Alan Buchanan (1922-2015) was an English

naval architect This is the top category for all articles related to architecture and its practitioners. {{Commons category, Architecture occupations Design occupations Architecture, Occupations ...

and

sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the s ...

. He designed over 2400 vessels, including yachts that won

Admiral's Cup The Admiral's Cup was an international yachting regatta. For many years it was known as the unofficial world championship of offshore racing. The Admiral's Cup regatta was started in 1957 and was normally a biennial event (occurring in odd-numbe ...

, Cowes Week, and the Fastnet Race. Buchanan started his career as a draftsman and aircraft engineer at the De Havilland Aircraft Company. His family having a summer house in West Mersea, he was a regular visitor from a young age. After he left de Havilland, he started as a boat designer firstly from his home in Enfield and then at his office which he established in

Burnham-on-Crouch Burnham-on-Crouch is a town and civil parish in the Maldon District of Essex in the East of England. It lies on the north bank of the River Crouch. It is one of Britain's leading places for yachting. The civil parish extends east of the town t ...

. In the early years many of his designs were built by the boatyard of William Wyatt in West Mersea and by 1950 he had a busy design office in Burnham employing about ten staff. In 1948 the Burnham boatyard of RH Prior & Son started work on his first design specifically for ocean racing. This was the 10.3 metre (34 feet) ''Red Gurnet''. The first yacht he designed for himself and his wife was the 9.4m (31')

LOA ( ), also called loa or loi, are spirits in the African diasporic religion of Haitian Vodou. They have also been incorporated into some revivalist forms of Louisiana Voodoo. Many of the lwa derive their identities in part from deities venerate ...

Bermudan Sloop ''Taeping''. She was launched on 15 May 1954 having been built by Priors of Burnham. In 1956 he was commissioned by the London Rowing Club for a vessel (''Casamajor'') which had to be fast but with minimal wash for use as a coaching boat for their racing eights on the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

. She was built by Tucker Brown & Co of Burnham. Sir

Maurice Laing Sir John Maurice Laing (1 February 1918 – 22 February 2008) was a senior executive of British construction company John Laing plc. He was the first president of the Confederation of British Industry in 1965–66. Early life Laing was born in C ...

commissioned Buchanan to design him a yacht for ocean racing which was the 11.2m (37') ''Vashti''. She was very successful in RORC racing and her sistership ''Rival'', built in Australia, was handicap winner in the 1961 Sydney Hobart race. In the 1950s and 60s Buchanan was designing steel-built yachts where the basic steelwork was completed in Dutch yards and the fitting out being done in England. Also in the mid-1950s the Buchanan Design Office was working on fibreglass designs and developed the first European-built glassfibre yacht, the 10.6m (35') ''Bonito''. Their first production design was the 6.8m Crystal Class which later became the well-known

Halcyon 23 The Halcyon 23 is a British trailerable sailboat that was designed by Alan Buchanan as a cruiser and first built in 1967.Henkel, Steve: ''The Sailor's Book of Small Cruising Sailboats'', page 232. International Marine/McGraw-Hill, 2010. The ...

of which well over 1000 have been built. The Diamond Class shortly followed, becoming in 1968 the Halcyon 27, and remained in production until 1975, about 200 having been built. Although mainly known as a sailing yacht designer, Buchanan was also responsible for motor yachts like the 19.8 metre twin-screw ''Sita II'' as well as numerous commercial motor vessels such as ferries and fishing vessels. In 1997 he received a medal from the RINA for his small craft designs.

Designs

Buchanan's designs include" * Bonito 35 * Brabent * Buchanan Dragonfly * Buchanan Nantucket Clipper 32 * Buchanan Queen 38 * Buchanan Spartan-1 * Buchanan Spartan-2 * Buchanan Viking 30 * Crystal 23 * Diamond 27 * Yawl Marken III * East Anglian 28 *

* Halcyon 27 * Halcyon Clipper 26 *

Hilbre One Design The Hilbre One Design is a British Trailer sailer, trailerable sailboat that was designed by Alan Buchanan (naval architect), Alan Buchanan as a one design Sailing (sport), racer, specifically for the West Kirby Sailing Club in northwest Englan ...

* Holliwell 22 * Neptune 33 * Nepuntian 33 * Prior 37 * Saxon 34 * Wild Duck 19 * Yeoman Junior

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buchanan, Alan 1922 births 2015 deaths Jersey people British naval architects 20th-century British businesspeople