COURTESY of TOM KILEY

At only 15’ long, PRIMROSE is a commodious and seaworthy small yacht. Designer K. Aage Nielsen was instrumental in introducing the double-enders of his native land to the United States.

Aage Nielsen mastered many different styles during his career in yacht design, but he never forgot the lovely shape of the double-ended hulls he grew up with in Faaborg, Denmark. He was largely responsible for bringing the style to North America, not only by adapting historic workboat shapes for pleasure boats but also by refining them in new ways. PRIMROSE, at just 15' LOA and launched in 1936, is the smallest of his designs of this type.Full-bodied, double-ended hulls would have surrounded Nielsen during his youth. He was 21 years old in 1925, when he emigrated to the United States to take a job with John G. Alden Company in Boston, Massachusetts. It was a golden age, when many talented young designers brought Alden’s ideas to fruition. Nielsen went on to work with his friend Murray Peterson during the Great Depression and later in the Boston office of Sparkman & Stephens, where he earned Olin Stephens’s highest respect. After World War II, Nielsen went out on his own. Throughout, he continued periodically to find inspiration in the double-enders of his native land.

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