Qualla: Camper and Nicholsons https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Camper and Nicholsons https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons Camper and Nicholsons: Introduction https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit Liliane Paingaud, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1782, a London-trained shipwright named Francis Amos leased a strip of land from the Royal Naval Dockyard at Gosport and started building boats for local fishermen. Two hundred and twenty-three years later, in 2005, the same shipyard - by then on the site of what is now Endeavour Quay - shut its gates for the last time. In the interval, the firm that became Camper and Nicholsons built yachts for Vanderbilts and Rothschilds and Onassis, designed J-class racers that fought Sir Thomas Lipton's failed America's Cup challenges, manufactured 96 landing craft for the 1943 Allied landings, lost most of its archive in a 1941 fire, and outlived nearly every other yacht builder of its era. It is the oldest leisure yacht-building company in the world.

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Image: Liliane Paingaud | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Camper and Nicholsons: Three Generations of Hands on the Helm https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0. Amos took on his great-nephew William Camper as an apprentice in 1809 and left him the business at his death in 1824. William Camper in turn took Benjamin Nicholson as apprentice in 1842, and by 1855 Nicholson was doing most of the design work; the firm became Camper and Nicholso...

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Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK | CC BY 2.0

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-three-generations-of-hands-on-the-helm.mp3 0:06 2 full Camper and Nicholsons: Shamrocks and Endeavours https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit Pheinlein (Diskussion), CC BY-SA 3.0 de. The J-class yachts were the largest sailing racers of the early 20th century, built to a measurement rule that allowed enormous masts and razor-thin margins. Camper and Nicholsons built five of them. Shamrock IV - Sir Thomas Lipton's fourth attempt at the America's Cup - launched...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-shamrocks-and-endeavours.mp3 0:06 3 full Camper and Nicholsons: Wartime https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit Mattp2005 at English Wikipedia, Public domain. Both World Wars turned the yard inside out. In the First World War the firm converted civilian steam yachts into hospital ships - including Lord Dunraven's 493-ton Grianaig, which the 76-year-old peer himself sailed across the Channel evacuating wounded from France and Gallipoli....

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Image: Mattp2005 at English Wikipedia | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-wartime.mp3 0:06 4 full Camper and Nicholsons: The Yachts of Princes and Onassis https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit VollwertBIT, CC BY-SA 2.5. The clients read like a who's who of inter-war wealth. William Kissam Vanderbilt II circumnavigated the world in MY Ara, a 851-ton motor yacht originally laid down for a Frenchman and finished as a warship in 1917. The Rothschilds had Rhodora and then the 709-ton Rhodora II, equi...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-the-yachts-of-princes-and-onassis.mp3 0:06 5 full Camper and Nicholsons: Creole, the Wooden Giant https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit Drumlanrig at English Wikipedia, Public domain. In 1927 the yard built Vira for Alexander Smith Cochran. At 689 tons, the staysail schooner was the largest yacht ever built at the Gosport yard, and she remains the largest wooden sailing yacht in the world. Her first owner thought her masts were too tall and had them shortened;...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-creole-the-wooden-giant.mp3 0:06 6 full Camper and Nicholsons: Closing the Yard https://qualla.com/camper-and-nicholsons/ Photo credit VollwertBIT, CC BY-SA 2.5. By the 1970s the centre of yacht-building had shifted to the Mediterranean and to fibreglass. In 1972 Crest Securities merged with Camper and Nicholsons to form Crest Nicholson. The Southampton yard at Northam closed in 1979 - access blocked by the new Itchen Bridge. A management...

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]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/1/camper-and-nicholsons-wp/gcp1-camper-and-nicholsons-closing-the-yard.mp3 0:06 7 full