Cygnus Marine is now 30 years old, being established in Falmouth in 1972 on the Tregoniggie Industrial Estate. Initially they fitted out the Lochin 33, then known as the 'Falmouth Fast Fisherman'.

The mackerel 'klondyking' boom of the early 70's led to a rush of orders, and an early association with Gary Mitchell a local designer, who produced the lines plans for a number of the Cygnus displacement hulls. These included the GM26 and GM32, hundreds of which were built for the UK and abroad.

Another yard was opened in Truro, 'SteelShip', where some very high quality steel vessels up to 120', and aluminum patrol vessel and life boats up to 60' were produced.

The GRP yard moved to its present location at Britannia Yard, Penryn in 1975/6, having outgrown the original premises, with a number of designs available growing in size. The new yard was a custom built GRP laminating factory with full insulation and controlled heating. The extra space allowed the company to develop its own in house metal fabrication, electrics and large woodworking shop, this reduced the use of subcontractors and thus increased quality control. The premises have been approved by all the major classification societies for full construction of all craft.

Cygnus Marine was acquired by the Watercraf Group in 1983, and built several of their work boat and patrol boats in addition to the work boat and fishing vessels, for three years until unfortunately the group failed, and Cygnus Marine went into private hands in the form of a management buyout. The new ownership of John Peters(Technical) , Ernie Cooke(Sales) and Andrew Clynick(Finance) continue to the present day.

The decision was made to concentrate solely on the GRP production, though not just on the marine side, and there have been notable other successes in various fields such as caravan walling, sewage treatment, building/fascias etc.

Diversity was also made into the recreation market, with yachts and motor cruisers assuming an increased significance with changes in global working practices and conservation issues reducing the requirement for fishing related craft.

Up to the present date, Cygnus have now built over two and a half thousand vessels, which are in service all over the world, from Greenland to Antarctica, up the Amazon to Tahiti. They range from work boats, charter, passenger, angling, fishing, pleasure, research, sailing and survey. Cygnus has also built boats in Hong-Kong, Aden, Chile, India and other far-flung locations, through either supplying moulds or expertise.

The focus has changed from heavy displacement craft to fast planing designs and the yard is presently mainly full with Cyclone 30, Cyfish 33, Typhoon 33/42, Tornado 28, Cygnet 23 - but all the full range of moulds are still available if required.

For instance the inshore smaller displacement hulls such as the GM19, GM21, Holton 24 and DS25 continue to be extremely popular, with several as part completed kits for owners or other boatyards to complete.

The boat yard is our showroom, and we would encourage potential owners to make the effort to come over and meet us face to face if at all possible, inspect our workshops and build quality and appreciate the full range we have on offer.

We regret to let you know that Ernie Cooke was killed on Sunday May 11th,. He was bicycling home from playing squash in Falmouth to watch his favourites Middlesborough play football on TV., a car not seeing him turned right across his path. Ernie sustained severe head injuries, never regaining consciousness died two days later. Unfortunately he never got to really enjoy his retirement from the boatyard and continue his licence trading which he was especially looking forward too. Ernie was a strong character which we will all miss, our thoughts go out to his wife and two young sons.