Falmouth, Cornwall · Est. 1974
Tidebreak builds three ocean sailing yachts — the 42, the 54 and the 68 — at one yard on the Fal, to lines faired with wooden splines and lead ducks before any machine is allowed an opinion.
Stand by to traceThe Yard
In 1974 Edwin Maddern walked out of a Southampton design office with a roll of drawings nobody wanted and rented a slip at Ponsharden. The first Tidebreak was lofted on the floor of a disused net store, and the second one paid for the roof.
Two hundred and fourteen hulls later, the drawing office still fairs every line full-size with wooden splines and lead ducks before a single frame is cut. If a batten refuses the curve, the curve is wrong. Computers check our work — they don't do it.
Each hull is drawn from the same parent sections, stretched and re-faired — not scaled. A Tidebreak heels the same way at 42 feet as it does at 68.
Hull plate · fractional sloop · from £745,000
The smallest boat we build and the one the office argues over most. A fractional sloop two people can take across an ocean and one person can bring home — deep fin, single wheel, every sheet led aft under the coamings.
Hull plate · cutter · from £1,480,000
Named for the wind that shuts the Strait of Gibraltar. A cutter, because a thousand miles from the nearest chandlery you want your headsails small and your options many. Skeg-hung rudder; the autopilot thanks you around day nine.
Hull plate · ketch · flagship · from £2,950,000
The flagship, and the reason the loft floor still earns its keep. Thirty-eight tonnes of ketch whose mizzen lets you shorten down without leaving the cockpit. Six can cross an ocean aboard her; two can manage her; one can heave-to and sleep.
Specifications
| Length overall | 20.72 m |
|---|---|
| Length waterline | 18.34 m |
| Beam, maximum | 5.42 m |
| Draught, standard keel | 2.65 m |
| Displacement, half load | 38,400 kg |
| Ballast, lead | 12,600 kg |
| Ballast ratio | 32.8 % |
| Angle of vanishing stability | 128° |
| STIX | 42 |
| RCD design category | A — Ocean |
| Rig | Ketch, keel-stepped |
|---|---|
| I / J | 24.6 / 7.9 m |
| P / E | 22.4 / 8.1 m |
| Mainsail | 92 m² |
| Yankee | 78 m² |
| Staysail | 31 m² |
| Mizzen | 44 m² |
| Sail area, 100 % FT | 214 m² |
| SA / displacement | 16.9 |
| Air draught | 27.9 m |
| Engine | Yanmar 4LV150, 110 kW |
|---|---|
| Propeller | Autoprop, 3-blade |
| Fuel | 1,450 L |
| Fresh water | 1,100 L |
| Watermaker | 140 L/h |
| House bank | 24 V · 1,200 Ah Li |
| Generator | 7 kW DC |
| Berths | 6 + 2 pilot |
| Cabins | 3, plus workshop |
| Yard reference | TB-68-014 |
Note to sheet 3 — displacement is quoted at half load with a cruising inventory aboard, not stripped for a brochure. Figures taken from hull Nº 203, launched May 2026 and weighed on the yard's own travel-hoist cells.
The Build
Every hull begins as a table of offsets and spends its first six weeks as a full-size drawing on the mould-loft floor. Chalk, splines, lead ducks, and an argument or two about the run aft.
Six weeksVacuum-infused E-glass and epoxy over a Corecell core, laminated in one continuous shift so the hull cures as a single piece. The shed doors stay shut until it does.
Eleven weeksOne plantation teak log per boat, quarter-sawn, so the grain agrees with itself from saloon to lazarette. Joiners outnumber everyone else in the yard three to one, as they should.
Thirty-four weeksThree hundred miles off the Lizard in whatever the month offers. She comes back with a list of forty small faults and leaves the yard with none of them.
Three weeksThe Log
1,412,600
nautical miles entered in owners' logbooks and posted back to the yard, every winter, since 1974.
Sea Trials
Trials run out of Falmouth Bay every second Saturday, March to October, two berths per boat. We sail in anything up to force seven; below a whisper, we motor out past St Anthony Head and wait. Bring boots — oilskins are the yard's.
Request a berthMuster at the yard slip ninety minutes before high water. Trials last one tide; lunch is pasties and it is not negotiable.