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D. A. Rayner
Denys Arthur Rayner DSC & Bar, VRD, RNVR (1908-1967) was a highly decorated Royal Navy officer who fought throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. After intensive war service at sea, Rayner became a ...view moreDenys Arthur Rayner DSC & Bar, VRD, RNVR (1908-1967) was a highly decorated Royal Navy officer who fought throughout the Battle of the Atlantic. After intensive war service at sea, Rayner became a writer, a farmer, and a successful designer and builder of small sailing craft—his first being the Westcoaster; his most successful being the glass fibre gunter or Bermudian rigged twin keel Westerly 22 from which evolved similar “small ships” able to cross oceans while respecting the expectations, in terms of comfort, safety and cost, of a burgeoning family market keen to get to sea. Before his death in 1967, Rayner had founded, and via his pioneering GRP designs, secured the future expansion of Westerly Marine Construction Ltd—up until the late 1980s, one of Britain’s most successful yacht builders.
He was born on February 9, 1908 in Muswell Hill, London, to Francis (née Parker) and Arthur Rayner, a master electrical engineer who became a commodity broker. The family moved to West Kirby on the Wirral Peninsula, where Rayner attended Repton School between 1921-1924. In 1925 he joined HMS Eaglet, Mersey Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) as a part-time midshipman. In 1939 he commanded the 14th Anti-Submarine Group, comprising HMTs Loch Tulla, Istria, Regal, Brontes and Davey. In 1940 he was appointed to command the HMS Violet and HMS Verbena, the latter of which, nicknamed ‘Ben’, stayed with Rayner for the rest of his life and was used as his call sign.
Just after Christmas 1942, he was given the lead of an escort group, in command of the destroyer HMS Shikari, becoming one of the first RNVR officers in the Royal Navy to be so promoted. Rayner went on to command several other ships, before retiring from the RNVR in 1949, after 24 years’ of service, and turning to writing, farming, and boat-designing.
He died of cancer on January 4, 1967, aged 58.view less