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HURLEY 27
(Bowman 26 , Dockrell 27)
A long keel, spacious yacht with deep cockpit.

In the middle 60's Ian Anderson was associated with a company called Lee Wright Ltd who were building boats at Dartmouth. He designed for them a small sailing cruiser for strip planked mahogany construction called Sirius. After making three or four boats to this design the company were taken over by the Normand electrical company of Clapham Common London. The MD was Jack Bowdich, a sailing enthusiast, and the new outfit was called The Normand Boatyard Dartmouth. The link here may be that Jack's boat may well have been in the yard when the Lee Wright company got into difficulties.

Ian Anderson, with the respected Hurley 22 design behind him, was asked by Normand Boatyard to re-work the Sirius design for GRP construction which he did and the first boat produced was given the name Bowman. The moulding was carried out by the Monachorum Manufacturing company run by Mike Challis who subsequently ran the SABB UK South agency for 30 years and has now retired. Eleven boats were built by the Normand Boatyard before the rights were sold to their then agents Larry Baker and Alan Hallett of Emsworth Marine sales who were operating from Emsworth Marina, then in the process of being dug out. A further quantity of boats to the Bowman design were then built at Emsworth Shipyard (anybody know how many?) before production ceased.

At about this time George Hurley wanted a larger version of the Hurley 22 to add to the Hurley boat range. Ian Anderson was again called upon and the Bowman 26 moulds were used as a starting point. a number of design changes were made, the most noticeable of which was the raising of the forward coachroof to provide standing headroom in the forepeak. The topsides were also raised all round by about 6 inches resulting in an increased length overall to 27 feet. This boat was called the Hurley 27.

After the demise of Hurley Marine the moulds were bought by Dockrell Yachts of Tavistock, Devon. Dockrell introduced a shoal draft version with a winged keel. The Dockrell 27 was in production until around 1989.