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Peter Blake

World Champion Yacht Racer



Less than three months later, Blake asked Pippa to marry him. They were married the same year, 1979. "He proposed to me in a marina in Miami in Florida," Pippa told the Sunday Telegraph, "and I just said yes straight away. I didn't hesitate. I think I'd passed a test. I knew right from the start that I was sort of sharing Peter with the team. Right up to the moment he was killed, there was always a team around Peter. For our honeymoon we sailed from here [Emsworth] to New Zealand—me and seven guys!"



In 1981-82, Blake competed in the third Whitbread race, this time as captain. The boat was called Ceramco New Zealand, and this one, too lost its mast during the race. But Blake and his resourceful crew managed to build a make-shift mast and get underway again within 24 hours of the mishap. They made it to Cape Town, where they put in a new mast, and went on to finish second in the race.

Chronology

1948 Born in Auckland, New Zealand, on October 1
1956 Given his first boat, by his father
1968 Builds his first boat, wins New Zealand Junior Offshore championship
1970 Finishes degree in mechanical engineering, moves to England
1971 Competes in his first major race, the Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro race, aboard Ocean Spirit
1973-74 Competes in the first Whitbread Round the World race as a crewmember aboard Burton Cutter
1978-79 Competes in the second Whitbread Round the World race, as a watch leader on Heath Condor
1979 Marries Pippa Glanville
1979 Wins Fastnet race on Condor
1980 Wins Sydney-Hobart race aboard Ceramco New Zealand
1981-82 Competes in the third Whitbread race aboard Ceramco New Zealand
1985-86 Competes in the fourth Whitbread race, as captain of Lion New Zealand
1988 Wins the Two-man Round Australia race aboard Steinlager I
1989 Wins Whitbread Round the World Race as captain of Steinlager II
1992 Competes for the America's Cup
1993 Wins Trophee Jules Verne by setting a world record for sailing around the world in 74 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes, and 22 seconds, aboard ENZA New Zealand
1994 Becomes Chief Executive Officer, Team New Zealand Ltd, New Zealand's America's Cup racing team
1995 Head of New Zealand team that wins America's Cup, taking the trophy from the American team
1997 Asked to head the management of the Cousteau Foundation
1998 Heads ecological expedition in the Caspian Sea
2000 Leads New Zealand in its second victory in the America's Cup
2000 Steps down as CEO of Team New Zealand to found blakexpeditions, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ecological research and education through ocean voyages
2000 Named special envoy to the United Nations Environment Program
2000 Makes first ecological voyage to South America
2001 Killed by pirates near Macap, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon River

Blake entered the fourth Whitbread race in 1985 as captain of the Lion New Zealand, and again did not win. But the fifth Whitbread race, in 1989, was a charm for Blake; his boat, Steinlager II, won all six legs of the race, winning the overall race by only minutes.

Blake described life aboard the Steinlager II, on which there were no showers, and few changes of clothes for the crew of 15, to the BBC: "You don't notice the smells or whatever that develop because everyone's the same. But when you get into port and you go away for 24 hours and come back, well you see the look on people's face when they come down below for the first time, they just about fall over backwards, the stench is just terrible. You don't wash, see, in the southern ocean, you might not change your underwear for three weeks, and you get a bit of a layer of grease and goo that builds up over you, and you seem to be just fine."

In 1993, Blake sailed around the world with crew-mate Robin Knox-Johnson. The voyage broke the record for the fastest non-stop voyage around the world, and the pair won the Jules Verne trophy for sailing around the world in under 80 days. They circled the globe in 74 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes, and 30 seconds, in 1993.

Additional topics

Famous Sports StarsOther SportsPeter Blake Biography - Raised On The Seashore, A Life At Sea, World Champion Yacht Racer, Chronology, Wins America's Cup—and Keeps It