The Coker Rope & Sail Trust

There were nine sailmakers in West Coker at the start of the 19th century, and the bleaching fields around the Somerset village were white with canvas sheets laid out in the sun. ‘Coker canvas’ became the generic name for the best-quality sailcloth, wherever it was made. In 1813, it became the ‘Navy standard’. Coker canvas gained its superior qualities by virtue of being ‘bucked in the yarn, not in the sail’. Yarn used to make the canvas was waterproofed by being boiled in an unsavoury stew of animal skins and intestines before it was woven. This increased its ability to buck (cast off, or shed) sea spray and heavy rain and resist ice and snow in Arctic waters. Bucked in th