The Family business dated back to 1902, with Captain James McNulty, who led a colourful seafaring life and then retired from active sailing at the age of 60. He and his son started a company in South Shields as ship transporters, riggers and stevedores.
The business developed from stevedores through to the offshore industry. As stevedores it employed ship carpenters, but had difficulty retaining them to work casually and so to ensure continuity of employment, it was decided they build small rowing boats.
McNulty Boats, based in Hebburn, Tyne & Wear, took over the licence to build Drascombes in late 1997, displaying their first Drascombes at Earls Court in January 1998. McNulty’s background was in building traditional clinker boats as a side-line from heavy marine engineering. These were derived from the small boats working on the Tyne as tenders to the shipping, known as foy boats. When Stewart Brown joined them in January 2000 (while still running Churchouse Boats in parallel), he took on two commissions to build Drascombes in wood:
Stewart also persuaded them to start work on a larger Drascombe & they built the hull in wood epoxy of what has become the prototype Drascombe Drifter 22 by Churchouse Boats.
McNulty closed down in August 2002 & were taken over by Churchouse Boats
https://web.archive.org/web/20010402083225/http://www.mcnultyboats.com