John Laurent Giles

John Laurent Giles (1901–1969) was an English naval architect who was particularly famous for his sailing yachts.

[1][2] He and his company, Laurent Giles & Partners Ltd, have designed more than 1400 boats from cruisers and racing yachts to megayachts.

Notable examples of Laurent Giles' work include the famous 25-foot (7.6 m) Vertue (sail numbers suggest that some 230 of these have been made), Wanderer III,[3] the 30' sloop in which Eric and Susan Hiscock 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 in 1947 and 1949.

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.