Alan Payne

Alan Payne (right) and Bryce Mortlock (next left) constructing a Payne-Mortlock sailing canoe, late 1940s. Alan Newbury Payne AM (11 December 1921, London – 20 June 1995, Sydney) was a naval architect born in England but who worked in Australia. His yacht designs were readily built by both professionals and amateurs, and remain well represented in the ocean-going and coastal yacht fleet.

Youth Payne was born in London, England in 1921, but moved as part of his family to Australia in 1925. His father, Sidney, was a ship's master, but went to shore based activities and then emigrated with the family to Brisbane, Queensland to work for Dalgety's on the waterfront. The family moved to Sydney, where Payne attended Sydney Grammar School and sailed small craft with his brother Bill and friends.

Payne's first design that sailed in the Sydney to Hobart race was Nocturne, a raised-deck wooden cutter originally planned as a harbour racer, but adapted to ocean racing by the owner Bob Bull with the designer's input. It won the light-weather 1952 Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on line honours. Nocturne was a lightweight yacht with a spade rudder, and the tough conditions usually encountered in ocean racing convinced Payne that it was better to design strong and seaworthy ocean racing and cruising yachts. The long keeled steel Solo in 1953, the steel multi chine Koonya, and the wooden Tasman Seabird Class designs in 1959 are boats with these qualities; In 1959 the newly launched Tasman Seabird Cherana won the race, sister ship Kaleena was fifth and Solo took line honours. The champion American design Vim was brought to Australia and studied closely.

In partnership with 1945 graduate and colleague Keith Lawson at Seawork Pty Ltd, Payne developed the design for the first catamaran ferry on Sydney Harbour, the First Fleet class. The Charlotte, one of the First Fleet ferries is alongside the wharf at the Australian National Maritime Museum, Darling Harbour, Sydney. "for services to naval architecture as a designer of racing and cruising yachts."

Designs Buccaneer 200 Buccaneer 210 Buccaneer 240 Columbia 7.6 Columbia 8.3 Columbia 8.7 Columbia T-23 Corsair (dinghy) Hughes-Columbia 27