Starling Burgess

William Starling Burgess

William Starling Burgess (born December 25, 1878 in Boston , Massachusetts , † 1947 in Hoboken , New Jersey ) was an American yacht designer and boat builder . He also worked as an aircraft and car designer and as a poet and graphic artist (font: Times New Roman ).

Career

Starling Burgess was born in New England to a prominent and once wealthy family . His father, Edward Burgess , designed the three America's Cup defender yachts “Puritan”, “Mayflower” and “Volunteer” in the 1880s .

Starling Burgess attended Milton College after high school and developed a machine gun at the age of 18, which the US Army showed interest in. Then studied at Harvard University ; he dropped out of studies at the age of 22. Then tried himself as a poet, his poems found little public approval (The Eternal Laughter and Other Poems).

He switched to yacht construction and was successful. He then settled in 1904 as a yacht designer and boat builder in Marblehead , Massachusetts, where he first designed and built smaller boats.

In 1909, like his German colleague Max Oertz , he began to be interested in aviation. He designed and flew the first airplane in New England himself. With his company partner for aircraft construction, Norman Prince , he got his license from the Wright brothers . Because of this connection, he and his partner were able to build the Wright brothers' aircraft for the US Army and Navy under license for several years . He expanded these activities and founded the company in 1911 with two other partners (Greely S. Curtis and Frank H. Russell): Burgess Co. The aim was to build land and seaplanes as well as "flying boats". In October 1911, for example, he fitted a double-decker with floating pontoons and was the first to carry out water launches and landings. In 1913, he acquired the licenses for the flying wing double-deckers from John William Dunne .

The public's attention was certain to him through his radically different but successful constructions. Starling Burgess was already a visionary designer and outstanding inventor in his day. He stands alongside the Wright brothers as one of the American aviation pioneers.

Burgess AH 7 1914

Burges BDF flying boat 1916

Burgess model BDH 1917

Burgess BDH 1917

Burgess transferred industrial production techniques to aircraft manufacture. More than 800 employees built various Curtiss and Wright models under license. In addition, there was an attempt to market the Dunne flying wing models for civilian use as the military showed no interest. The Burgess Company was acquired on February 10, 1914 by the Curtiss Airplane and Motor Company and produced, among other things, 460 Curtiss N-9 under license. The name Burgess Company was retained until its main production facility was completely destroyed by fire on November 8, 1918.

Burgess himself moved to the Ministry of the Navy and designed aircraft for the US Navy in the rank of corvette captain for a few years and was often consulted by the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Franklin D. Roosevelt .

In 1920 he changed the industry and concentrated again on yacht construction. His experience in aerodynamics predestined him for the task of directing rig and sailing tests for the yachts of the America's Cup . As an innovative engineer, he was one of the first to test models of the yachts in the tow tank and the rig in the wind tunnel . Based on the measurement results, the mathematical construction formulas were refined more and more.

In 1922 he founded the company Burgess, Swasey & Paine in Boston with two partners (Frank C. Paine, who later became the designer of the America's Cup yacht "Yankee", and A. Loring Swasey) . L. Francis Herreshoff was also part of the team of yacht designers. Because of his special position, Burgess was also one of the first Americans to deal with the design and construction of the 12mR yachts .

In the mid-1920s, Henry Rasmussen , the boss of the Lemwerder boatyard Abeking & Rasmussen (A&R) met the designer Starling Burgess. Burgess was able to overcome language problems with a good knowledge of German that he had acquired at Harvard. As early as 1926, A&R was making two small motor boats for Burgess. This was followed by closer business contacts, which were successfully expanded. Burgess designed the yachts that A&R then built for US customers.

The design office Burgess, Swasey & Paine was dissolved in 1926 and Burgess switched to Burgess & Morgan, Ltd. as a partner . , Yacht construction to New York . Under his leadership, the victorious America's Cup defender "Enterprise" was created here in 1930, where he introduced the revolutionary innovation of the aluminum mast. In 1934 he designed the equally victorious US yacht "Rainbow". In 1937, together with Olin Stephens , he constructed his last defending champion of the America's Cup: " Ranger ".

Based on his aerodynamic knowledge and experience, Burgess constructed a streamlined skyscraper in 1927 and furthermore in 1933 (together with R. Buckminster Fuller) the revolutionary aerodynamic three-wheeler Dymaxion , which he extensively tested in the wind tunnel.

From 1935 Burgess worked as a freelance yacht designer for the Aluminum Company of America . He increasingly used aluminum as a shipbuilding material and constructed the Alumette , a ship made entirely of aluminum (including the propeller ). He also developed fast aluminum destroyers for the US Navy in 1937 . From 1942 Burgess was employed as a civilian designer in the aviation department of the Navy. Here his job was to work on the anti-submarine defense. In 1946, Starling Burgess joined the Stevens Institute of Technology , where he did research in the field of damage control.

Famous yacht constructions

• 1930 Enterprise , J-Class , America's Cup
• 1934 Rainbow , J Class, America's Cup
• 1937 Ranger , J-Class, America's Cup
• 1938 Nina , staysail schooner , many transatlantic records

Honors

• After the Wright and Curtiss brothers, he was the third recipient of the Collier Prize in 1913/1914 , the highest honor in US aviation.
• Because of his special merits as a designer for the America's Cup, he was inducted into the America's Cup Hall of Fame in 1994 .

Complicated private life

Starling Burgess had numerous affairs, was married five times, had five children, high-profile divorces and countless scandals. The accidental death of a son and many private details, which were often connected with his professional activities, led to numerous financial problems. He had to file for bankruptcy at least once due to his poor business knowledge. A scandal over his first divorce shook Boston at the turn of the century so much that Burgess was even forced to leave the country for a few months. Coping with his problems was not always easy for Starling Burgess, so he made several suicide attempts. His complicated and sometimes spectacular private life prevented a prosperous life and the recognition of his contemporaries due to him, despite his inventive success. His health suffered from his lifestyle for decades. He suffered from a long undiagnosed gastric ulcer , which was partly responsible for his high consumption of morphine at times .

Web links

Commons : Starling Burgess  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• America's Cup Hall of Fame (English)