Of Scottish descent, Colin Archer’s parents immigrated to Norway, where Archer himself was born in 1832. Early in his life, he spent time in Australia as a farmer and administrator before returning to Larvik, Noway, where he studied shipbuilding and married. In the early 1870s, Archer began reworking traditional Norwegian pilot boat design, eventually developing his Redningsskoyte design - a 47-foot rescue boat that became the template for the characteristic Colin Archer-type double-ended vessels— in 1892. Over his lifetime, Archer created more than fifty designs, including Fram, the polar vessel that, among other things, brought Amundsen to Antartica during his successful bid for the South Pole.