European Schools

Hello,

As a French student I plan to study in Naval Architecture but I am not satisfied with the courses offered in my country. What are the best schools around France ?
I am particularly considering the University of Southampton, where many French yacht designers come from. What about it ?
Thank you

Rémi Kaupp
arkorrigan@yahoo.fr

 

See
http://boatdesign.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=3
www.boatdesign.net/web/schools.htm
www.dcss.org/ayrs/newsltrs/july97
www.cefi.org//fraECOLES/ecole_8.html
Also, seriously consider Delft.

 

If you are thinking of Marc Lombard, VPLP, Eric Levet, etc, it is no t the University but Southampton Institute.

see www.solent.ac.uk

 

Naval Architecture, Mechanical Engineering, Westlawn

In particular reply to the copious emails sent by Guest in whose opinion I am generally in agreement regarding qualifications in Naval Archtitecture and Yacht Design.

I have a PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics, a Masters in Aerodynamics and a BSc in Maths/Physics.

I am 47 years old and nearing completion of Westlawn Module 1. and I have no experience in the Marine Industry. I have sailed on a motor cruiser in the Irish Sea for the first 15 years of my life.

The reasons why I embarked on the Westlawn course are firstly, I have neither the time nor the money to spend on a full time marine engineering degree. I want to develop good design skills to produce yachts up to about 60 foot in length which are comparable with competitive yacht classes of the 1960's or 70's.

Also, Dave Gerr (see Elements of Boat Strength, the Nature of Boats and the Propeller Handbook) is also the new director of Westlawn, having studied design at the Pratt Institute as well as Physics to degree level. His publications are also recognized by various organisations : the Royal Navy Sailing Association to name but one.

As "Guest" points out ,many degree qualified young engineers and archtiects who have the formal training invariably end up concentrating on one part of a design whereas I am interested in the complete design.

Guest's counsel is "watertight" for bright young people wishing to enter the field who have made their appropriate career choices early on. For those of us who remain, who still wish to develop our interests; the part time and correspondence courses remain the only solutions. I note also in the UK MTEC (www.mtek.ac.uk) are now offering Masters and Postgraduate programs as distance learning to the following six UK Universities : Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, Newcastle, Southampton, Strathclyde and UCL. The cost 9000 GBP (for Masters). There is also a Euromtek offering the same genre of course based at University of Newcastle upon Tyne, University of Genoa, Technical University of Gdansk, Delft University of Technology and Ecole Navale.

Is this a case of many universities, much modularity but ultimately acquisition of high level parallel skills with low practical design focus ? I honestly don't know.

My own feeling is that if Westlawn have been offering their course for 73 years, it can't be all twaddle. If ABYC have decided to purchase Westlawn there must be something of interest in the purchase. If Dave Gerr is rewriting much material to bring it up to date, he must have an interest in developing the course's reputation and, develop it must.

Therefore, I believe that betting on Westlawn now is a bit of a gamble, but not excessively, because the course is rapidly evolving. I remember when I embarked on the original Astronautics and Space Engineering Masters at Cranfield in its first "guinea pig" year, after 3 months I transferred to the conventional Aerodynamics masters. I recently learnt that all the original ASE candidates have pursued successful careers in the Space Industry, where I would be now had I stayed.

To conclude, as impartially as possible, "Guest" is 100% right that the young should find the best courses which offer the best career opportunties, not only being a damn fine yacht designer.

But, and I would really appreciate Guest's opinion on this, in the modern age with the current developments for those of us with some money, grit determination and a few dreams to spare, Westlawn, I believe, can help us to become damn fine yacht designers, at least of the 60 foot 1960s classes !!

Best Wishes to All Yacht Designers Everywhere.

 

Self-training

Someone with good qualifications can also self-train. The Westlawn course is fundamentally self-instruction, and obtaining the certificate itself is of limited value in seeking employment.

The methods taught by Westlawn are old fashioned and tend to be rules of thumb, much less advanced than anything you can pick up elsewhere, just by reading.

Frankly, if I had your quals, I would just find work at a major yacht designer, or etc. now. Specifically, I would very seriously suggest you, immediately, contact Oceanic Consulting in St. Johns NFL. They will offer you a job immediately, and since they are one of the premium test facilities for yachts, you will get exposure that is priceless, at a very good wage, as well as whatever you can pick up technology wise. I'm sorry I don't have an email right at hand, but you can find them on the web.

Good luck, and say hello to Lee Hedd when you start there for me.

 

Oceanic Contact

I happen to have a contact:

Dan Walker, PhD, P.Eng.
President
Oceanic Consulting Corp.
95 Bonaventura Ave. Suite 401
St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada A1B 4J8
709 722 9060 x 50
dan_walker@oceaniccorp.com
http://www.oceaniccorp.com

A really neat place to work - you'll learn a lot and get great contacts!

Good luck

 

Dear CDBarry & Guest,

Many thanks for your generous replies. Unfortunately moving to Newfoundland Canada from Naples Italy with my young wife and baby daughter just isn't possible.

I currently work at CIRA (Centre of Italian Aerospace Research) specialising in Low Speed Computational Fluid Dynamics for Aeronautical applications.

I hope, however,that it may somehow be possible to blend my current activities with Yacht Design, perhaps within the frame of some collaborative work and for this reason I have chose to study Yacht Design using the Westlawn course as a foundation.

If, however, you are aware of any organisations which could be interested in some potential collaborative work associated with Yacht Design I would be very grateful for any information you might be able to supply me.

Once again, thank you so much for postive and constructive suggestions.

Best Wishes to All from ADFrench

 

Join SNAME

I would also suggest you join SNAME (http://www.sname.org) and look at the Chesapeake Sailing Yacht Symposia papers.