THREE DESIGNERS
Ian Dear’s book Camper and Nicholson, on the history
of the yard, describes Fife as a “family friend” of Charles
E Nicholson’s, but there was presumably rivalry between
them. Fife’s success had come sooner than Nicholson’s – he
was 11 years older – and in the early part of the century, the
English designer was keen to make a breakthrough. In
1905, hearing that a potential client was about to go to
Fife, Nicholson wrote to persuade him otherwise, saying,
“I have not had so many opportunities as Mr Fife, for whose
work I have the greatest respect”, and suggesting he would
not charge a design fee if the boat was built at his yard in
Gosport, and that there could be a penalty clause in case it
didn’t live up to expectations. On that occasion the client
remained with Fife. However, when a 352-tonne schooner
called Waterwitch that Fife designed in 1911 for the
International Rule A-Class proved to be one of his rare
failures, being beaten consistently by Herreshoff’s
Westward and the German Kaiser’s Meteor, the owner
approached Nicholson instead. He asked him to make some
alterations to Waterwitch, but Nicholson suggested he
should build a new boat, saying it was a matter of “national
pride” to beat his foreign rivals. The result was Margherita,
which had a very successful racing record, starting with
Kiel Regatta in 1913. This must have hurt Fife very badly,
particularly as much of Waterwitch’s rig and many of her
fittings were used on the new boat.
But there was co-operation, too. In 1920, Sir Thomas
Lipton decided he wanted to use his 1908 Fife 23-M
Shamrock as a trial horse for his America’s Cup challenger
Shamrock IV, and this led to a collaboration between the
two British designers. They worked together on a design
for a new rig for the older boat, and then Fife accompanied
Nicholson to America to help prepare for the cup itself.
Nicholson certainly met Herreshoff in the USA, and
two of these meetings are mentioned in the biography,
written by the American’s son, L Francis Herreshoff. In 1934
the cup challenger Endeavour was generally regarded
as being quicker than William Starling Burgess’s defender
Rainbow, but lost 4-2 following a strike by the crew. When
it was over, Herreshoff “sought him out personally to
acknowledge Endeavour’s superiority”, wrote L Francis
in Capt Nat Herreshoff. By the time Nicholson returned
to America with Endeavour II in 1937, Herreshoff was nearly
90 and more or less bedridden. However, he was still taking
a great interest in events, and had a mirror rigged up in his
bedroom so that he could watch the refit work being
carried out to both the challenger, and the defender,
Ranger, on the slipways. During this time, Herreshoff asked
Ranger’s owner Harold Vanderbilt to bring Nicholson to
visit him, which he did. “Capt Nat was pretty weak by this
time,” wrote L Francis, “and so much affected with meeting
Mr Nicholson that all he could do was to hold his hand for
a minute or so, but we can well imagine the respect and
affection he tried to convey to Mr Nicholson, even though
he was too weak to talk much, for Captain Nat thought
Mr Nicholson had done a great deal for British yachting”.
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY
Herreshoff, Fife and Nicholson were by no means the only
members of their families who could design boats. William
Fife Jnr’s grandfather produced just nine designs, but his
father was considerably more productive, with more than
- His breakthrough boat was the 40-tonne Stella, built
in 1848, but the 80-tonne cutter Fiona in 1865 is regarded
as the turning point in Fife Snr’s career.
Nicholson’s father Ben Snr produced more than 40
designs, all of which were built by his own company. The
last of these was the 161-tonne schooner Amphitrite in 1887- the same year that the 19-year-old Charles drew Lucifer,
and Ben Snr must have already had the feeling that
company’s future design work was in safe hands. Charles
E’s son John produced a handful of designs in the late
1930s but most of the subsequent family designs came
from his nephew Charles A Nicholson (known as Young
Charlie) and Charlie’s son Peter. Young Charlie’s output
included ocean racers, such as Quiver III, Noryema III and
the 1951 Fastnet winner Yeoman, as well as the South Coast
One Design class. The Royal Yacht Squadron asked him to
submit a 12-M design as a candidate for the 1958 America’s
Cup challenge, but it was not selected. However, there was
a neat historical link when the challenger Sceptre used his
uncle’s 1936 Evaine as a trial horse.
Young Charlie collaborated with his son Peter on a
number of designs, including the company’s first GRP
production boats, the Nicholson 26 and 36. Peter forged
a successful design career of his own, while serving as
chairman of the company at the same time. Among his
best-known boats were Noryema IV and Quiver IV, both of
which were in the winning 1965 British Admiral’s Cup team.
Herreshoff gave little or no encouragement to his sons
to follow his craft, yet two of them did. Sydney joined
the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company in 1906 as a
draughtsman, subsequently became chief designer and
engineer, and stayed with the company until it closed in
- Most of his designs were for powered craft, including
large torpedo boats for the US Navy.
In 1920 L Francis Herreshoff went to work for Starling
Burgess – the Herreshoffs were actually distant relatives
of the Burgesses – before setting up on his own. His 131
designs included the canoe-sterned M-Class Istalena in
1928, a forerunner for the similar-looking 1930 J-Class
Whirlwind, which was one of the unsuccessful defence
candidates for the America’s Cup of that year. But Francis
is probably best known for the ketch Ticonderoga, the
holder of 30 course records, and still sailing today. In the
mid 1920s, he designed an R-Class boat called Yankee,
which beat his father’s Game Cock and Grayling in a
Below: Charles
A Nicholson’s son
Peter designed
Noryema IV, seen
here in 1965
at CowesBEKEN