It sailed very well but sadly never really caught on, it was a bit like an inflatable Hobie Cat and deserved to do a lot better.  We experimented with a folding deck made from aluminium extrusions but never had the time to perfect it.

In mid-1968 Fred was approached by a former colleague in his East Grinstead business to allow his designs to be built under license in Southern Ireland.  I'd re-taken my A-Levels (successfully) but my chosen career as an airline pilot was killed off when BOAC shut down its training school at Hamble.  Fred kindly suggested I should be taken on by the new company as its Production Manager, which they did and my salary leapt to £1,200 p.a.  The new company was called the Irish Inflatable Boat Company (IIB) and was based in an old carpet factory in Moycullen, about 8 miles north of Galway.  My first tasks were to train up around 25 staff and get boats ready for the 1969 London Boat Show.  I built the 4 boats for the show, whose names were changed to reflect the Irish link to the Doon (Tramp), Cashel (Traveller), Bantry (the speedboat) and Aran (the sailing catamaran).

The Sales Director came away from the 1969 London Boat Show with a massive order for 1,000 boats from the USA, though deliveries were not due to commence until later that year.  The buyer set up a Letter of Credit at our bank in Galway and it all looked very promising.  In the meantime we were kept busy delivering boats to the UK.  By the Spring of 1969 we had reached our production target of 20 boats a week but it was all about to go horribly wrong.  To curb imports into the UK the Labour Government introduced an Import Levy of 100% of the shipment value at the point of entry.  Under this our company might ship say £1,000 worth of boats to the UK but we had to deposit £1,000 with HM Government, which we didn't get back (without interest) until 6 months later.  Having paid the levy our boats could be delivered to chandlers around the UK.  However, anyone familiar with the UK boating business will know that many chandleries expect to place orders and take delivery early in the year, and pay the supplier at the end of the season.  In any business Cashflow is King but sadly ours was now only flowing out.

Despite having a massive order from the USA we ran out of cash and ceased trading in August 1969 when the Irish Inflatable Boat Company folded (no pun intended).  I was kept on by the Liquidator to convert stock into completed boats to help pay off company debts whilst he tried to find a buyer for the company.  Sadly the Liquidator was not successful and I left Ireland in February 1970 and joined the RAF to take up my flying career.  Happily Fred had only sold IIB the right to manufacture his boats so Tinker Marine survived.  I kept in touch with Fred and his wife for a while but my flying career took me far away from Brixham and we eventually lost touch.

It was a few years later that I learned that Fred had teamed up with Henshaws and the rest, as they say, is history.  Whilst the sailing versions of the Tramp and Traveller came along - in the 'Henshaw years' - long after my time at Tinker Marine, the basic hull designs date back to the mid-to late-1960s.  I'm proud to have built the very first Tinker Tramp in 1968 and it's great to see its successors are still loved by their owners some 45 years later.