History of the Rival Yachts

The Rival Owners Association was formed in 1974, with the official launch at a London hotel in January 1975. Peter Brett agreed to be our President.

A History from Peter Brett

Below is a history of the Rival 31 through to the Rival 34 in Peter’s own words:

This seems a good moment for a record to be made. I hope it will interest the many Rival 32 owners who did not come onto the scene until some years after the class had started. I would have preferred someone else to write the story, so that it would have been less personal, but is seemed that I was the only one with enough of the information to do it. I hope the owners will put up with my viewpoint and will recognise that very important parts were played by many people who have not been mentioned.

If there had been a queue of moulders eagerly wanting to produce the boat to my design, in 1967, I hope I should still have selected Eric White for the job. But it did not happen like that at all. Eric was the only one to take an interest in my design, to study my background and to be only a little dubious about my hopes of selling perhaps 50 boats to the design. He alone offered to make the mouldings, and he quoted a price which I gladly accepted. In 40 years of cruising, ocean racing and designing yachts I suppose I must have learned something – even if only how much more there was to learn – but this had been a spare time activity and there was an important gap. Although I had used a small GRP cruising boat for a few years I had never had one built to my design in this material, so I lacked some vital experience. Eric had built up a successful business producing GRP boats. His “Trident” class was flourishing and he had established a good reputation with Lloyds. He was keen to help me and I was keen to learn.

Read Peter’s Full Account

---

Yacht History