Andre J. Bauwens, whose work with J.B. Hargrave Naval Architects more than 40 years ago still influences Hargrave Custom Yachts today, has died. He was 82 years old.
Passionate about boating, gardening, and animals, Bauwens emigrated from Brussels to the United States in 1956. Soon, he enrolled at Westlawn Institute of Design & Technology, the Maine-based school that has trained a number of prominent boat and yacht designers. His first job upon graduation was with MacLear & Harris, a now-defunct sailboat-design studio, which was based in New York.
But it was 1966 that truly shaped his career. That’s when Bauwens moved to Florida and began working with the late Jack Hargrave. Bauwens became chief naval architect for the yacht-design division of J.B. Hargrave Naval Architects and wrote the specifications for those projects. Among the notable yachts that he oversaw: Buckpasser, the 120-footer built at Hitachi Zosen in Japan in 1985. Furthermore, Bauwens penned a design manual for all of Hargrave’s employees to follow, a manual that continues to be used by Hargrave Custom Yachts.
That’s among the reasons why Michael Joyce, CEO of J.B. Hargrave, calls Bauwens “one of the key people responsible for building the company’s outstanding reputation in yacht design and engineering.” Dudley Dawson, a frequent contributor to Yachting and Professional BoatBuilder magazines and who also worked alongside Bauwens in the 1970s and 1980s, calls him “a gentleman” and “gracious.” “He was an old-school European, at least in his childhood, and I think that stuck with him,” he adds.
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