Britton Chance, Jr.

Britton Chance Jr. (June 12, 1940 – October 12, 2012) was an American naval architect who developed core elements of three yachts that won the America's Cup and won the World Championship six times. The New York Times said he "was known for having a mathematician's precision and a renegade's willingness to experiment".

Early life Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chance was the son of Jane Earle and Britton Chance, a biophysicist at the University of Pennsylvania who won a gold medal in sailing at the 1952 Summer Olympics.

In 1955, he started sailing in International 5.5 Meter competitions. In July 1957, he competed at the Barnegat Bay Yacht Race Association's Championship Regatta, winning the Atkinson Cup for his first-place finish with Complex II in the E Sloop class; he also came in first place in the Penguin class with Small Chance. Also in 1957, he won the South River Yacht Club Regatta.

Chance attended the Episcopal Academy near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was fifteen, he took the Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology's home-study course in ship design. He then attended the University of Rochester where he studied physics for three years. He also attended Columbia University where he studied mathematics.

Sailing Chance competed in both the America's Cup trials and the Olympic trials. They "narrowly missed Olympic nomination". That same year, he was part of the syndicate backing the Columbia as a contender in America's Cup trials. In September 1962, he won first place twice in the Olympic trials for the 5.5-meter class. He selected as an alternate helmsman for the 1964 Summer Olympics for the Dragon Class and 5.5 Meter Class. In 1966, he also won a race the 5.5 Meter Class World Championship in Denmark, sailing the Chance.

In 1970, his father told Sports Illustrated, "He was a good skipper, but basically, he always wanted to know why the boat was going fast or slow and what he could do to make her go faster. He's been that way from the beginning." His naval architectural firm designed craft in a wide range of sizes, from racing shells to America's Cup competitors.

IYRU's 3MKB trials In 1965, Chance brought his new boat, Conqueror, to the IYRU's 3-Man-Keelboat (3MKB) trials in Kiel, Germany. Chance and Olympian George O'Day sailed the Conqueror, winning three of eleven races. Canada used one of his 5.5-meter class designs for the 1964 Summer Olympics. With access to Bich's fortune from Bic pens, Chance noted, "Economic limitations were imposed only by the cost-effectiveness studies that we made." Chance cut the weight of vital fitting by 65% by substituting beryllium on the top of the mast, boron graphite for the boom, and magnesium for the winches. A rival designer said Chance "performed a hysterectomy on her keel". Stephens said, "I was disappointed to see Intrepid modified. She'd been successful and was a yardstick of our progress in 12-meter design. With her lines changed, we lost our benchmark." The Mariner syndicate gave the ship to the United States Merchant Marine Academy, avoiding earlier financial problems by making contributions tax-deductible. Chance noted that pressure to win back the title for the United States was high; approximately 30 yachts were designed for the 1987 America's Cup with a combined cost of $100 million. Dennis Conner sailed this catamaran and retained the title in 1988 America's Cup. Chance said, "The combination of leading dimensions, rig, and stability chosen cannot be attained without state-of-the-art Kevlar/carbon epoxy composite or Unidirectional S-glass sandwich layups, so the design concept has only recently become possible."

Academics Chance also taught naval architecture and engineering Trinity College, Wesleyan University, and at Yale University.

Honors

Six days before his death, on October 6, 2012, Chance was inducted into the Barnegat Bay Sailing Hall of Fame by the Barnegat Bay Yacht Racing Association. The Mystic Seaport Museum in Mystic, Connecticut, maintains his papers in its collection. The couple met during the Newport to Bermuda race in the spring of 1974 when Dena was a cook on the Equation, a yacht designed by Chance. This was his second marriage, as his first marriage ended in divorce. They spent their honeymoon participating in the Middle Sea Race which followed Ulysses' route in the Mediterranean. This married also ended in divorce.

A resident of Lyme, Connecticut, Chance died from a stroke at the age of 72 in Branford, Connecticut, in 2012. He had one daughter, Tamsin.