today.
Also produced were the Angus Primrose designed Warrior class, wooden hulled and 35ft in length so the wood building skills were not entirely lost. These were either built or supplied in kit form.
The 48ft Virginia QueenThe yard continued to produce the Monaco Cruisers but the job book shows only another five were built. One of these was the Virginia Queen shown here, purchased by Ronald Plumly the then chairman of the Tobacco Giant, Carreras Rothmans.
Bourton MarinerIn addition to the MG30 and the Warrior the yard also went into production of canal cruisers. To increase work for the yard a base for sales and hire of these boats was set up at the Aynho Yard on the Oxford Canal. This was run by Cdr. Cliff Parsons who had raced the Monaco Cruisers with Michael Morgan-Giles in the Cowes Torquay races. Roger Cox went there as the mechanic.
Canal Cruiser built at the Teignmouth Yard 25 Canal Cruisers were built at the Teignmouth yard ranging from 30ft up to 44ft in length
Quite a number of those built were sold to other hire companies such as British Waterways Board, Blue Line and Lady Line. The Aynho Yard was finally sold in 1978.
When the Teignmouth yard was taken over Honor Marine from Totnes produced GRP Hulls there. David Coysh took over part of the yard and employed some of the men to continue building the boats mentioned earlier and also repairs to vessels.The yard finally closed in 1968 and sold to developers to build the flats that are there today; Morgans Quay and Leander Court. Some of the slipways are still in existence as a legacy to the work that was done there.
The business and the name transferred to Stone Pier yard at Warsash where boats were continued to be built under the Morgan Giles Name.
Finally this is an image of the yard in the early 1960’s. Frank was totally dedicated to building boats out of wood and totally rejected builds using GRP. One of his uncompromising pronouncements being:
‘God made Man so that he could float on a piece of wood'
