John Alden

John Gale Alden (1884–1962) was an American naval architect and the founder of Alden Designs. Early life Alden was born in Troy, New York, in 1884, one of eight children, only four of whom survived. His family's summer holidays were spent on the Sakonnet in Rhode Island and on the Narragansett Bay, where he first learned about boats. He sailed his sister's flat-bottomed rowing boat using an umbrella as a sail and was said to be inspired by the local fisherman and regattas. At 18 years old, his father died, and Alden made the decision to train as a naval architect. He took courses at MIT and apprenticed with prominent naval architects Starling Burgess and Bowdoin B. Crowninshield, starting in 1902. In 1900, his family moved to Dorchester, Massachusetts, where the Grand Banks fishing schooners were docked. These were said to have inspired his later designs. A compulsive doodler, as a child he made countless sketches of the boats that were later to make him famous.