Nigel Irens

Who is Nigel Irens?

Nigel Irens RDI is a leading yacht designer. He is perhaps best known as designer of the Adventurer, a 35m trimaran motor yacht which completed a record-breaking circumnavigation in 1998, and of the record-breaking trimaran used by Ellen MacArthur to break the world record for solo circumnavigation in 2005.

His design portfolio is wide-ranging, from record-breaking yachts to innovative cruising designs such as Roxane, syntheses of traditional design such as the Westernman cutters – designed in association with Ed Burnett – or the launch Rangeboat, a 12m meter power craft of traditional appearance.

The designer also in association with Ed Burnett, designed the King Alfred dinghy to be built by King Alfred School in London. The school has built three so far and use them to introduce students to dinghy cruising.

Irens is perhaps particularly noteworthy for the simplicity, the efficiency, the essential elegance of his design.