Joel White

Joel White (1930–1997), the son of author E. B. White and New Yorker Magazine editor Katharine Sergeant Angell White, was a noted U.S. naval architect known for his classic and beautiful designs including the W-Class of boats. Two W boats were posthumously built by Rockport Marine and Brooklin Boat Yard for Donald Tofias. They were christened White Wings and Wild Horses. White's life and character were chronicled in the book A Unit of Water, A Unit of Time by Douglass Whynott and in Joel White: Boatbuilder / designer / sailor by Bill Mayher and Maynard Bray. White died at the age of 66 in 1997 in Brooklin, Maine of lung cancer. His widow, Allene White, lives in Brooklin, along with their oldest son Steve, who runs Brooklin Boatyard and their youngest child John who is a lobster fisherman. Their daughter, Martha -an editor and writer, lives in Rockport, Maine and is married to boat builder Taylor Allen, who owns Rockport Marine.