Thomas C. Gillmer, a noted naval architect and ship historian who designed both Prides of Baltimore, the schooner Lady Maryland and other period replica vessels, died of complications from dementia Dec. 16 at the Hospice of the Chesapeake's Mandarin House in Harwood. He was 98.
Mr. Gillmer was born and raised in Warren, Ohio, not far from Lake Erie, where as a youngster he fell in love with boats and the water.
"I first made model boats when I was a kid. I had a friend, an older fellow, who was from Down East, somewhere in Nova Scotia. He was a good model builder and helped me with them," he explained some years ago in a profile in Good Old Boat Magazine, which described him as "one of America's most respected cruising boat designers."
"Later, he built me a 14-foot sailboat, a nice little lapstrake sloop. I learned to sail that by myself on Lake Erie when my family went to our cottage on the lake every summer," Mr. Gillmer said in the interview.
After graduating from Warren High School, he attended the Naval Academy, from which he graduated in 1935.
Mr. Gillmer recalled in the interview that during the 1930s when he was a student at the Naval Academy, the Annapolis harbor was filled during the winter months with skipjacks. He would watch them sail out in the early morning light for a day of oystering.
"It was a beautiful sight. That sight alone probably had as much impact as anything else in my interest in boats," he said.
After graduation, he served on the cruisers USS Raleigh and Savannah in the Pacific and Mediterranean during the late 1930s.
In 1941, he left active sea duty and established the department of naval architecture and marine engineering at the academy, where he was professor of naval architecture for the next 27 years.
During his years at the academy, Mr. Gillmer, in addition to teaching, confined his design efforts to large ships. He also wrote "Modern Ship Design," which is still used at the academy as a standard textbook.
After retiring in 1969, he established Thomas Gillmer, Naval Architect Inc., in Annapolis.
He realized the potential of such then-new construction materials as fiberglass and adapted them in his marine designs. One of his first acclaimed designs, the Seawind ketch, became the first fiberglass boat to circumnavigate the world; eventually more than 200 of the vessels were built.
Other successful designs included the 32-foot Southern Cross and the Blue Moon, a 24-foot English Channel cutter.
