William Fife


William Fife Jr. , also known as William Fife III, was the third generation of a family of Scottish yacht designers and builders. In his time, William Fife designed around 600 yachts, including two contenders for the America's Cup. The Royal Yachting Association was formed in 1875 to standardise rules, and Fife and his rival G.L. Watson, were instrumental in these rule changes. Around one third of Fife's yachts still exist. His last designs were built in 1938.

Biography

Fife was born in Fairlie, North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde. His father William Fife Sr. and grandfather William Fyfe had also been designers and boat builders in Fairlie. The family business operated from a shipyard on the beach in the village. Fife began building yachts in 1890 and soon surpassed the achievements of his father and grandfather and became known as one of the premier yacht designers of the day.
As the third generation of a venerable Scottish boat building family, William Fife inherited a rich legacy but was quick to establish his own reputation as one of the top designers in the yachting world. Often dominating his chief competitors, Fife was a master of his trade who received commissions from European royalty and from clients as far away as Australia. Following on the heels of the success of his design Dragon, Fife adopted a stylized Chinese dragon as his trademark. Thereafter, those yachts that took shape on the shingle at Fairlie were known throughout the yachting world by this distinctive scrollwork.
Fife designed two America's Cup yachts for grocery and tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton who challenged for the cup a total of five times. The Fife-designed challenger Shamrock I lost to Columbia and Shamrock III lost to Reliance. After the establishment of the first International Rule in 1906, Fife became a prolific designer of metre boats, designing and building several successful 15-Metre and 19-Metre yachts in the years leading up to the Great War. Between 1907 and 1913, William Fife Jr. designed eight of the twenty 15mR yachts ever built, but his first 15mR named Shimna was not built at his famous Fairlie boatyard, but by Alexander Robertson & Sons, because all Fife's principal yacht builders were needed to work on Myles Kennedy's new 23mR, White Heather II.
Fife died on 11 August 1944 at the age of 87 in Fairlie, North Ayrshire. He never married or had children. He was buried in Largs. The yard was continued for some years after his death by his nephew, but never achieved the renown known under Fife's ownership.
In 1951, Fife's sisters arranged for a weather vane to be erected in his memory on the tower of Fairlie parish church. It features a model his 1936 yawl Latifa, which he considered one of his finest designs.

Quotes

French yachtsman Éric Tabarly, two-time winner of the OSTAR and owner of the Fife design Pen Duick wrote:
While Fife established a leading reputation on the yacht racing circuit, his work also included a number of fine cruising vessels. Dr. William Collier wrote of Fife's 1920s work:

Vessels

The Fife yard also had a reputation for the extremely high quality of the craftsmanship of the yachts built at the yard. Today, it is thought that there are somewhat less than 100 Fife designs still in existence. Of these, there are around fifty still sailing, most notably:
  • cruiser handicap rater Nan
  • 36-rater Pen Duick
  • 21-rater Mignon, sisterships Pierette and Yvette
  • cruiser handicap raters Moonbeam III and Moonbeam IV
  • 15mRs ', ', Tuiga and The Lady Anne
  • 12mR Cintra
  • 8mR Lucky Girl and Ierne
  • 19mR
  • Ketches Sumurun, Adventuress and Belle Aventure on the Eastern Seaboard
  • handicap rater Hallowe'en
  • 23mR Cambria
  • gaff-rigged schooner Altair
  • ketch Eilean, which famously featured in the music video for the 1982 Duran Duran song Rio.
  • yawl Latifa, one of Fife's favourite designs
  • 10.4m canoe stern auxiliary sloop Sumarel
Fife once said that the secret of a great yacht was that it should be both "fast and bonnie".

Honours

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 1919 New Year Honours. In 2004, he was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame.

Selected historic yachts

  • Torch
  • Kilmeney
  • Fiona
  • Neptune
  • Erycina
  • Ulidia
  • Thalia
  • ''Calluna''

    Yachts for Irish owners

  • 15 ton cutter Corsair – designed by William Fife Sr.
  • 3 ton lugger Achilla
  • 2 ton lugger Gew Gaw – built by James E. Doyle Kingston
  • 3 ton 1-rater lugger Nansheen – built by James E. Doyle Kingston
  • 5 ton lugger Elva
  • 8 ton 1.5-rater lugger Vill-u-An – built by Alexander Robertson & Sons
  • 6-ton Dublin Bay 25 cutters Darthula, Nepenthe and Whisper – built by James E. Doyle Kingston