Hinks, Alan L (BGS 1940-)
Alan Hinks was a local boat builder who specialised in building replicas of historic vessels. He was born in Appledore into a family of boat builders founded by his grandfather. He was a pupil at Bideford Grammar School from 1940. When he left at age 15, he went into the family business, making fishing boats and similar craft.
However, at one point in his career, he was asked if he could build a full-sized replica of the Nonsuch, to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage to Canada, using traditional ship building techniques. He was keen to do this, but because it was a large vessel, it would need a larger shipyard than the one in Irsha Street. He nevertheless went ahead, and built the new yard on the site of the old gas works at Watertown on the road to Westward Ho! and work began on the Nonsuch on the new site, using only traditional tools and techniques, and a local workforce trained to use them.
The craft was launched in August 1968, with a crowd of 37,000 people assembled to watch the launch. However, as the journey across the Atlantic would have been very hazardous, it was decided not to sail it across, it was disassembled and taken as cargo by another ship, the sailed down the St Lawrence river, through the Great Lakes and ended up in the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg.
In 1971, he was commissioned by a San Francisco corporation to build a replica of the Golden Hinde, the ship that Sir Francis Drake used to circumnavigate the globe. It was 102 feet long, with five decks, 22 cannon and 4,000 square feet of sail. The replica itself circumnavigated the globe before being laid up at St Mary Overy Dock at Bankside, in Southwark, London, where it acts as a tourist attraction today.
A third replica, a 70′ Viking longship, the Valkyria, was launched in 1975, and a fourth replica, the Roman galley, Britannia, were both bound for Thorpe Park leisure complex in Surrey.
After this, no further commissions were forthcoming, so Alan reverted to building trawlers, fishing-protection vessels and yachts. Eventually, however, the fishing industry declined and so did the work at the shipyard, and finally closed.
Alan changed career to that of a marine surveyor, whilst his wife, Audrey, opened up an art gallery in Appledore. The shipyard was only built as a temporary structure, and was eventually demolished. Only the ramp down to the beach remains.
Alan died, aged 80, in 2008. He had two daughters.
