RLYC

Winter Lecture by Rob Humphreys

On Wednesday 8th February we're delighted to be welcoming Rob Humphreys.

Rob Humphreys will run through his studio’s 45 years of design work carried out in Lymington. With a broad boating interest spanning racing and cruising yachts to functional motor yachts, the Humphreys Yacht Design portfolio is totally reflective of this range of interest, and Rob will try to place this archive in some sort of context alongside general developments that have occurred in the yachting world over that period. It will cover the studio’s racing involvement, its cruising portfolio and its new work that the studio has researched and developed to improve efficiencies in the motor yacht and commercial shipping sector for the future.

Rob Humphreys designed his first boat almost fifty years ago, and for the past 45 years all his studio’s output has been generated in Lymington. The first boats were racing yachts, enjoying numerous successes at Ton Cup world championship level and in various round-the-world races, and progressively production cruising yacht design became a significant addition to the studio’s workload. Well-known brands like Oyster, Elan, Southerly, Contessa have been designed here in Lymington, as well as high profile round-the-world boats like Dame Ellen MacArthur’s Kingfisher and Sir Chay Blyth’s Global Challenge fleet. To date, well over 100 Humphreys designs have circumnavigated.

The studio is now run jointly with Rob’s eldest son Tom, a highly qualified Naval Architect, and many of the studio’s yachts have had interiors designed by Rob’s wife Jo. Rob and Jo’s youngest son, Henry, is a successful architect in London, so it’s a design-centric family.

The lecture will start at 18:30 prompt, so we recommend you arrive in good time to get a drink from the bar to take to your seat in the Island Room. If you are booked for supper, it will be served in the River Room after the lecture, please sit where you wish.

Members should book for supper no later than Friday 10th February, along with any dietary requirements. Supper this week will be sausage casserole, mashed potato and seasonal vegetables for £15:00. If you would like to attend the lecture without the supper, please also reserve your seat so that we can monitor numbers.

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