Pete Melvin grew up sailing in Florida.  As a youngster, he worked with his father building Optimist dinghies.  At the age of ten, he built a motorized skateboard.   Melvin and his father eventually created a company and built Optis out of honeycomb and carbon fiber while most dinghies were being built out of wood.  The early days of working on boats led to an impressive career designing fast multihulls for long distance and around-the-world record attempts and the America’s Cup.

Melvin was named an All-American sailor in 1985 at Boston University.  After graduating with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, he spent five years working for McDonnell Douglas in the aircraft design department.  In 1988, Melvin and his crew, Patrick Muglia qualified to represent the United States in the Tornado Class in the Olympic Games in Pusan, South Korea.  The pair finished 14^th out of 23 boats.  The Olympics were a good character builder.  In future years, Melvin would win three world championships (1997 and 2005 in the A Class Catamaran and in 2008 in the F18) and 25 national titles.

In 1992, he partnered with Gino Morrelli to form M&M – a yacht design firm based in Newport Beach, California.  In 1994, they designed the Hobie Wave catamaran that became a popular beach boat.  In 1999, they designed a 105-foot catamaran, PlayStation, that set a 24-mile distance record of 580.23 nautical miles.  Melvin and Morelli worked closely with the owner and skipper, Steve Fossett, to modify PlayStation for a series of record attempts.  The boat was lengthened to 125 feet and went through a series of modifications to improve her speed.  The catamaran set many records, including sailing across the Atlantic Ocean (West to East) in an astounding 4 days and 17 hours. In one 24 hour-period, PlayStation sailed 687.2 nautical miles for an average speed of 28.6 knots.  Fossett was named Rolex Yachtsman of the Year in 2001 for his accomplishments with PlayStation.

When Larry Ellison challenged Switzerland’s Alinghi for the America’s Cup in 2010, M&M was commissioned to join the design team.  The group created a huge trimaran with a 235-foot wing mainsail.   The Deed of Gift Match was sailed off Valencia, Spain in February of 2010.  The American challenger won both races against the Swiss defender by over one mile in each race to claim the America’s Cup.  Ellison and his manager Russell Coutts commissioned Morrelli and Melvin to draft the design rules for a new 72-foot (on-the-waterline) multihull for the America’s Cup in 2013.  After creating the America’s Cup rule, they consulted with Emirates Team New Zealand on their new challenger and were able to include a foiling component to the yacht. Their concept was the first Cup yacht to “fly” on foils.

M&M designed the Nacra 17 catamaran that has been used in the Olympic Games since 2016.  For the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, the Nacra 17 added foils so it could also “fly.” Pete Melvin has been on the crew of five World Sailing Speed Record Council sanctioned records.  He designed and built an innovative electric motorcycle that can travel 50 miles on a single charge at a speed of 60 miles per hour.  M&M has expanded from yacht design and now works in the commercial and military field.  Melvin races with his son James completing the cycle that started with his father in the 1960s.

~ Gary Jobson