Robert W. Ball

Robert Wilson Ball was a Canadian yacht designer, based in Port Credit, Ontario, and later, New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Robert Ball joined C&C Yachts in 1966 as a summer employee while he was still in school, studying Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the University of Michigan's College of Engineering.

As soon as he graduated in 1969 George Cuthbertson hired him.

Cuthbertson soon had Ball designing masts and mast fittings, and soon after that he handed Ball hull structural design.

Throughout the 1970s C&C's design group also created boats for other builders, such as the Great Lakes 33 trawler, built by Ontario Yachts.

John Atkin was always publicly credited as the designer, but its lines were drawn by C&C's Rob Ball.

Robert Ball was the chief in-house designer and Vice President of Design at C&C Yachts from 1973 to 1991.

Ball was promoted to Chief Designer at C&C Yachts in May 1973.

As head of design his first couple of hull designs were essentially re-works of existing hulls with minor changes.

His first design undertaken from a ‘clean sheet’ was the C&C 33 done in the spring of 1974, a high performance design, fitting the three-quarter ton size.

This design would race well and re-establish C&C's image on the race courses.

An early 33 was shipped to Europe (to be used by Baltic Yachts for their production) and it was entered in the Three-Quarter Ton Cup that was in Norway that year.

In the first two races they placed well and in the third race took first place, unusual for a production boat with a full interior up against race boats.

Introduced in 1975, the 38 was a true racer-cruiser, the design performed well racing, had good middle-of-the-road stability, and came with a well appointed interior.

"Under Rob Ball’s design leadership Canada was well represented by C&C Yachts in Admirals Cup Racing, including the 1979 Fastnet race, in Onion Patch Racing, which included the Newport Bermuda Race, and several Canada's Cup Races, not to mention innumerable races on Long Island Sound, all the Great Lakes (including Superior), and wherever two or more boats would gather to race or cruise. Classic production and custom boats like the C&C 33, 34, 35 and C&C 40 and 41s, Amazing Grace, Magistri, Silver Shadow, Charisma, Archangel, and many more came off Rob’s drawing board and out of the design office under Rob’s supervision."

By the late 1980s there had been changes at C&C Yachts and the number of staff in the design department had been reduced.

By 1985, under Ball's supervision, C&C's design office had grown to eleven staff, with new designers spending time with plans for the archives, familiarizing themselves with the company’s design history.

By the time these up and coming designers were entrusted with a critical design job, such as the deck of a new model, they had been immersed in the C&C design philosophy.

Putting compatible designers together was one of Ball’s strengths.

Ball was in charge of the overall hull design and the basic conceptional design, while another designer was in charge of structures.

George Cassian's expertise was in interiors.

Another staff member was familiar with computers and converted much of the basic design and keel design drafting work to a computer program.

Each person on the team had a specialty, but they were also all project engineers to provide depth and also keep them each engaged in the projects.

In this way they could keep tabs on a particular project and each staff member could get a little more personally invested in that particular boat design.

In an interview for The Yacht magazine in 1985 Ball commented in the difference between designing for custom projects compared to the building of production boats:

"“A production boat is more challenging. A grand prix race boat is more emotionally interesting, but not so challenging. The production boat is three times more complex.'"

Robert Ball gave a speech at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club's tribute to George Cuthbertson, where he expanded on this idea, saying:

As much as custom designs were notable, it was production boats that paid our way, and George imbibed the message – that they are much more challenging design-wise, since performance is important, but attractiveness, and practicality for the builder and the sailor was actually the key to successful designs.

George was key in helping me balance the various factors that would result in many people wanting to sail our boats.

In 1985 the then president of C&C Yachts, David Gee said, "Rob Ball has more boats on the water than most other naval architects that you can name."

A quote from Robert Ball:

"We once counted boat's and came to 7,454 boat's built to my design. That does not include the three Boston Whalers - the Harpoon 4.6, 5.2, and 6.2. Not sure how many - I have 5.2 number 508. And a number of Windsurfers - I'm sure a few thousand. And a row boat - 'The Pocket Rowing Skiff' - we built 50, and I see it is still being built (by Rossiter Boats)"

Quoting a 1988 review in Sailing Magazine by Robert Perry (yacht designer) of the then new C&C 37R:

"I called Rob Ball, head designer at C&C, to talk about the 37R. Rob said that once in a great while you get a boat that does everything perfectly, i.e. floats level, balances well, looks good, goes fast ... and sells. The new C&C 37R is just that boat. The boat has proved so fast that orders for the racing model have totally overwhelmed the orders for the more subdued cruise-race model. It appears that C&C is back in their old groove of producing high performance boats."

"Much of the credit for this success must go to the C&C design team. Hull design is handled by Rob Ball, accommodations by Rob Ball, deck design and layout by Rob Ball and rig and general engineering by Rob Ball. You see, the team is not as big as it used to be, but the success of the 37R is testimony to the fact that perhaps Ball's talents were being diluted by the input of too many other in-house, competing designers in the past."

In September 1990 Robert Ball left C&C Yachts to join Concordia Custom Yachts (Concordia Company), in Padanaram, Massachusetts, but continued to do design work for C&C International as RWB Design until the Niagara-on-the-Lake factory fire destroyed molds, boats under construction, and facilities in 1994, essentially putting C&C out of business in Canada.

Robert Ball joined Edson International in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1993.

Ball had perfected his use of computer-aided design (CAD) during his 25 years at C&C and his tenure at the Concordia Company so he used his knowledge to guide the company’s changeover to truly computerized design and engineering functions.

Until his death in 2022 Robert Ball continued as Chief Design Engineer at Edson International.

In a speech given at the Legends of Ontario Sailing Award – Ontario Sailing Gala on Saturday, April 2, 2011, fellow designer Robert Mazza reflected on Ball's high-performance yacht designs: