The lasting legacy of Jeremy Lines
Jeremy Lines is remembered as an unsung hero of the yachting industry, writes Ian Nicolson.
Jeremy, who died in November 2018, started his career in 1947 as a 17-year-old apprentice to Fred Parker, a leading yacht designer at the busy Dorset Yacht Company. Having completed his National Service in the RAF, Lines then worked at Universal Shipyard on the Hamble before joining Camper & Nicholsons in Gosport, where he soon became a leading light.
Among his many talents he was excellent at developing fibreglass yachts. He was responsible for no fewer than 550 improvements to the design of the celebrated Nicholson 32 between the first production boat and the Mark 6.
Jeremy rose to be technical director through sheer application. He famously never stopped work, answering calls at all times of the day and night quoting specifications, facts and figures in extraordinary detail from memory to clients in different time zones all over the world.
In later life Jeremy digitised all the many volumes of Lloyd’s Register of Yachts. This data is now available to anyone via the Association of Yachting Historians, of which Jeremy was a founder and committee member. He also catalogued almost all of the yacht half models in the world and he was the keeper of the vast Camper & Nicholsons archive.
He is survived by his wife Claire, three sons and a crew of grandchildren.