Pete Lee

PhilWS

I guess most if not all the readers of this post will not have known Pete. Sadly he died a couple of weeks ago. He was a founder member of Exeter Canoe Club and, when I joined the club in 1966, he was club chairman.
At that time Pete was a regular competitor in long-distance racing (LD - the forerunner of the modern Marathon racing). He was a regular sight 'chonking' along the Exe and Exeter Canal in his light blue, fibreglass Pointer K1.
I left the club in 1971/2 and I think Pete moved away from Exeter at around the same time. Whichever way, I didn't see Pete again until the club's 50th anniverary celebration get-together, which I suppose must have been in 2002. I was pleased to be able to chat to him again and he told me a little about the early days of the club and his own early paddling history. At that time, which would have been the early 50's, he was living with his parents in Colleton Hill. The house is on the right as you look up from the riverside, about 4 doors up. He told me he built his first canoe there, in his bedroom, then lowered it out of the window! I'm pretty sure it was of a wood-frame construction with canvas stretched over it, both deck and hull. We used to call them PBK's.

Footnotes:
The Pointer was a Struer design, one of several designs by that Danish firm during those years. The Struer originals were beautiful, mahogany veneer craft used by the Olympians of the day. Pete's boat would, I imagine, have been built by the Canoe Centre of Twickenham, who had a licence from Struer to produce glass boats to their designs. The club owns a Struer original of those days - a Winner K4 which lies, I'm afraid, in a rather vulnerable position near the floor of the racing shed.
The club also owns a PBK (Percy Blandford Kayak). That is in the racing shed too, on the club boats side, up in the rafters.

Phil Schnepp

Nigel_Sharpe

Thanks Phil for letting us know. I never knew him, but the fact that the Club is still going strong is a credit to him, and other founder members. I hope that his friends and family get a little comfort from the pleasure that the Club has bought to so many of us.