Jay Benford was taken sailing before he could walk, by parents unconcerned about the impressions being made
on the youth. He was several years old before he determined that this was not perfectly normal procedure on the
part of his parents. By then, of course, it was too late for he had become hooked on cruising. His schoolteachers'
pointed remarks about the lack of variety on his book reports (always nautical books) seem to have been of no
concern to him. His two years at the University of Michigan led to a much better knowledge of the location of
the nautical sections of the libraries than the locations of his classrooms....
He says the best parts of his education were his apprenticeship with John Atkin and the subsequent jobs with a
number of boatbuilding firms. After seven years of working for others, he opened his own yacht design office full
time in the spring of 1969. Shortly thereafter he got a series of instructive lessons from his accountant in the
use of red ink….
He lived aboard for over a decade and a half, living on both sail and power boats, and brings this experience to all
his design work. His recent design work varies from small craft to freighter yachts to a 40-meter (131') Ketch. When
not off cruising, he can be found in his Easton, Maryland office working on one of his dozen or so current
projects.
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