Peter Blake obituary

Friend and life long sailing companion Sir Robin Knox Johnston remembers the great Kiwi sailor

Whilst I could not claim to know Peter as well as some of his New Zealand sailing friends, we shared some great experiences together over a period of 30 years and some 70,000 miles of ocean racing. It allowed me a unique insight into the progress and development of a person whose footprint on sailing over the past 20 years is immense.
Our first race together was the 1971 Cape Town to Rio Race. Peter had joined Ocean Spirit jointly owned by myself and Leslie Williams in Malta and sailed the boat to Cape Town for the start. Although only 23 years old, and one of the younger members of the crew, his natural ability and leadership qualities were so obvious he raced as a watch leader. He commanded immediate respect but was not one for whom life was to be taken seriously all the time. He could take a joke, he had to, no New Zealander can say ten to Ten, its Tin ta Tin, and he got used to being asked the time at this point in the day. But he could give it back just as well as people quickly learned. A mistake made through ignorance brought out an explanation, someone doing something stupid was brought up sharply. He was a vital member of a happy crew and a person one hoped to sail with again.

The opportunity did not occur for six years. In that period he was with Leslie in the first Whitbread aboard Burton Cutter and then for the two handed round Britain Race. When we were putting together Condor for the second Whitbread in 1977, neither Leslie nor I could sail the whole race so we split it between us. But the boat needed someone in authority all the time for continuity and our natural choice was Peter. Breaking the experimental carbon fibre mast on the first leg gave us no chance of winning but we managed to take line honours in two out of the three remaining legs. Whilst I enjoyed the navigation and tactics, I used Peter to challenge everything and cannot remember any major decision that we had not thought through and agreed together. In the last leg we found ourselves trailing Tabarly by 100 miles as he approached the Azores. There was no way we were going to catch him if we followed his course, but the weather pattern gave us one glimmer of hope. The Azores High looked as if it was going to move over the Azores. We went through the options and agreed to take a calculated flyer. Our course was set initially 120 degrees away from the finish line to try and pick up the following westerly system. Anxiously we watched progress, the high slowed making our task more difficult and most of the crew wondering whether we had lost our senses.Then it stopped, over the islands, just as we began to pick up a light south-westerly. Away we went and finished with a lead of 40 miles.

Peter was more than ready for his own boat by this time and entered all three of the next Whitbreads, finally winning with Steinlager 2 in the most convincing manner possible, winning all the legs on the way. Before the start, whilst other boats were frantically preparing themselves, Steinlager 2 lay quietly alongside her berth in the Hamble. When he showed me around I could not help being impressed by the readiness of the boat and quiet confidence of the crew. Her sea trials had been thorough, her crew fully prepared, and, all importantly, she had plenty of time on the water behind her.The Whitbread has never been won so convincingly and it may be a long time before anyone can repeat it. It was a masterly performance, due to meticulous preparation, not just of the boat, but of the crew, many of whom were by this time were a regular and loyal part of the Blake programme.

The Enza New Zealand project was first discussed when we were both on the Whitbread Committee. Hearing that a trophy for the first boat to sail around the world in under 80 days was about to be offered we discovered that we both had plans, but neither of us a sponsor. It was Peter’s suggestion that we teamed up and within 5 weeks we had a boat and a sponsor. The boat, Tag was lying in Rhode Island, so we sailed her back to England at the end of November and re-built her. The success of the changes, proposed by Nigel Irens, but organised by Peter, were fundamental. Nothing was left to chance.

Every new or weight saving idea was examined and if it checked out, incorporated. It was this attention to detail that ensured the ultimate success of the project. Once at sea we sailed hard but within the limits of the boat, a policy that could not save us on our first attempt when we hit an object in the Southern Ocean, but more than paid off when we went back to complete unfinished business the following year in 1994 and got around in just under 75 days at an average speed of 14.8 knots. By to-days standards this was not an expensive project, it could have cost a lot more, but Peter was not one to see money wasted for no effect.The objective was achieved.

By then Peter was becoming immersed in his Americas Cup Challenge. He brought the same meticulous attention to detail to this project he had shown in everything else, and attracted the same unquestioned loyalty. New Zealand, with a population of less than 3 million, took on the might of the United States and won. When they came back to challenge themselves they found that the Kiwis, with Peter leading them, had raised the stakes and put together a defence that was a challenge ahead of anyone else.

Sailing is a wide sport, it can be compared to athletics where there are many disciplines. Peter proved himself a world beater at those he chose and could probably have done the same in others like the Olympics if he had set his mind to it. The great tragedy is that having dominated the aspects of the sport he had chosen, and decided to move on to new challenges, he should have been taken from us so unnecessarily. He had yet to establish himself as a world leader in environmental concerns, but knowing him, given more time he would have made his mark here, just as he did in sailing, and benefited the way we treat our world.

A great seaman, excellent tactician, a natural and popular leader, and a brilliant organiser, he coupled all this with being an enjoyable companion. He has left a record that is going to be very hard to beat but for those of us lucky enough to have shared sailing with him he will live on in a host of happy memories.