Peter Blake

Peter James Blake was born in Auckland, New Zealand, on October 1, 1948. His father worked as an advertising salesman, after having served on gunboats off the British coast during World War II. Blake's childhood home was on the seashore, and his introduction to sailing came at the age of five, when he first took to the water in a dinghy that had been constructed especially for children.

Blake attended Takapuna Grammar School, and it was there that he learned to sail, aboard a P Class dinghy. He was just 16 years old when he entered his first long-distance sailing race, sailing from New Zealand to the Pacific Islands—a distance of 1,200 miles. At 18, he built his first boat, a 23-foot keelboat.

After high school, Blake attended Auckland's Technical Institute and studied mechanical engineering. Although this schooling would later help him build racing boats, he told the Times of London that he "hated every minute of it." When he was 23 years old, he relocated to England, planning to design yachts for a living. But he soon found that he enjoyed sailing more than engineering.