THREE DESIGNERS
joined him 15 years earlier. In 1842, Camper recruited
an apprentice called Ben Nicholson who later became
a partner having established himself as a designer, and
subsequently took over the yard when Camper retired
in 1863. Ben developed and expanded the business
considerably over the next 30 years, during which time
three of his sons – Ben Jnr, Charles and Arthur – came
to work for him. Ben Jnr initially inherited the running of
the company from his father, but the mantel then passed
on to his brothers when he retired in 1920. By this time,
Charles was well established as a designer and so it was
left to Arthur to look after the business and financial side
of the company. As time went on, other members of the
family were recruited including Charles’s son John and
grandson Christopher, and Arthur’s son Charles (or
Young Charlie) and grandsons Peter and George.
In 1981, a management buyout finally ended the
Nicholson family’s custodianship of the firm, which
eventually ceased trading in 2005. At its peak – soon after
it took over the Southampton yard previously owned by
Fay and Sons in 1912 – Camper and Nicholsons employed
around 1,700 people and was by far the biggest of the
three family firms.FIFE DYNASTY
The Fife boatbuilding dynasty started at the very beginning
of the 19th century when John Fyfe started a business on
the shores of the village of Fairlie, and was then joined by
his brother William in 1803. Most of the boats they built
were fishing smacks and trading vessels but what William
really wanted to do was to build sailing yachts which were
“fast and bonnie”.
However, in 1839 he changed his mind and decided to
concentrate on commercial boats again as they were more
profitable. In doing so, he handed over the yacht-building
part of the business to his third son William, who around
that time changed the spelling of their surname, and would
later become known as William Fife Snr. Five years later,
Fyfe retired and the company was then completely in the
hands of the next generation: William in charge, but also
including his brothers Alexander, Allan and James, with
some involvement from his sisters, too. Jean had given
her savings to her father and brother so that they could
modernise some of the machinery at the yard, and she
was often called upon to conduct launching ceremonies.
William Fife Snr had four daughters and just one son,
William Fife Jnr (William Fife III) who went into partnership
with his father in 1886, and took over the running of the
company eight years later. Fife Jnr never married and the
only one of his sisters who did was Janet, whose son
Robert Balderston joined the company as a draftsman at
the age of 16. He later changed his surname to Balderston-
Fife and then became a partner in the firm in 1923, which
must have given Fife Jnr great pleasure as he regarded his
nephew as if he was his own son.
The Fife yard was the smallest and least well equipped
of the three family yards. Initially it was leased from the
Earl of Glasgow but in 1900 the Fifes bought it. For many
years, all boatbuilding was carried out in the open air
until Fife Jnr and his father built some sheds. In 1833,
Fyfe employed nine men, five of whom were his sons,
and by the early 1900s the workforce had grown to 60.In 1939, the yard was taken over by the Admiralty and
five years later William Fife Jnr died. After World War
Two the workforce reached a peak of 108, mostly building
minesweepers. The yard then passed back to Balderston-
Fife who immediately sold it to Ian Parker, a descendant
of one of Fyfe’s regular clients, and the yard traded under
the name Fairlie Yacht Slip Company until it closed in 1985.START-UP BUSINESS
There was no such well-established family business waiting
for Nat Herreshoff to join. He and his older brother JB
designed and built small boats together as teenagers,
and JB then set up his own business in the early 1860s,
in partnership with a Mr Stone for a couple of years.
JB lost his sight when he was a teenager – a fate which
also struck four of his siblings – but it is said that his
phenomenal memory and head for figures went a long
way towards making up for this. Nat Herreshoff, meanwhile,
was working elsewhere but in his spare time managed to
produce designs for JB to build. However, by 1878 these
dual roles became too demanding, so the brothers founded
the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in Bristol, Rhode
Island. They agreed that JB would handle the business
side while Nat would do the designing and supervise the
building work. The younger brother had a fear of getting
into debt, so they agreed from the outset they would
always keep within their means and never borrow money.
Soon after the partnership was formed, they were
employing around 300 people, but by 1900 greater
efficiencies allowed them to reduce this to 200 with no
loss of production. By this time, HMC was considered
to be the best equipped yard in America, and their
employees were the highest paid in the area.
The two brothers owned and ran the company with
great success right up until JB died in 1915. His shares, and
most of Nat’s, were then sold to investors and the famous
designer was now a mere employee of his own company.
In 1924, with the business not doing at all well, the owners
tried to auction all the stock and machinery. Luckily, before
too much of it had gone, Rudolf F Haffenreffer bought the
business and carried on trading until it closed in 1945.
In common with most yards of the time but unlike
those of today, HMC, C&N and Fifes were all able to build
practically everything their boats would need – from spars
to keels, winches and other deck fittings, and in the case
of the American company, the sails as well.
All three designers were very involved in supervising
the work at their yards. This ensured that high standards
were constantly maintained, and that there were always
opportunities for the designers to try innovative ideas and
be able to keep a close eye on their implementation and
monitor the results.EDUCATION AND EARLY EXPERIENCE
In the case of the two established yards, the future
designers’ fathers had plans laid out for them. Each of Ben
Nicholson’s sons received an education that reflected the
specific role that he envisaged they would take within the
company. Ben Jnr would go into management and Arthur
into estate agency so he could take care of the family’s
properties. Charles, however, was expected to be a
salesman and, as his father perceived that fluency inAbove: Tea magnate
Sir Thomas Lipton,
Charles E Nicholson’s
most famous client
and an America’s
Cup legend