John Laurent Giles (1901–1969) 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 ...

who was particularly famous for his

sailing yachts A sailing yacht (US ship prefixes SY or S/Y), is a leisure craft that uses sails as its primary means of propulsion. A yacht may be a sail or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, so the term applie ...

. He and his company, Laurent Giles & Partners Ltd, designed more than 1000 boats from cruisers and racing yachts to

megayacht A superyacht or megayacht is a large and luxurious pleasure vessel. There are no official or agreed upon definitions for such yachts, but these terms are regularly used to describe professionally crewed motor or sailing yachts, ranging from to ...

Examples

Notable examples of Laurent Giles' work include the famous Vertue (sail numbers suggest that some 230 of these have been made), Wanderer III, the 30'

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

in which

Eric and Susan Hiscock Eric Charles Hiscock (14 March 1908 – 15 September 1986) was a British sailor and author of books on small boat sailing and ocean cruising. Together with his wife and crew Susan Oakes Hiscock (née Sclater, 18 May 1913 – 12 May 1995), he auth ...

circumnavigated, and the race-winning Gulvain, the first ocean racing yacht to be made from an aluminium alloy. His famous ''Myth of Malham'', a revolutionary small displacement yacht for John Illingworth, was inspired by developments in aeronautics; the novel design helped win the

Fastnet race The Fastnet Race is a biennial offshore yacht race organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club of the United Kingdom with the assistance of the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes and the City of Cherbourg in France. The race is named after the Fastnet ...

in 1947 and 1949. The updated Miranda IV of 1951 had a rudder mounted separately from the aft of the keel (a 'spade rudder') which heralded the arrival of the modern period of yacht design. Laurent Giles described as part of his design philosophy that a yacht should have "the utmost docility and sureness of manoeuvring at sea, in good or bad weather" - his boats were designed to maintain a steady course with minimal action by the helmsman but respond instantly to the helm if the need arose. He was awarded the honour of

Royal Designer for Industry Royal Designer for Industry is a distinction established by the British Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1936, to encourage a high standard of industrial design and enhance the status of designers. It is awarded to people who have achieved "sustained ...

in 1951.

Select List of Designs by Laurent Giles

* First Yacht Lutine (C&N 60') * Gulvain *

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Vive Sailboat 33', 1950 (Woodnutts-Laurent Giles) Vive may refer to: *Vive, Viva, a Romance language expression * ''Vive'' (José José album), 1974 * ''Vive'' (Lucía Méndez album), 2004 *Vive (a cappella group), a cappella group from England, United Kingdom *ViVe Televisión, a state-owned Ven ...

* Lymington-L-Class (1933) and the later modified/ revised L-Class design of 1955 *

Maid of Malin A maid, or housemaid or maidservant, is a female domestic worker. In the Victorian era domestic service was the second largest category of employment in England and Wales, after agricultural work. In developed Western nations, full-time maids ...

Peter Duck (yacht) ''Peter Duck'' is the third book in the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series by Arthur Ransome. The Swallows and Amazons sail to Crab Island with Captain Flint and Peter Duck, an old sailor, to recover buried treasure. During the voyage the ''Wildca ...

* R.N.S.A. 24 (32'), 1947 * Robert C. Seamans (ship) * Sails Of Dawn, Mc Gruer 57', 1969, the final yacht before Giles' death * Seamaster Sailer 19 * Seamaster Sailer 23 *

Vertue (yacht) The Vertue Class of yacht is a 25'3" length design by Laurent Giles dating from 1936, when ''Andrillot'' was launched. The class was not named Vertue until 1946: it collected the name in the wake of the win by ''Epeneta'' - a boat built to the desig ...

* Vertue II- a beamier version of the original Vertue design, mostly made in GRP * Wanderer Class, 29’9”, 9 tons * Westerly Yachts ( Westerly Marine Construction Ltd) - a number of designs, including their Centaur 26, Pageant 24, Chieftain 26, GK24, Longbow 31, Westerly 33, Discus 33 and Konsort 29.

External links

Laurent Giles Naval Architects

Sailboat designs of Jack Laurent Giles at Sailboatdata.com

The Laurent Giles Archive
includes a full register of yachts; original construction and outfit drawings for many of projects produced by Laurent Giles & partners Ltd (1927 - 1979), Laurent Giles Ltd (1979 - 1987)and Laurent Giles Naval Architects Ltd (1987–present) are available.

including GK 24.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laurent Giles, John 1901 births 1969 deaths British yacht designers

Examples

Select List of Designs by Laurent Giles

See also

External links

References