Looking for inexpensive naval architect or yacht designer

I would like to find a naval architect or experienced yacht designer that can help me design a very specialised survey/salvage vessel/yacht, but it has to be cheap!

A lot of my requirements are clear but other things will have to develop over time as I work together with the designer, and it has to be someone who is patient and willing to listen to what I need. I would prefer to see the design ideas/changes in 3D pictures.

I am happy for you to do most of the work during evenings and weekends if you don’t have much time.

Looking forward to hear from you.

Sincerely
Albert
albertunden@hotmail.com

[SailDesign]

Albert - you need to define "cheap" ;-)
If you want basically a full design for $2,500 or so, then you may be SOL, but if you mean "someone who will charge a low hourly rate" then you may be more lucky.
My rates are low right now, and I have plenty of 3D experience. Have a peek at my web page
http://members.aol.com/saildesign/pr...cbweb/home.htm
or look at my gallery on this site
http://www.boatdesign.net/gallery/sh...er=909&cat=500

Drop me a line if interested and we can discuss "cheap" a little further ;-)

[EmilSB]

Like SailDesign, I don't know what is means for you "cheap", but if you looking inexpensive naval architect or yacht designer I am interested to work over time or in weekend because I have a full time job (I am a naval architect specialized in hull design and 3D modelling on a ship yard which make supply vessel, offshore vessel, container carrier, trawlers and other ships kind). In other order of ideas, If you decide to colaborate with me all the change of informations and result of work will be made on the internet.
If you want to see a pice of my work visit the members gallery.
Think about that and If you decided to colaborate contact me on email an send more informations:
www.sultanemanuel@hotmail.com

Thanks to both of you for your swift replies.

I am not sure what “cheap” is either… However, having someone working on a low hourly basis seems reasonable assuming that I can follow the progress continuously. I really like EmilSB’s idea of being able to have all the work uploaded to the Internet as we progress. I also think that EmilSB’s experience seems rather close to what I want to do so I will be contacting you shortly Emil.

Saildesign:
Your 3D models are really nice… They give you a perfect feeling for what the boats will look like when built.

Thanks
Albert

Like many other professionally employed naval architects, I occasionally do free work for charities, (volunteer fire departments, environmental groups, etc.) and other "worthy" causes.

If you can post some more details of your operation, maybe someone will be interested in helping.

Note though that the cost of the design is generally about 2%-6% of the cost of the boat, so no matter how cheap the design is, it won't save you much over all - be ready for the big numbers, like engines.

As an example of costs, the design and CNC work and similar stuff on typical motor yacht or small workboat style vessel go for about 100 pound of steel per total labor hour. Street prices for drafting/design run $35-45 and for engineering, $60 - $80. This is most of the labor, so the street cost for design and CNC of a steel boat typically is on the order of the price of the raw steel.

[Albert]

Guest,

I am not a charity organisation by any means so I suspect that I won’t qualify for a free design. This is also a large project that I believe will involve quite a lot of work for whatever designer is willing to take it on.

I don’t know where the figures you mentioned are from, but they seem very high to me. I really don’t think anyone would pay 6% for the design of a commercial vessel, even if it were a rather complex one. However I will admit that I don’t know much about hiring a naval architect, since I have only recently started to investigate the costs involved. The only quote I have had so far was for the entire design of this vessel, from a reputable Naval Architect firm in Germany, and that quote was for about 4000 Euro. I suspect that finding a naval architect is like everything else, you can either do it the expensive way, or the inexpensive way. It is the same as with ship building costs, you can pay $30/hour to a yard in the US, or you can $3/hour for equally qualified work from a yard in Turkey…the price variations are tremendous throughout the world.

I have visited several yards in Turkey that seems to do great work and I plan to visit several more in Romania and elsewhere before deciding on a builder. I have limited finances for this project, especially at this stage, so I plan to try to do things the inexpensive way.

Albert

[MDV]

Albert,

For a commercial vessel, 6% is in my experience very cheap if you consider all the manhours involved such as:

Preperations of drawings for client
Performing the required calculations for class approval
Preperation of drawings for class approval
Liasing with class
Modifications for the client
Drawings for fabrication etc

And the list goes on......

Don't underestimate how much work there is to do for the N.A. and drafters. A complete package for any thing over 30m for worldwide service cannot be done by one person alone in a reasonable amount of time.

Good luck in your search, but remember that you get what you pay for.

Michael