Classic Boat – July 2019

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THREE DESIGNERS

French would be a great asset, he sent him to be educated

in France. When he was 18, Charles returned from the

continent and started working at the yard.

William Fife Jnr left Brisbane Academy when he was

14 and started a five-year apprenticeship at his father’s

thriving yard. When he had served his time he left Fairlie

to go and work for J Fullerton & Co, a firm of Paisley

shipbuilders. In 1884 the Marquis of Ailsa “headhunted”

him as manager at his Culzean Yacht and Steam Works. He

was there for just two years, during which time he was also

doing some design work for his father. Ailsa then made

some organisational changes and Fife saw it as the right

time to move back to Fairlie to work there permanently.

Herreshoff had no such family pressures and was

relatively free to make his own decisions. When he left

school, he enrolled on a three-year course in mechanical

engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He completed that when he was 21, and then went to work

as a draughtsman at the Corliss Steam Engine Company,

the biggest engine manufacturer in America at that time.

They must have thought very highly of him as they not

only promoted him, they also gave him time off, to carry

out design work for his brother’s boatbuilding business.

The demands of the different roles took their toll,

however and he suffered ill health in 1874, so he went to

Europe with JB to recuperate. It would seem he didn’t

entirely regard it as a holiday, though. On the ship to

Cherbourg, he kept a detailed log almost as if he was the

official navigator, and he wrote detailed notes regarding

the workings of the ship itself. And when he was in Nice,

he and his other blind brother, Lewis, designed and built

a small sailing boat which they then took along the French

coast to Marseille and through the canals to Rotterdam.

Throughout Europe, as often as he could, Herreshoff

would visit navy yards and factories to research technical

advances and manufacturing techniques.

He then went back to work at Corliss and they allowed

him to take more time off the following year, this time

in an unsuccessful attempt to set up a business selling

catamarans to his design. He then had another spell

working at Corliss and providing designs for JB at the

same time before joining his brother permanently in 1878.

EARLY SAILING BOAT DESIGNS

Not only did Nicholson and Fife benefit from their

well-established family yards, the fact that their fathers

had developed contacts with wealthy yachtsmen did

them no harm either. In particular, Ben Nicholson Snr had

endeared himself to members of the Royal Yacht Squadron

and Fife Snr had done the same at the Royal Clyde and

Royal Northern Yacht Clubs.

In the 1870s, the five-tonner class was very popular on

the Clyde and Fife Jnr’s early successes began here – firstly

with Clio in 1875 (possibly with some input from his father)

and then with Camelia and Cyprus. Clio was sailed by Allan

Fife – William Snr’s brother and acknowledged as one of

the best helmsmen on the Clyde – but Fife Jnr himself

sailed Cyprus, getting the better of Nora, designed by

GL Watson then acknowledged as Britain’s top designer.

In 1884, Fife Jnr produced the “plank on edge”

20-tonner Clara which was raced with great success

firstly in Scotland, then on the South Coast of England,

and finally in America giving the young designer early

recognition there – and all this before he went to work

permanently for the family firm.

The first boat credited to Charles E Nicholson was the

42-foot cutter Lucifer, launched within two years of his

return from the continent as a French-speaking salesman.

Two years later, he designed Darcia, which was one of the

tenders for the 94-tonne Samoena. As the mother-yacht

cruised around the country, her owner Hercules Langrishe

raced Darcia against any appropriate local opposition and

with a fair amount of success. Langrishe enjoyed this so

much he decided to sell Samoena so that he could

concentrate on small boat racing.

There is some irony in the next part of this story as

Langrishe then commissioned Fife Jnr to design a 5-Rater

which was built at Camper & Nicholsons and called Iernia.

However, she didn’t do at all well, and so Langrishe then

asked Nicholson to design his next boat, which was the

very successful 1891 Half-Rater Coquette.

But Herreshoff had to make his own contacts, and

he would do so very successfully throughout his career

• many members of the New York Yacht Club, for instance,
  became friends and clients. But first he had to get noticed.
  When he was 16, he designed a 25-foot boat which
  he built two years later, named Violet. During her very
  first sail he raced against his father and lost, causing
  such disappointment that he destroyed the half model
  on which she was based. However, this reaction was
  somewhat premature as Violet went on to have a very
  satisfactory racing record over the following 50 years.
  However his first boat of note was the 1871 37-foot
  centreboarder Shadow which was almost unbeaten for
  15 years. However, Herreshoff only designed a handful
  of sailing boats in these early years as he soon started
  concentrating on steam yachts for his brother to build.

Continues next month

Above: Herreshoff’s

design office