Peter Milne; designer of small boats (Times UK and Telegraph obits)
Hyfler/Rosner
May 31, 2008
Peter Milne
Innovative designer of small boats who created Fireball, the
popular two-man performance scow
Peter Milne was one of Britain's most prolific and
innovative designers of small boats. He is best known for
the 4.93-metre dingy Fireball, a two-man performance scow.
In 1962 he took the prototype and technical write-up to
Yachts & Yachting magazine and the editor, Bill Smart, was
so impressed by both that he asked him to join as assistant
editor. He took over as editor seven years later and carried
on with his design work alongside the editorship.
There are now more than 15,000 Fireballs around the world
and the class has remained popular and competitive for more
than 45 years. He designed Fireball while working for Norris
Bros, the design engineers based at Haywards Heath,
responsible for Donald Campbell's car Bluebird which broke
the land-speed record.
It was here that he picked up the commission for the
water-jet-powered Jetstar powerboat design for Campbell. The
prototype was sold last year by Bonhams at the Goodwood
Festival of Speed. The Jetstar was designed as a commercial
spin-off for Campbell's water speed record attempt with his
jet-powered three-pointer Bluebird K7, but the day that
Campbell and Milne chose to launch the boat at the 1967
London Boat Show, Campbell was killed when Bluebird flipped
during her second run across Coniston Water.
Milne was born in Stockport, Manchester, but the family
moved to Chichester soon after he was born. He was an avid
reader of the Arthur Ransome stories, including Swallows and
Amazons. These seemed to shape many events during his
childhood and he emulated the charmed life of the Walker
children.
Upon his acceptance at St John's College, Hurstpierpoint,
West Sussex, his father Cecil, an engineer, bought him his
first boat, a Snipe. The boat was kept at Dell Quay,
Chichester Harbour, and here he set about learning the art
of sailing and, more significantly, sailing fast.
On joining the Royal Navy for his National Service, he was
seconded to submarines and spent much of his time racing
yachts in the Mediterranean and northern Europe. He was
asked to crew the royal Dragon Bluebottle in a series of
international regattas in Britain and Scandinavia. The yacht
was a wedding present to Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of
Edinburgh from the Island Sailing Club at Cowes, Isle of
Wight.
On completion of his National Service in 1954, Milne began
an apprenticeship at Thornycroft in Southampton. In 1957 he
put his skills to the test and built himself a Finn dinghy,
Sea Wolf. He raced her against his lifelong Olympic friends
Charles Currey and Keith Musto. The boat was a near-perfect
example of craftsmanship and it was Milne's pride and joy.
His friends have always joked that she was sold when he
married Margaret MacDonald in 1962 as he felt it was time to
give up his mistress.
He produced more than 40 class dinghies, production cruisers
and powerboat designs and in 1972 designed Bullett, an
innovative 4.42m junior trainer for the Fireball, for which
he was awarded the Duke of Edinburgh Design Prize in 1975.
He was also an accomplished offshore yachtsman, and was a
member of one of the few crews to complete the gruelling
1979 Fastnet Race during which a storm resulted in the death
of 15 people.
He was not only a talented designer and sailor but a
respected journalist. As technical editor of Yachting World
and latterly editor of Classic Boat he was in demand to
report on new yachts on the market.
Milne's love of design continued until he became ill, and he
managed to fulfil a childhood dream of designing and
building a 7.2m lifting keel cruiser built with his oldest
schoolfriend, Terry Turner.
He is survived by his wife and two daughters.
Peter Milne, boat designer, was born on September 20, 1934.
He died on May 23, 2008, aged 73
Peter Milne
Last updated: 10:32 PM BST 29/05/2008
Prize-winning boat designer who created more than 40 craft,
including the Fireball.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2050485/Peter-Milne.html
Peter Milne, who died on May 23 aged 73, was one of
Britain's most versatile desingers of small boats.
Among his most famous creations was the International
Fireball, successful in many countries around the world. He
also crewed the Dragon class keelboat Bluebottle for the
Duke of Edinburgh, designed a powerboat for Donald Campbell
and edited Classic Boat magazine.
Peter Antony Milne was born at Stockport, Cheshire, on
September 20 1934, the son of an engineer. Shortly after his
birth the family moved south to the area around Chichester,
West Sussex, and it was there, at Dell Quay, that Peter
learned to sail and absorbed his father Cecil's interest in
making things. His first boat, bought for him by his father,
was a Snipe class dinghy.
After St John's College, Hurstpierpoint, Peter Milne did his
National Service with the Royal Navy. He served in
submarines and also raced yachts in the Mediterranean and
northern Europe - it was this experience which led to his
crewing Bluebottle, which had been a wedding present to
Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth from the Island Sailing
Club at Cowes and had been launched in 1948.
In 1953 Milne was part of the international force which went
to help the Greek island of Kefalonia following a major
earthquake there. He left the Navy as a sub-lieutenant, and
in 1954 embarked on a five-year apprenticeship at the
Thorneycroft shipyard in Southampton.
There he formed a good working relationship with Peter
Nicholson and Tony Thomas, which would later bring work with
the famous Gosport and Southampton yacht building firm
Camper & Nicholson.
Milne's designs for C&N in the 1980s included the Nicholson
27, a response to the larger and more comfortable interiors
of the yachts then being produced in France and Scandinavia.
He also designed the elegant cabin top for the famous
Nicholson 478 Water Music IV.
By this time Milne was well established in his field. Always
an innovator, he had turned a fascination with the
distinctive flat-bottomed scow hulls found in the United
States into a solution for the 4.9m, two-person Fireball
dinghy. It cleverly maximised the use of the standard 6ft by
4ft sheet of marine plywood and, by the use of a tab and
slot system, was quick and simple to build at home. The
Fireball design had been completed in 1961 whilst he was
working for Norris Brothers, the Haywards Heath engineering
firm which had built one of the young Donald Campbell's land
speed record cars, Bluebird.
To publicise the Fireball, Milne took his prototype to the
Southend-on-Sea offices of the fortnightly magazine Yachts &
Yachting. Its editor, Bill Smart, asked him to write an
article about it for the magazine, leading to Milne's
joining the magazine full time. He stayed for seven years,
becoming editor himself on Smart's retirement in 1965. His
design career continued in tandem with his journalism.
One project that never came to fruition, however, was
Milne's water-jet powered Jetstar, aimed at the recreation
market and inspired by Donald Campbell's jet-propelled water
speed record craft Bluebird K7. Its launch at the London
Boat Show was overshadowed by Campbell's death, on the same
day, on Lake Coniston, and the project was abandoned.
In all, Milne designed more than 40 sailing boats and
powered craft. A total of 15,000 Fireballs were built
worldwide. His glassfibre Skipper 12, 14 and 17 dinghies,
produced for Richmond Marine during the dinghy boom of the
1970s, were cheaper to buy, and easier for the beginner to
learn in; the same was true of the Salty Pup and Salty Dog
small cruising yacht. After designing the Bullet, a smaller,
junior version of the Fireball, Milne won the 1975 Duke of
Edinburgh Design Prize.
In the early 1980s Milne returned to writing about boats,
editing in turn Chandler & Boatbuilder and Classic Boat. He
also enjoyed a long spell as technical editor of Yachting
World.
Peter Milne is survived by his wife, Margaret, and their two
daughters.