Home Introduction Flair Technical expertise Links Projects Biographical Notes

I am passionate about sailing boats. I grew up with them, I made models of them, I built them, I modified them, I maintained them and raced them. I have a lot of sailing miles behind me, and over the years I have come to realise what features make a good yacht: how to design a seakindly hull, how to make it efficient under sail, stable and comfortable. How to best compromise the conflicting requirements of performance, displacement, range, accommodation and aesthetics.It is sad that today’s colleges of Naval Architecture do not teach anything about famous designs and designers. From childhood I have always studied yachts of the past and the books by designers like Herreshoff and Uffa Fox were my constant reading. This does not imply copying old designs, but it does mean learning from the knowledge of other people and acquiring a thorough appreciation of aesthetics. Styles may change, but a truly beautiful yacht has a timeless appeal which transcends fashion.I was once described as “the most famous designer that no-one has heard of”, but I am not bothered that my design input has often gone unrecognised. Nowadays I undertake only a few select design projects, which allows me to have two luxuries that are extremely rare in the yacht design business. I have the time, inclination and commitment to listen and fully understand what the client wants, and I can deal with every commission myself personally. Every aspect gets my full attention so there is a consistency which runs from the first project meeting until the yacht is finally ready for the client and his guests to sail away.

I was surprised to notice that I have now been a full time professional yacht designer for 29 years. For the first 17 of those I was Ron Holland’s partner and shared responsibility for over 300 designs. Together we helped redefine the modern cruising yacht.

It is an interesting time to be designing boats, to have worked with the old style and then to be able to develop concepts to take advantage of new materials, sail handling and electronic equipment. And this development still continues. The last fifteen years have also seen cruising yachts getting bigger and bigger as we develop sails and hardware to handle even greater loads.

The designs I have been involved with, either alone or in collaboration with others, cover some of the most significant large cruising yachts of our time, and all the myriad variety of sailing yacht designs I have been involved with, whether a round the world racer, a small dayboat or a multihull, every single design exercise has provided something useful, a spin-off that adds to the sum of knowledge which is an essential foundation for developing new ideas.