Rossiter Yachts, Ltd.

From the Rossiter Marine Ltd. website: In 1936 Charles Purbrook, a silversmith, built himself a clinker sailing dinghy. Before he had finished it someone bought it and before long he found himself doing, with help from our long serving foreman Tom Kerley, more boatbuilding than silversmithing. These Coot class dinghies caught on and in 1938 he moved to a boatyard on the river Avon at Christchurch. Just before the war he designed and built for himself an 18 foot half-decked dayboat which he called Shelduck. In 1949 Hugh Rossiter, who had trained as a naval architect with practical experience in ship and boat building, joined the firm at the time the yard was embarking on their 22 foot Heron. He took over from Charles Purbrook in 1951 and continued building wooden boats to the firm’s designs. In 1962 Hugh Rossiter designed the 27 foot Pintail which was built in wood until 1970, when the growing demand for glassfibre boats prompted us into having Pintail hulls moulded in GRP. Rossiter Yachts didn’t abandon wood entirely and achieved in the new Pintail an attractive blend of glassfibre and wood. The next step was a 32 foot boat which we designed in 1979, calling on the firm’s skill and experience gained from designing and building Shelducks, Herons and Pintails. The result was Curlew, first built in traditional carvel in 1980 and followed by glassfibre in 1981 until 1996. In keeping with the times and modernising the company, 2018 was the start of a merger between Rossiter Yachts Ltd and Christchurch Marine, becoming Rossiter Marine Ltd.