Charles Mower

He starting studying yacht design in 1895 with Arthur Binney and later Bowdoin B. Crowninshield, moving on to a partnership with Thomas D. Bowes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1911.

He was also a chief naval architect at Henry B. Nevins, Inc., at City Island, New York, and in 1937 was associated with the office of Nelson & Reid, Inc.

In 1922 Judge Charles McKeehan of Philadelphia hired Mower to design a new boat specifically to win the Toms River cup.

Mower's design became the Mary Ann, a 28-foot (8.5 m) hull based on the traditional East Coast catboat lines.

The seven-boat fleet became a familiar sight during the 1920s, but the Great Depression put a damper on the race scene and no more A-cats were built.

The two designers were acquainted and both worked on the Fishers Island boats, so the similarity is not a surprise, but who should get the credit remains an area of contention.

Ace is a 43-foot (13 m) R-Class Sloop built in 1926, and was four-time winner of the San Francisco Pepetual Challenge Cup in her early years.

In 1987 Jack Langton of Long Beach purchased her, selling her on in 1990 to Jim Squire who raced and extensively restored her.

[3] Penobscot is a 37-foot (11m)R-class sloop, designed by Charles Mower and custom built in 1923 by Hodgdon Brothers of Boothbay, Maine.

Penobscot was recently purchased by Lindsay G. Merrithew a member of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, Toronto, Canada (RCYC) and is currently undergoing a restoration at D. N. Hylan and Associates in Brooklin, Maine.

Tops-O-Cotton won a number of races in her early years in Milwaukee, before being sold to a Chicago sailor and then to Bob Jacobsen and his father.

In 2008 she was donated to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, WI[5] Vanity // round-bottom twenty foot knockabout//first round-bottom Chesapeake 20 The Plan Book of Cruisers, Runabouts, Auxiliaries and Outboard Motor Boats (Smartest and Most Up-To-Date Collection of Small Boat Designs, Volume IX) (Hardcover) Hardcover: 48 pages Publisher: Motor Boating (1927) How to build a knockabout, (Rudder how-to series) (Unknown Binding) Unknown Binding: 58 pages Publisher: The Rudder Pub.