A lifelong obsession
Rhodes was born in England in 1943 during the dark days of WWII. For much of the war his father Philip lived apart from his family, building Blenheim bombers in Liverpool. After the war the family took over the lease of Fell Foot Estate (owned by the National Trust) on the shores of Lake Windermere.
Despite its derelict condition, Rhodes has happy memories of his childhood there: “It was a wonderful place – by the time I was seven I’d learned to row and sail.”
By age 17 he’d built two sliding-seat sailing canoes – “a poor man’s 10 square metre” – that proved very quick when he could keep them upright. His father had joined the Amateur Yacht Research Society (AYRS) when it was founded in 1953, and with articles on multihulls, hydrofoils, rigs and self-steering gears it was a great source of inspiration for Rhodes.
While he wanted to be a boatbuilder his father would have none of it and told
