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BeavorWebbVJohn Beavor-Webb (1849 - March 11, 1927) was an Irish-American naval architect.

He was a designer of sailing yachts, notably the America's Cup challengers Genesta (1884) and Galatea (1885), before emigrating to the United States where he designed very large steamyachts like J.P. Morgan's Corsair II (1891) and Corsair III (1899).

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Category: DESIGNERS

BurgessPuritanVEdward Burgess was a son of Benjamin F. Burgess, a sugar importer of Boston. He was born in Sandwich, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, June 30th 1848. After his graduation from Harvard College in 1871, he took up the profession of a naturalist. A year after his graduation he was an instructor in entomology at the Bussey Institute, connected with Harvard College. He resigned this position to become secretary of the Boston Society of Natural History, ...

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RangerLinesVW. Starling Burgess was born in 1878, and was an aeronautical engineer and naval architect. His father, Edward Burgess, designed the America's cup defenders PURITAN, MAYFLOWER and VOLUNTEER. Orphaned by the age of 12, after his parents died within months of each other (typhoid Fever, pneumonia), Burgess was raised by relatives, and mentored by many of his father’s legendary colleagues, including George Lawley Jr,...

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Clinton CraneClinton Hoadley Crane had a somewhat unusual career. Beginning as an amateur naval architect, designing for himself and his friends and relations, he then established a yacht-design firm that he operated for around 12 years, and then left the profession to run the family mining business full-time. He came back 10 years later to his passion of yacht design; part-time and as an amateur.
He was as interested in motor racers as he was in sailboats, ...

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Born October 13, 1867 in New York, Bowdoin Bradlee Crowninshield grew up in Marblehead, Massachusetts, into the wealthy Crowninshield family with long-standing ties to the sea. The family estate Crowninshield House was built by his father in 1870. His father was Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1837–1892) and mother was Katherine May Bradlee (1844–1902). His great-grandfather Benjamin Williams Crowninshield (1772–1851) ...

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William Fife IIIWilliam Fife III OBE (15 June 1857 – 11 August 1944) was the third generation of a family of Scottish yacht designers and builders. He was born in Fairlie, North Ayrshire on the Firth of Clyde. This is where lies the family shipyard established in 1790 by his grandfather. He will live there until his death in 1944.
In 1875, after his studies at Brisbane Academy, he served his apprenticeship in the family yard.

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GardnerWVWilliam Gardner, one of the world’s foremost naval architects, is born in Oswego, N.Y., son of the late William Gardner and Frances C. Gardner. He entered Cornell University when he was only 15 years old and was graduated in 1880.
He worked for a time in the Delaware River Iron Ship Building Company, studying all angles of ship construction in the mold loft, in the foundry, in the yard and at fitting, then sailed for the Royal Naval College in Greenwich, England.

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NathanaelGHerreshoffVThe  "Wizard of Bristol"

Nathanael Greene Herreshoff (March 18, 1848 – June 2, 1938), is a descendant of Frederick Herreshoff, a Prussian engineer who settled in Rhode Island in 1790, marrying Sarah Brown, daughter of John Brown, the leading shipbuilder in that state. Among their children was Frederick, born in 1808, ...

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JBHerreshoffV« The Blind Genuis »

The story of the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company must start with John Brown Herreshoff. At the time of his birth, the Herreshoffs were living at Point Pleasant Farm on Poppasquash Neck. He showed a great deal of energy and ambition for a lad, having his own rope walk, a workshop and a foot lathe.

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herreshoffFVThe Yacht Designer as Artist

Francis Herreshoff was as much an artist as his father was genius.

Lewis Francis Herreshoff (1890-1972) was born in Bristol, Rhode Island, near the waters of Narragansett Bay, an area long noted for its yachting activity.

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NicholsonCEVIn the 1890s, with the arrival of Ben Nicholsons three sons to the firm Camper and Nicholson, a final name change was made to Camper and Nicholsons. Middle son, Charles Ernest Nicholson, emerged as the consummate yacht designer, able to combine elegance with speed and seamanship.
Nicholson’s first design of note was the Redwing class, designed for the Bembridge Sailing Club as a single-hander, to replace the expensive half racers...

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George OwenGeorge Owen was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1877. His mother died when he was young. After this loss, Owen was drawn closer to family in Rhode Island. The Owen family was active in yachting and commissioned boats from both Edward Burgess, and Herreshoff Manufacturing Company, Bristol, Rhode Island. In addition to many opportunities to race fast fine boats, Owen also began developing hobbies such as photography.

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Frank C Paine, born on July 9, 1890, Boston, Mass, was the son of General Charles J Paine of Boston, a three times owner of the successful America’s Cup defenders for the New York Yacht Club, “Puritan” in 1885 (as part of a syndicate) and later “Mayflower” (1886) and “Volunteer” (1887). He was brought up in the world of yachts and was younger brother to an amateur yacht designer John Paine, who had designed ‘Jubilee’ for a Boston based syndicate ....

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JubileeJBPaineVJohn Bryant Paine (1870-1951) is the second son of the seven children of Gen. Charles J. Paine. The large family lived in their big property in Weston. The Weston house had a schoolroom behind the grand staircase where the children did their lessons in the spring and fall. In the 1880s the older boys, Sumner and John, went to Mr. Hopkinson’s school in Boston before going on to Harvard.

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RatseyMEVMichael Edward Ratsey comes from a shipbuilder family. His grandfather Lynn Ratsey built the cutter yacht Leopard in 1807. Her dimensions were, length on deck, 64 feet 4 inches; length of keel, 54 feet 3 inches; beam, 19 feet; depth, 11 feet; draft, 10 feet.
His father Michael Ratsey also marked the history of the America's Cup. He designed and built in 1838 the famous cutter Aurora who came close ...

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ACSmithV2"Science" opposed to "rule-o'thumb"

Archibald Cary Smith was born in New York City, one of six children of the Rev. Edward Dunlap Smith, a graduate of Princeton University, the University of Virginia and Princeton Theological Seminary. The family came from Philadelphia, Mr. Smith’s paternal grandfather being a prominent ironmaster.

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GeorgesSteersVGeorge Steers (Aug. 15, 1819 – Sept. 25, 1856) one of 13 children, was born in Washington, USA. His father Henry Steers was engaged as Naval Constructor for the U.S. Government. He was a native of Devonshire, England, and learned his trade at the Royal dockyard at Devonport, coming to this country in 1819 and securing employment at the Washington navy yard. In 1827 the older Steers removed with his family to New York, where he built the first government dry-dock.

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Olin J. Stephens was born on April 13, 1908 in the Bronx, New York. His father was a coal merchant who moved the family to Scarsdale, New York in 1913, where Olin and his brother Rod went to school. It was while spending summers on the New England coast that Olin first learned to sail.
Graduating in 1926 from Scarsdale High School, Olin attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for one semester only to be forced ...

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WatsonVGeorge Lennox Watson was born in Glasgow in the same year in which the schooner America was built and raced; his father, Dr. Watson, was a noted physician, his mother was a Miss Burstall, daughter of Timothy Burstall, an inventor, and a contemporary of George Stevenson, builder of the locomotive Rocket, and engaged in similar work.
At the age of sixteen, Mr. Watson, whose tastes as a young boy inclined ..

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Category: DESIGNERS