Pelle Petterson poses proudly with the Star World Championship trophy which he won in San Diego in 1969. Petterson also twice won Olympic medals in the class, bronze in Japan in 1964 and silver in Kiel in 1972. Petterson-designed Stars also won many other major events during the same period
The man who launched an industry
In any new industry there is normally a right man at the right time. In 1970 a Swedish Volvo designer sat down at his desk and made a drawing of a very different boat. He called it the Maxi 77. That changed everything… as Øyvind Bordal finds out
Pelle P, short for Pelle Petterson, is a concept all over Scandinavia. It’s even become a clothing brand. The Swedish sail- ing legend, now 82 years old, has won Olympic medals and skippered America’s Cup campaigns. But by far his most signifi- cant accomplishment in terms of sailing has been the introduction of industrial design methods in glassfibre boats; back in the late 1960s nobody had really done that before, and the still new GRP building materials and techniques proved to be a perfect play- ground for Petterson’s ideas. The growing
economy was there, everything blew in the same direction. The whole thing exploded in success, and shortly after the start of the story Petterson’s Maxi yard had become the world’s biggest producer of leisure sailing boats. Other Swedish yards followed up on the success, and all through the 1970s, and a good portion of the 80s, Sweden domi- nated the production boatbuilding industry.
Sunglasses and T-shirt
So if the industrially produced leisure sailing boat has a father, Pelle Petterson is
that man. We met him on his home turf, in the Swedish archipelago, to talk about the start of the GRP era in boatbuilding, and how the industry has evolved over the 40 years since.
The location is the Hallberg Rassy yard on Orust, probably the most well-known and respected Swedish yard today. Petter- son looks agile and sharp, with sunglasses, a white polo T-shirt and light blue trousers from the clothing company his daughter has founded to take advantage of the brand value of the family name. His handshake is firm, he has a suntan and when we start talking I quickly realise that he considers himself still active as a working designer. He has simply never stopped working and, as he explains, there are a lot of interesting projects on the table right now. The very next day Petterson will reveal the plans for a new design that he has completed for the new owners of Maxi Yachts, Polish conglomerate Delphia.
A Volvo for Roger Moore
As is also the case with Denmark’s Paul Elvstrøm, Pelle P is a man whose impact stretches far beyond the results he achieved on racecourses around the world. At the Olympics in 1964 and 1972 Petterson won bronze and silver in the Star class. He is also a Star world champion, and skippered two America’s Cup teams in 1977 and 1980. But that is not where his most impor- tant contribution lies. As a young man, Petterson was educated as an industrial designer, and much of his training took
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