Lyle C. Hess (1912–2002) was an American naval architect, particularly known for his Aquarius and Balboa series of boats, built by Coastal Recreation.
Frank Hess helped build the Patterson Canal in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and also did railway construction.
It was a cruiser with a hard chine hull, named Viajera, with a length overall of 16 ft (4.9 m), a cuddy cabin and 400 lb (180 kg) of lead ballast.
[2] During the Second World War, Hess became a shipwright for Harbor Boatworks of San Pedro, Los Angeles where he was part of a team building wooden motor torpedo boats and minesweepers for the Royal Navy.
He moved back to southern California and spend a year on the construction of 168 ft (51 m) steam-driven tugboats for customers in Australia and Singapore.
[1][2][3] A customer named Hale Field commissioned a 28 ft (8.5 m) "character boat" cutter for cruising, based on the lines of British working sailboats, but the post-war scarcity of wood caused Field to ask for a reduced sized mode of just under 25 ft (7.6 m).
[2] By the early 1950s, with high costs of materials and labor, boat contracts were harder to find and it was not easy to earn a living to support his family.
[2] In one 1977 interview Hess stated, "as for me, even though there are many easier ways to earn a living, all I that ever wanted to do was design boats.