Updated 18 March 2007
What's This Web Site All About...?
Some have asked why I have bothered to put so much information
on the web, and for free...?
Primarily I have intended to provide articles about boats as well as
examples of various types of boat designs built in a variety of materials,
with a
focus on craft that are capable of family cruising and world voyaging. In all you'll find over 175 web pages and
nearly 675 design images. Among these pages the kind of information
you'll find will consist of:
- CUSTOM DESIGN INFO: Our main focus is to create new
Custom
Yacht Designs as well as to develop those designs for
NC Cutting.
- EXISTING DESIGNS: A variety of our designs ranging from 8 to 120 feet are linked
from
within our Motor Yacht
and Sailing Yacht pages. They include large and small
ocean-sailing craft, long range trawler-yachts, fast motor
yachts, an occasional multi-hull, and even a few sailing dinghies... A
complete list of our existing designs along with ordering information will be
found on our Plans List Page.
- PROPOSED DESIGNS: If you are looking for a new boat, you might find that one of
our existing designs will meet your requirements. If not, then
it is possible you will at least find good inspiration among
them or among our
various Prototype Designs in order to
consider creating a new design.
- ARTICLES: Our boat-related Articles are intended to help answer a variety of preliminary questions
about boats, about boat building, and about boat design.
A complete overview of all the content at this domain will be found on
our Site Map page.
To keep track of current events, please bookmark our
News web page.
Our Approach to Yacht Design
What is that special characteristic that makes a boat beautiful? What allows
a boat to behave well under way? To return to port in good shape after a long
passage? What makes the crew comfortable? What provides a good turn of speed? These are all highly predictable qualities.
Our goal is to create the most practical design that will suit the
intended service. We have built boats and we've owned boats. We've also
cruised, voyaged, and raced in them. We bring those real-world experiences
into each design, from its creation, analysis and detailing through to its
construction and - at last, to
boating...!
Performance, sea keeping, strength, economy and beauty...
these are always the qualities sought in one's habitat on the water.
Here is a brief description of how we go about assuring those qualities in our boats.
We design ocean cruising
yachts, both power and sail, in all materials. Our aim is to engender
refined aesthetics along with safe and comfortable boating. In
all, our design efforts have attempted to "raise the bar" regarding what is
to be expected of a marine design office.
Our design work starts with listening to the requirements of our clients
in order to propose the best solution to those requests in terms of vessel
type, layout, size, style - in other words an appropriate form and function.
We then provide a thorough analysis of stability, performance and structure
in order to assure overall quality within
the resulting vessel. Most importantly, we strive for a pleasant
experience during the design and building process, and for long term owner
satisfaction with the resulting vessel.
When creating a new design, the various classification societies' rules
are our guide for structure. We will confirm compliance with the ABS
Rules or Lloyd's Register or the German Lloyds Rule as is appropriate to the
vessel type or to the build venue.
We assess stability according to criteria established by the
International Maritime Organization (IMO) for power vessels, or
according to the International Standards Organizations (ISO) recommendations
for offshore sailing vessels as adopted by European Union countries.
If for passenger vessel use in the US, we make use of the Code of
Federal Regulations (CFR) for safety and stability criteria.
When a vessel is destined for construction and use within the European
Union, we can prepare documentation that makes CE Marking a relatively easy
process for the EU builder. We work equally well with the metric
system or the Imperial measurement system, according to the requirements of
the project or the location where the vessel will be built.
We use up to date methods, including software created specifically for the task of
hull modeling, for stability and performance analyses, and for streamlining
the construction process. This provides the best opportunity for a
thorough analysis of hull form, and allows us to optimize the design in ways
that were just not possible in years past.
Since we generate a complete model model of each vessel by computer, we are able to offer an economical NC cutting file package for these designs in
order to pre-cut the parts for the builder. The accuracy and labor
savings that are possible by using this kind of computer cut "kit" will
always favor this path, whether the vessel will be professionally built or
owner built.
Our goal is to provide a complete "design service" from the point of
imagining a new vessel, through creating the ideal solution to those
conjurings, then seeing that it gets built as designed. Our specific task is to take a boat design all the way
from the napkin sketch, through the genesis of complete building plans, to
actual construction. When requested to do so, we also provide several
"construction related services" such as creating computer cut parts
or to provide additional drawings and documentation for classification.
Isn't a custom yacht design expensive...? You may be surprised to
know that creating a new custom yacht design costs less than a typical yacht
broker's fee to buy an existing boat.
Isn't building a new custom yacht expensive...? When you consider
that there are no hidden advertising costs and no yacht broker fees
involved, custom building can indeed be very cost competitive.
For more information on our services and on the yacht design process
itself, please continue....
