Andrew Ainsworth is an industrial designer with a background in mechanical engineering and over five decades of experience working with advanced materials and form-driven design.

He trained at Ealing School of Art, following three years in Mechanical Engineering at Kingston Polytechnic, and has since developed numerous registered designs and patented innovations.

Outside of paddling, Andrew is widely known as the designer and maker of the original Stormtrooper helmet for Star Wars (1976), along with work on Alien, Superman, Flash Gordon, Excalibur and Outland. Through Shepperton Design Studios, he pioneered composite forming and vacuum moulding techniques that remain in use today.

That same approach to design — clean surfaces, controlled geometry, and form driven entirely by function — is carried through into every Ainsworth paddle.

In 1987, Andrew applied his engineering background and experience with composite materials to solve a problem that had frustrated paddlers for years: blade flutter.

The result was the Ainsworth Dihedral blade — designed to deliver a stable, consistent stroke across a wide range of paddlers and conditions.

Each paddle continues to be shaped by that same philosophy:
performance through design, not compromise.