David Burgess – Multi-Championship Winning Boat Builder - Par Excellence I left school at the age of 16, in 1961 and started a boatbuilding trade apprenticeship at Bill Shakespeare’s workshop in Tewkesbury. Shakespeare was a leading circuit boat racer at the time, and I was involved in Building his, and his friends, race boats. I worked at Shakespeare’s until 1969. I started on flat bottoms, progressed to deep V hulls and then onto cats.
SE, OE, OI and ON boats all through the 1970s. the SE and OE boats were very successful with European and world Championships.
The cat progression came about two years later than the continental challenge, as the RYA, under the stewardship of John Reed, deemed them too dangerous. John Hill Strongbow Burgess OI Cardiff 1975
In 1978, one week prior to the Bristol weekend, on the Monday morning, I decided I would build an NF boat in wood for the forthcoming Bristol race, bearing in mind I only had five days. I set too and designed and built the boat. I built the boat on my own and my painter, Leapy Lee, painted it on the Thursday evening/night. On the Friday morning I rigged it with a Mercury 650XS I borrowed from a customer on the understanding that his friend, Peter Balmford, drove it. Peter had not driven a boat for a couple of seasons. We loaded it on the trailer and off we went to Bristol. I gave good old Charlie Sheppard the sob story, that we had had a flat on the way, and said sorry for being late for testing and qually. Charlie said that after everything had finished, we
In late 1969 I was approached by Fred Miles, to work for him designing and building race boats. That was very successful in as much as the ON boats were going to the right people, in Europe and the USA. Fred raced one himself, mainly in the USA. After about two and a half years, Fred was racing in the Parker, USA event, where he flipped the boat. On his return, he promptly said he was finished and would close the boat building Miles Master Company. He said to me there are four or five outstanding orders with deposits. If you want to take them on, I will transfer the deposits, rent you the workshop, and away you go. So, in 1972 Burgess Racing Boats was born. Things progressed very quickly; I was building
Roger Hedge, Burgess monohull, Bristol 1979
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