John Hanks
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While at school John’s first experience around the water was when he, and
another student at his school, built a canoe and raced it together in the 125
mile Devizes to Westminster canoe race.
The two of them later made sails, spars, and leeboards for the canoe
enabling sailing adventures as well.
After graduating John embarked on a 23 year career as a Marine Engineer
in the Royal Navy. This included
several years of training to become a degree qualified Marine Engineer.
At this time Naval colleges were equipped with 43’ Morgan Giles sloops.
One of John’s good friends was an Australian gentleman who was Secretary
for one of these sloops. Together
they spent summers cruising the north and south coasts of Brittany as well as
the Channel Islands. Since these
sloops qualified as “Sail Training Craft”, they were also able to enter two Tall
Ships races. One race was to Spain
and the other to Sweden.
The great majority of John’s Naval career was spent in submarines, often
on deployment in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and
even the Arctic Ocean. He was
aboard the second British submarine to actually surface through the ice at the
North Pole. Between these
deployments at sea he worked as an Engineer in the submarine refitting yards.
After retiring from the Navy John became a Consultant working for two
Scottish engineering firms doing consulting work for the oil and gas industry.
Later, taking a break from engineering for a time, he worked in an
electronic publishing company owned by Thomson Reuters.
Wishing for a shift in emphasis in his life after retiring from the last
of these jobs, John enrolled in what was at that time the only boat building
school in Scotland. This school had
been successful for many years and had excellent facilities at the Greenock
waterfront on the River Clyde.
Unfortunately the school failed to open on the curriculum’s starting date and
two weeks later it was formally closed with the associated college turning the
facilities over to other courses.
John felt this was particularly tragic considering the demand in Scotland for
skilled boat builders, and the rich maritime heritage on the Clyde, and
elsewhere in Scotland, for yacht building as well as ship building.
Looking for another route to the creative side of yachts and small craft
John found our Yacht Design School, which he says has been a happier experience
for him. He particularly felt that
being able to design on the computer screen using the Rhino software package
suits both the modern design office and the distance learning nature of the
school. The self-paced structure
allowed him to progress quietly and steadily through the curriculum.
About the time that he became our most advanced current student John
asked us if we could work together in some way.
As Yacht Design School has grown, dedicated well trained people like John
have been needed very badly to keep up with our expansion rate.
We were very happy to offer him some drafting work in our design firm and
work as an Assistant Instructor, working directly with the Chief Instructor on
the YDS Main Curriculum. He has
plunged into this with great enthusiasm, which has improved our turnaround time
on correcting lessons. Though we
both add every suggestion we can think of to help students with each lesson,
this does give the Chief Instructor more time to do lesson revisions, answer
student questions, do additional research, etc.
John is a great addition to YDS.
John still charters sailing vessels from the Navy and with his Australian
friend has been exploring not only the beautiful West Coast of Scotland, but
also some of their old haunts in the Channel Islands and on the Coast of France.
John and his Australian friend hope to also tackle sailing Australia’s
Gold Coast, and perhaps we can report on that when it happens.
We fondly remember a visit from John and his two daughters when Nannette
and I were staying with our own daughter in her little place in the Maine woods.
John brought some half models for our inspection and we talked for quite
awhile. His daughters, after
carefully questioning us on the proper etiquette for dealing with bears, went
for a long walk, and we all had a very good time.
John makes another great addition to our crew here, and we feel our
students will have a good time working with him.
He’s a good match with the very personal nature of our interaction with
our students.