Boat builder and celebrated sailor, Jeremy Rogers, who co-designed and built the hugely successful Contessa 32, has died at the age of 85.

During his decades-long career, he became known for designing and building exceptionally seaworthy boats, and also using new techniques. He was one of the first to embrace the use of GRP in the 1960s, and later developed the use of vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding, which was used on the OOD 34.

A son of an RAF officer and keen sailor, Rogers was born in Thaxted in Essex on 16 September 1937. He was evacuated to Canada during the Second World War, where he built model boats with his brothers. Whilst at Clayesmore School in Dorset, he built his first dinghy: Rogers was just 10 years old.

After school, he became an apprentice to Fareham wooden boatbuilder, Jack Chippendale, considered by many to be one of the UK’s best builders of small boats.

He opened Jeremy Rogers boatyard in 1961, aged just 23, initially producing dinghies in a shed behind his house in Lymington before moving into a factory.

He sold cold-moulded Finn and OK dinghies as well as Folkboats, and soon acquired a reputation for his good workmanship.

Rogers was…