At age 18, he and his brother built a keel yacht and won the 1967/68 New Zealand Junior Offshore Group Championship.

[1] In 1971, Blake began his international sailing career as watch leader on Ocean Spirit in the Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro race.

[3] The co-skippers of the yacht, Leslie Williams and Robin Knox-Johnston, recognised Blake's abilities in leadership and seamanship and invited him to join their team for the first Whitbread Round the World Race.

While refitting the yacht in England after the race, Peter met Philippa (Pippa) Glanville and they married in Emsworth in August 1979.

[1] For the 1981–1982 race, Blake mounted his own campaign as skipper of Ceramco New Zealand, a 68-foot (21 m) sloop designed by an up-and-coming naval architect called Bruce Farr.

The campaign started well, but Ceramco lost its mast on the first leg, and Blake's crew did well to finish the race in third place.

[1] In 1994, Blake and his co-skipper Robin Knox-Johnson succeeded in their second attempt at the Jules Verne Trophy, by achieving the fastest non-stop navigation of the world under sail on the yacht ENZA New Zealand.

[4] Their time was 74 days, 22 hours, 17 minutes and 22 seconds, and they were the first foreign skippers to win the French award.

Blake was back for the 1995 America's Cup challenge, this time as the syndicate head of Team New Zealand.

It was commonplace to see New Zealanders wear red socks or fly them from car aerials during the Cup races and a highly successful "fundraising edition" of official red socks emblazoned with the sail numbers of the two NZL yachts was produced to help fund the syndicate.

In the 1983 New Year Honours, Blake was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), for services to ocean yacht racing.

[14] On 5 December 2001, pirates shot and killed Blake while he was on an environmental exploration trip in South America, monitoring global warming and pollution for the United Nations.

As one of the robbers held a gun to the head of a crewmember, Blake sprang from the cabin wielding a rifle.

Blake is buried at Warblington Cemetery, located opposite St Thomas a Becket Church near Emsworth on the south coast of England.

The Trust has a range of initiatives, including the annual Sir Peter Blake Leadership Awards.