I’ve been working in the pompatus of the yacht-design industry for 28 years, so I’ve seen a thing or three. I’ve been involved, in one way or another, in the design and engineering of vessels built by Burger, Chris-Craft, Hinckley, Huckins, Magnum, Pursuit, Tiara, Van Dam, Wheeler and many other yachts, starting before Y2K threatened to make planes fall out of the sky. Detailed projects at respected builders consistently follow a regimented design and construction process, which is carefully orchestrated between designer and builder.
Except one. Before my career even began in earnest, a “mom and pop” builder went about things in an entirely different way. What’d they do? To paraphrase Forrest Gump: “Frugal is as frugal does.”
The year was 1996 and I was finishing engineering school. Having won the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) annual global yacht design competition, I had just returned to college from the Miami boat show where the award had been presented, feeling a little like a hot shot. At the time, I was taking on small design jobs—cockpit extensions here and flybridge enclosures there—to make a few bucks during my last months in college.
A couple of weeks after returning from Miami, I was contacted by that “mom and pop,” a small but recognized builder of fiberglass catamarans. They had seen my winning design at the Miami show and wanted me to develop initial arrangement drawings for what would be their largest boat yet, something over 60 feet. They were relatively local and I was eager to get going, so I worked up a one-page contract for the most basic profile and arrangement plan drawings to kick off the project. I thought to my 22-year-old self, “this could be my first big break!”
Here’s a little peek behind the curtain on how yacht designers work with clients—in four distinct phases—on a new project. We begin with the “preliminary concept design” phase. This starts after the first conversation with a client whether in our office or in a cockpit off Palm Beach. The conceptual design phase results in line drawings of the boat’s exterior, an interior layout, renderings and very preliminary hull lines. Remaining phases include the thousands of hours of actual design and engineering work resulting in hundreds of drawings, computer models, myriad calculations spanning innumerable pages of spreadsheets, and months of thoughtful development. The concept design is just the tip of the iceberg.
After said “mom and pop shop” paid for the concept drawings, I didn’t hear anything from them for a few weeks. And then I didn’t hear anything for a few months.
College graduation ensued, and I immediately went to work for yacht designer Michael Peters, where the aforementioned Chris-Crafts and Magnums were penned. Some of you will remember, too, that Michael was the previous author in this space in Power & Motoryacht.
Fast forward two years and the 1998 Miami boat show was the first industry event to which I took my then-girlfriend (now wife) Elizabeth. We stayed in the crappiest hotel on Collins Avenue in Miami Beach. It was only two blocks from the boat show and the cockroaches were no extra charge. Holding hands as we strolled the boat show docks for the first twenty minutes, she felt my palm go cold as I stopped in my tracks at a particular 60-some-foot fiberglass catamaran.
It was the boat I had drawn in concept form two years prior.
I could hardly believe my eyes. I had given “mom and pop” an inch and they took a mile. The boat was clearly overweight, the builder having skipped the actual design and engineering phases entirely, but she looked like the profile drawing I had done in college for a pittance. My girlfriend thought this was pretty cool, her young beau having a vessel of this size displayed at the Miami boat show. I kept quiet and we went aboard.
The engine room doors couldn’t open very far because handrails had been screwed to the bulkheads obstructing their swing. Engine seacocks could not be closed because piping ran in their paths. Many other significant details had been missed. It’s been 28 years, and I’ve seen nothing like it since. So, like Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”
