John Westell
John Westell was an English sailboat designer, who is noted for designing the 505 sailing dinghy and the Ocean Bird class of trimarans. Westell also designed cruising sailboats.
Biography
Born Woodroffe John Westell on 11 March 1921 in Devon, England, Westell dropped the use of "Woodroffe" in his name, which was a reference to his ancestry. By age 16, he was a champion dinghy racer. In 1939, he volunteered for the Royal Navy Reserve and helped deliver a Bird-class minesweeper to the New Zealand Navy. He returned to become a sub-lieutenant and train as a meteorologist. During World War II, he was posted to a naval air station in Ceylon. After the war, he returned to England, married and became a father by 1950. He raced International 14 sailboats and co-founded the magazine, Yachts and Yachting.He died of cancer in January 1989 at the age of 68, having retired from a position at Honnor Marine, a manufacturer of sailing craft.
Sailboat design
Westell's first boat design was a plywood,, scow-shaped dinghy. In the early 1950s he became interested in experimenting with the characteristics of the International 14 and the Flying Dutchman hull shapes to improve their planing characteristics. This led to the development of the 505 sailing dinghy.He first worked for a sailboat manufacturer in Rochester, Kent and later became a technical director of production at Honnor Marine at Totnes, Devon. In the 1970s, he became interested in cruising trimarans with his Ocean Bird swinging-ama design.