The Design Team
The main ingredients in any successful project are of course the
client and the other primary members of the "team" that is asked to create
the vessel. The team includes the owner, the designer, and the
builder. Each of these primary team members will engage others as
needed for their expertise, such as a builder making use of various
equipment suppliers and subcontractors.
Often overlooked are the various members of the designer's own team.
Even though the various design team members are highly trained and extremely
important to the timely production of drawings, they may not all be visible
to the project as it develops. To address that situation, please see
the Design Team page where you'll find a bit of
background about each of us and provides an introduction to the team members
that allow these projects to be a success.
The Process
Our design work is done on a custom basis, each new
design being a unique solution to the requirements presented. Please
review our Custom Design page for a more complete
description of the process.
Briefly, as with any new venture there is first the idea and then the
bringing forth of it into a functioning reality. My first task as a designer
is to learn the requirements of each new client in order to
determine what the vessel will be asked to do, its size, the desired arrangement,
the available budget, as well as myriad other relevant details.
When the owner's requirements are thoroughly understood, I'll
begin with a sketch as would be the usual beginning for any new design.
Right away I turn the idea into a computer
generated model of the vessel and its superstructure, and work outward
from there. Several such models may be seen within our
Prototypes web pages. Once the preliminary computer model has been
created, then a Preliminary Design Study is
done in order to plan the layout and general configuration. Once a
clear strategy has been determined, we will begin to detail the
Accommodations and the
Rig and how they relate to the
Structure. These are developed first as
Preliminary Drawings, then as a set of
Estimating Plans, and then as
completed Building Plans.
Computer Modeling
Having created the computer model at the outset I'm assured of
knowing in advance what the specific hydrostatics will be, and can optimize
the design right from the start. As a result of having modeled many hulls by
computer I now have quite a number of prototypes from which to choose when
creating a new design, permitting a new design study to be done very
quickly.
With the computer generated geometry of the hull and superstructure
already having been created, it is a simple matter to leverage that effort
via NC cutting to build the boat, or NC shaping to create a hull model for
towing tank testing or for a styling model in order to view the look of the
actual three dimensional vessel in advance.
For a concise outline of how we use CAD throughout the design process,
including the NC file genesis, please see the article on our CAD
Design Stream and the various articles linked from there.
How Does One Begin...?
The design
process actually begins with the prospective boat owner, and involves
defining the purpose of the intended vessel. With the owner's "mission
statement" complete, the rest involves creating the right design solution to
suit those requests.
Most people are surprised to discover that creating a completely unique
boat design is less costly than the usual brokerage fee when purchasing a
new or used boat. Please see our Custom Design
page for a complete description of the design process and to discover the
possible benefits of creating a new vessel design.
Should you become interested in the possibility of creating a custom
yacht design, please inquire.
I'll be pleased to send you my usual written Design Proposal via
return email or by regular mail - essentially an outline of the design process,
a list of the deliverable drawings and documents, and
an estimate for the design work involved.
If you're curious to see what our clients have said about our work, check
out our Testimonials page...
Study Plans and Building Plans
Nearly all of our current small craft design work is represented
on these web pages. Study Drawings and Estimating Plans
are available for the majority of our designs. Even if the Study
Drawings for an existing design may not exactly match "your own" boat concept,
they'll provide an excellent preview of our work and possibly good
inspiration for what you'd like.
Building Plans are available
for most of the boats listed on our Motor Yacht and
Sailing Yacht web pages. A complete list of our boat plans is on the
Plans List Page.
More Information and Writings
Between 1995 and 2000 I edited and published the Metal Boat
Quarterly for the Metal Boat Society (Issues #1 through #23). The
Metal Boat Society is a non-profit organization begun in 1987 to further
popular interest in Metal Boats.
During my editorship, my focus was to foster traditional aesthetics,
responsible design, accuracy of information, to share the tricks of
successful metal boat building and maintenance. These efforts were
aimed toward mid-range blue water cruising yachts, both power and sail, with
the intent that the Metal Boat Quarterly become a true resource for metal
boat designers, for metal boat builders both professional and amateur, and
for metal boat owners.
My aim was also to educate MBQ readers with regard to what should be
expected of a marine design office when purchasing a set of design drawings,
and what should be expected from metal boat builders in terms of
workmanship.
To see several articles that I published within the prior Quarterly and a
number of other boat related articles appear at this web site, please see
the series of Editorials posted here, which are
linked one to the next, with the last Editorial linking back to my
Articles web page.
To keep track of current events here, please bookmark our
News page.
Above all, we hope you enjoy your journey through these web pages...!
Professional Memberships
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Member
Royal Institution
of Naval Architects |
Member
Society of Naval Architects
and Marine Engineers |
Member
Society of Boat
and Yacht Designers |
Member
Metal Boat
Society |
Member
American Boat
and Yacht Council |
