Cyrus Hamlin, whose designing credits over some sixty years run from small cruising sailboats and powerboats to a seventy-five-foot Hudson River sloop replica, has lived and worked in Maine for most of his life. He introduced glued strip construction to Maine and designed, in partnership with E. Farnham Butler, the Controversy family of light displacement, glued strip, and reverse sheer cruising sailboats.

Since 1973, working for the United Nations, the InterAmerican Development Bank, the World Bank, and the fisheries departments of individual countries as a fishing vessel consultant, Hamlin served in more than a dozen different countries on every continent except Antarctica. He is the author of Preliminary Design of Boats and Ships.