Vanity Fair Yachting Print - Mr. C. E. Nicholson

Title: "He is the one designer"

Date: Aug. 13th 1913

Description: Photolithograph print by OWL. Depicted at his drawing board, scarce.

Charles E Nicholson (1868 – 1954)
One of four sons and six daughters of Benjamin Nicholson (1828-1906), also a yacht designer, and the original Nicholson of Camper and Nicholson. His eldest brother, Benjamin Watson Nicholson (1857-1927), and younger brother, Arthur William Nicholson (1872-1957) also became directors of the firm.

In his teens he was sent to France to learn French as the yard had good clients there, but with no technical training, aged 18, he started work with his father and elder brother and had his first yacht LUCIFER built a year later.

His first individual design was the Redwing class. The Bembridge Sailing Club met in October 1896 to agree the need for a shallow draughted yacht - to accommodate the shallow waters of Bembridge Harbour. The specification was for a yacht which could be sailed single-handed, to replace the expensive half racers. Nicholson designed the yacht in ten days, and by 1898 the fleet consisted of 16 boats, all built by the Camper & Nicholsons shipyard.

In the early 1900s Nicholson developed a new powered craft which would enable the owners to come from their "big-boats" before and after the competitions. Named the Gelyce class, the name derived from the combined first and last letter of the wives of the three brothers: Gertie (married to Ben Jr), Lucy (married to Charles), and Constance (married Arthur).

In 1912, Nicholson introduced the 15mR design Istria with a Marconi rig, the first yacht in the world with a lightweight, laminated wood construction. This led to further developments and growing expertise in the use of lightweight materials which saw its fruition in the use of plywood in deck construction.[2] This ultimately led to arguably Nicholson's most beautiful sailing creation, the 1927 commissioned Vira (later Creole) was built on behalf of Alexander Smith Cochran. He died on 26 February 1954.

Condition: Good image, minor marginal marks.

Image size: 370 x 210mm
14.5 x 8.25" approx.

£75.00

Order No. yachting-nicholson

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Vanity Fair Yachting Caricature - Mr. C. E. Nicholson