First Peninsula Marine has announced the sale of Larkman’s Boatyard to Sam and Kayleigh Whitworth, who have relocated to Suffolk to take over the business.
Larkman’s Boatyard is based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, on the English east coast, and operates as a full-service boatyard. The site was established in 1959 before relocating to its current location on the River Deben in 1966. Three generations of the Larkman family have worked at the yard since it was founded.
Larkman’s Boatyard operates across approximately 2.24 hectares of hardstanding and boatyard space on the River Deben. The facility has capacity for around 230 boats with a maximum length of 13.7m and a maximum draught of 2.1m. Three river moorings are also included within the site.
Services include cranage up to 15 tonnes, storage and lay-up packages, along with chandlery, rigging, refit, engineering, repair and maintenance work.
The Whitworths say personal circumstances contributed to their decision to purchase the business.
Sam Whitworth says: “Life threw us a pretty major curve ball in the form of a significant health challenge and we started to question how we were living our lives and if we were giving our children and ourselves the best we could.
“We decided to stop in and look at Larkman’s Boatyard during a break on the north Norfolk coast, and we subsequently knew we wanted to take the yard on. After seven months, after it was all finalised, we sold everything in Hampshire and relocated to Suffolk to take on the yard.”
Sam previously worked in boatbuilding and marine engineering before moving into engineering and manufacturing roles in other sectors.
He says: ”I started my career at Spirit Yachts, training first as a boatbuilder and then a marine engineer. Towards the end of my time at Spirit, I studied for a degree in mechanical engineering. This led to opportunities designing systems to refuel aircraft in flight, setting up a modular building factory and developing hydrogen refuelling systems to decarbonise heavy transport.”
Kayleigh Whitworth’s background is in education and business administration.
She says: “I feel the roles we have both held have formed a great grounding to be taking on this kind of business. It’s been a mix of technical skills, customer-facing service and organisation that we feel will come in very useful.”
The Larkman family says maintaining the site as a working boatyard was an important consideration during the sale process.
The Whitworths plan to continue operating the site as a working boatyard under the Deben Boatyard name.
Sam says: “Our customers love the fit and feel of the yard as it is. We want to make sure we hang on to this and the reputation the Larkmans have built.
“We will sympathetically update the yard over the coming months and years. We want to increase the number of boats in the yard and offer a wider range of services.”
First Peninsula Marine specialises in business sales and acquisitions within the marine and maritime sectors. The company advises on transactions ranging from owner-managed business sales to larger corporate acquisitions.
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