Mike & Lisa Hooton

Mike was brought up next to Burnes Shipyard in Chichester Harbour, builders of Nicholsons, SCODs and Folkboats. 

There he found his first boat at the age of 9, a Firefly which was too big for him.  

His professional life has been spent building enterprises in the public and private sectors in rural areas and these have included the arts, software, food industry and management services. 

In 1999 he sold a software company and started to restore a 1934 Blackwater Sloop in the shed.  He was looking for beaching legs and noticed a small ad in the classified section of Yachting Monthly offering a Boatyard For Sale. 

The setting on the Tamar was so glorious and so completely unspoilt that a lifestyle change beckoned.  Mike and Lisa, Daniel and Sophie moved from their farmhouse on the North Norfolk marshes where they had been living for more than 20 years to Weir Quay within 2 months.

WQB is uncannily similar to Burnes Shipyard and subliminally it was a move to another home territory.

Lisa trained for 3 years and works as a teacher of the Alexander Technique.  Daniel is reserve boatman and drummer when he’s not at school.  Sophie wants to go surfing.  Mike is full time hands-on manager and foreman of the Yard.