William Fife III OBE (1857–1944), also known as Wm. Fife, Jr., was the third generation of a family of Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 yacht

Yacht

A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...

 designers and builders.
Fife was born in the small village of Fairlie on the Firth of Clyde

Firth of Clyde

The Firth of Clyde forms a large area of coastal water, sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire, Scotland. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran.At...

. His father William Fife II (1821–1902) and grandfather William Fife I (1785–1865) had also been designers and boatbuilders in Fairlie. The family business operated from a yard

Shipyard

Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...

 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

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Following on the heels of the success of his design Dragon (1888), Fife adopted a stylized Chinese dragon

Chinese dragon

Chinese dragons are legendary creatures in Chinese mythology and folklore, with mythic counterparts among Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Bhutanese, Western and Turkic dragons. In Chinese art, dragons are typically portrayed as long, scaled, serpentine creatures with four legs...

 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

America's Cup

The America’s Cup is a trophy awarded to the winner of the America's Cup match races between two yachts. One yacht, known as the defender, represents the yacht club that currently holds the America's Cup and the second yacht, known as the challenger, represents the yacht club that is challenging...

 yachts for grocery and tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton

Thomas Lipton

Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton, 1st Baronet, KCVO was a Scotsman of Ulster-Scots parentage who was a self-made man, merchant, and yachtsman. He created the Lipton tea brand and was the most persistent challenger in the history of the America's Cup.-Parentage and childhood:Lipton was born in Glasgow...

 who challenged for the cup a total of five times. The Fife-designed challenger Shamrock I

Shamrock (yacht)

Shamrock was the unsuccessful Irish challenger for the 10th America's Cup in 1899 against the United States defender, Columbia.-Design:Shamrock was designed by third-generation Scottish boatbuilder, William Fife III, Jr., and built in 1898 by J...

(1899) lost to Columbia

Columbia (1899 yacht)

Columbia was the defender of the tenth America's Cup race in 1899 against British challenger Shamrock as well as the defender of the eleventh America's Cup race in 1901 against British challenger, Shamrock II...

(Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, 1899) and Shamrock III (1903) lost to Reliance

Reliance (yacht)

Reliance was the 1903 America's Cup defender, the fourth America's Cup defender from the famous designer Nat Herreshoff, and reportedly the largest gaff-rigged cutter ever built....

. 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 III 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 and Sons Ltd (Yachtbuilders)

Alexander Robertson and Sons Ltd (Yachtbuilders)

Alexander Robertson started repairing boats in a small workshop at Sandbank, Argyll and Bute in 1876, and went on to become one of the foremost wooden boat builders on Scotland's River Clyde. The 'golden years' of Robertson's yard were in the early 1900s when they started building IYRU 12mR & 15mR...

, because all Fife's principal yacht builders were needed to work on Myles Burton Kennedy

Myles Burton Kennedy

Myles Burton Kennedy was a Furness ironmaster, proprietor of Roanhead mines and chairman of the North Lonsdale Iron & Steel Co.-Parentage:...

’s new 23mR, White Heather II.

French yachtsman Éric Tabarly

Éric Tabarly

Éric Tabarly was a notable French yachtsman.A former officer in the French navy who is often considered the father of French yachting....

, two time winner of the OSTAR and owner of the Fife design Pen Duick

Pen Duick

The Pen Duick yachts are ocean racing yachts from the 1960s and 1970s. They were built for French yachtsman Éric Tabarly, and he had a hand in each design....

wrote:

While Fife established a leading reputation on the yacht racing

Yacht racing

Yacht racing is the sport of competitive yachting.While sailing groups organize the most active and popular competitive yachting, other boating events are also held world-wide: speed motorboat racing; competitive canoeing, kayaking, and rowing; model yachting; and navigational contests Yacht racing...

 circuit, his work also included a number of fine cruising vessels. Dr. William Collier wrote of Fife's 1920s work:

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 (1897)
• 36-rater Pen Duick
  Pen Duick
  The Pen Duick yachts are ocean racing yachts from the 1960s and 1970s. They were built for French yachtsman Éric Tabarly, and he had a hand in each design....
  
  (formerly Yum, 1898)
• cruiser handicap raters Moonbeam III (1903) and Moonbeam IV (1920)
• 15mRs Mariska (1908), Tuiga (1909) and The Lady Anne (1912)
• 12mR Cintra (the oldest 12mR in existence, launched 1909)
• 19mR Mariquita (1911)
• ketch
  Ketch
  A ketch is a sailing craft with two masts: a main mast, and a shorter mizzen mast abaft of the main mast, but forward of the rudder post. Both masts are rigged mainly fore-and-aft. From one to three jibs may be carried forward of the main mast when going to windward...
  
  s Sumurun (1914), Adventuress (1924) and Belle Aventure (1929) on the Eastern Seaboard
  Eastern seaboard
  An Eastern seaboard can mean any easternmost part of a continent, or its countries, states and/or cities.Eastern seaboard may also refer to:* East Coast of Australia* East Coast of the United States* Eastern Seaboard of Thailand-See also:...
  
  
• handicap rater Hallowe'en (1926)
• 23mR Cambria (1928)
• gaff-rigged schooner Altair (1931)

Fife once said that the secret of a great yacht was that it should be both "fast and bonnie".

Fife was awarded an OBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 for his work. In 2004, he was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame

America's Cup Hall of Fame

The America's Cup Hall of Fame, located at the Herreshoff Marine Museum of Bristol, Rhode Island, USA, honors individuals for outstanding achievement in the America's Cup sailing competition...

.

Fife died in 1944, never having married and without issue. He is buried in Largs

Largs

Largs is a town on the Firth of Clyde in North Ayrshire, Scotland, about from Glasgow. The original name means "the slopes" in Scottish Gaelic....

. The yard was continued for some years after his death by his nephew, but never achieved the renown known under Fife's ownership.

External links

• klassischeyachten.de - Features history and pictures of several Fife designs
• Fairlie Restorations
• fintra.de - a list of all the Fife Six Metre yachts built and of most of the others
• Fife Regatta
• flickr - archive of the Scottish Maritime Museum