For
Immediate Release 04-26
Contact: Caroline Chetelat, (410) 956-1050, x22
cchetelat@abycinc.org
Westlawn Star Student Surfaces After 74
years!
Thomas C. Windsor, one of Westlawn’s first
students,
makes contact in time for 75th
Anniversary of Westlawn
November
4, 2004, Edgewater, MD:
Thomas C. (Tim) Windsor, 92 years old, enrolled in the
Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology in 1930, during the first year of the
school’s operation. He graduated in 1939, and went on to have a distinguished
career in New Zealand. Remarkably, through
Westlawn.org, Windsor reconnected with the school and
established himself as the most “senior” alum. “It is obvious that Westlawn has
a legacy beyond what we imagined,” states Dave Gerr, Director of Westlawn,
“Westlawn.org makes it easier than ever for us to keep up with our many alumni
– just in time for our 75th anniversary!”

In an email to Dave Gerr,
Tim recounts:
“It has been interesting for me
to look at your [Westlawn’s] Web Site and to know that after over 70 years, the
Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology, as it is now named, is still
operating. In 1930, I enrolled as a student with the Westlawn School of Yacht
Design and gained my Diploma in Advanced Yacht Design on 15th June 1939, signed by Gerald Taylor White [co-founder of Westlawn]. It was the start of the
Second World War, and I was seconded into essential industry where I was the
Draughtsman Designer with Shipbuilders Ltd. This firm was engaged in the building
of Minesweepers and Fairmile Patrol Boats for the N.Z. Navy. Then, when the U.S.
entered the war after the attack on Pearl Harbour, we were building 114 foot
Powered Lighters for the U.S. Army and the Navy. At the age of 92, I would
probably be the oldest living past student of Westlawn.
Fairmiles that were built here in
Auckland, NZ were 112 feet in length and I think had about an 18 foot beam.
There were twelve built for the NZ Navy and they were designed in Britain. The
frames were laminated and they were shipped to us from India .We built the
boats with Kauri timber, a very good native timber often used here for boat
building. The boats were powered with three 600 H.P. triple screw Hall Scott
gas engines each.”

After the war, Tim
continued his design career with his first commission of a 27 foot patrol
launch for the New Zealand Coast Guard, and then with may sailing and power
boats.

Founded in 1930, the
Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology is the only nationally accredited and
state certified distance-learning school of small-craft design in the United States.
As the not-for-profit educational affiliate of the American Boat and Yacht
Council, Westlawn’s primary function is to assure a continual source of highly
skilled designers to the marine industry.