William Starling Burgess (December 25, 1878 – March 19, 1947) was an American yacht designer, aviation pioneer, and naval architect.

Between 1930 and 1937 he created three America's Cup winning J-Class yachts, Enterprise, Rainbow and Ranger (the latter in partnership with Olin Stephens).

Like his father, Starling had a great mechanical and mathematical ability and a refined sense of line, form and spatial relationship.

Starling attended Milton Academy, a progressive boarding school near Boston, where he became interested in aviation, designed his first sailboat, Sally II, and patented a sophisticated lightweight machine gun.

During the spring term of his senior year, in March 1901, The Rudder published the following notice: “We are glad to welcome into our company of advertisers Mr. Starling Burgess, a son of the celebrated designer.

In the same year he designed the revolutionary 52 LOA feet scow sloop "Outlook", a highly radical racing yacht which featured a steel truss along the deck midline allowing the hull to be flat, low and light by the standards of the day.

The design featured a large, balanced, club foot, self-tacking jib set on an 8 feet bowsprit supported by a dolphin striker.

[citation needed] In the eyes of high society Starling was part of the "Four Hundred"—the group of long established and very rich Americans who were devoted to sailing as a recreation.

In 1908 he became interested in aviation and in 1909 joined with airplane designer Augustus Moore Herring who had left Glenn Curtiss to form the Herring-Burgess Company.

The Herring-Burgess Co. built the biplane Flying Fish, which flew over Plum Island on April 17, 1910, the second fully powered and controlled flight in New England.

In 1935 he became a consulting naval architect for the Aluminum Company of America with his office at the Bath Iron Works, where he promoted the use of corrosion resistant alloys for ships.

He also designed the sailing yacht Ranger with aluminum masts for Harold Stirling Vanderbilt and he worked closely with Geerd Hendel.

[5] Former head of typographic development at Mergenthaler Linotype Mike Parker has argued that Burgess originally drew the typeface that would become Times New Roman around 1904.

Rosamund Burgess was independent and strong-willed, one of the few American amateurs who gained their engineer's license to operate a steam launch,[i] serving the necessary apprenticeship by firing their boat Ox.

[10] Tudor and Burgess had three children: sons Edward (1905–1914), who drowned in Marblehead Harbor June 24, 1914, after falling off their boat and Frederic (1907-1985)[11] and daughter Starling (1915–2008).

Rudder Magazine proclaimed her "the only female naval architect in America" in 1940. the couple worked together on projects for the Navy throughout World War II, and married in 1945.