Yacht Design in New Zealand

Hi, I am currently in my first year of an Engineering degree at University of Auckland. I want to do a degree in sail yacht design, which is not offered at the University of Auckland.
Does anyone know anywhere in New Zealand where you can study this?

 

Hey there,

I have looked at this myself. I started Boatbuilding 12 years ago by doing the Marine Technology course at Unitec, it incorperated "Small craft design" and a year of designing our own 8mtr yacht. I dont know if you can just do those parts of the course there?
I know the BITO (Boating Industry Training Organisation) in NZ have been talking about starting some kind of course for this maybe give them a ring.

Contact:
Chris van der Hor, BITO General Manager
Boating Industry Training Organisation
Postal: PO Box 90-448, AMSC, Auckland, New Zealand
Physical: 79 - 85 Westhaven Drive, Westhaven, Auckland, New Zealand
Freephone: 0800 600 242
Tel. +64 09 360 0056
Fax. +64 09 360 0019
Email. training@bia.org.nz

Tell Him Kit from NZ Yachts sent ya (see if he remembers me)

Other than that the closest place I know of to learn Naval Architecture is in Tasmainia at AMC.

Here is the link: .http://www.amc.edu.au/courses?course=naval.arch.bach

Hope that helps. Let me know how you get on.

Cheers Kit

 

Thanks for that.
I have actually looked at going overseas but can't afford it.

 

There are a few courses you can do via correspondence. Ive heard Westlawns a good one and not too expensive.

http://www.westlawn.edu/news/index.asp?displayfile=tradeOnlyWEB_NEWS.htm

Try that one.

Im over in the UK at the moment but when I return home in a few months im going to be looking into the same thing!

Good luck mate.

Cheers Kit

 

Thanks. I will look into that

 

You can study "tansport design" at Massey University. If you talk to most of the designer's around Auckland you'll find very few are Naval Architects. Most are experianced draftspeople who in order to fill the gaps in there knowledge they then hire one Naval Architect to do the "hard stuff".

 

I don't think there is an undergrad course in small boat design ouside of the UK. From time to time here a postgrad diploma has been offered to anyone who has completed a degree that included the first 2 years of NA, Marine, Mechanical, Civil and even Electrical engineering. There's a postgrad course in Italy but not by correspondence.

In my opinion if you did mechanical or civil you can quickly learn the ropes. Or come to Tasmania and study Naval architecture. Even then you'll probably only pick up one specific unit.

I have had mechanical grads working for me that were up to speed in a few weeks, after working reading and asking questions. I've had graduate NA's who had some very serious misuderstandings.
Work experience is probably more important than a degree although a good grounding in mechanics of solids and structural engineering is definantely an advantage.

 

well, not exactly in NZ

Hey,
I'm in my last year of undergraduate naval architecture at the university of new south wales in sydney, australia. I'm from NZ originally and realised my options were to do a mechanical engineering degree at Auckland or Otago and then study yacht design post-grad at Auckland, or go to Aus. In australia you can do Naval Architecture at AMC in Launceston, Tasmania or at UNSW in Sydney. AMC has better facilities (cavitation tanks, towing tank etc) but UNSW (I'm biased) is regarded as having a stronger teaching programme. UNSW also may have more yacht design-interested students. So if you are keen on yacht design either stick it out in Auckland 'til you make it to post grad and do a masters at the HPYD unit or come over. Living in Sydney is expensive but if you are working you get paid more than in NZ... but you'll have to do two common years of engineering first.
Good luck,
B.

 

I'm a UNSW graduate. If you talk to them you'll probably find you can get credit for engineering studies done in NZ. So you could do two years in NZ and then two in Sydney (cutting down the cost quite a bit). Contact UNSW and ask. Aside from "better" teachers etc UNSW also has the advantage of women being on campus. There are very few girls at AMC. (Not that there is anything wrong with that).

 

Im just finishing the last couple papers of a BE Mech at AUT. Im too looking at getting into NavArch and searching around for the last year or so. As already mentioned there is Tasmania and NSW, both which I have heavily considered. However currently looking at an MSc at Southampton in the UK. Has a one year Masters with a major in small craft and yacht design.

I also know a someone who has just transferred from Auckland Uni mechanical after doing two years to NSW NavArch with two years left.

Either way if your that keen to get into yacht design I suggest to go to NSW or Tasmania. Its not difference in cost. Thats what I should have done and regretted it ever since!

 

Hey,

I'm at AMC doing Nav arch at the moment. i was in a similiar position - want to do some hard core yacht design but where to do it?

I came to AMC not UNSW or a mechanical degree in NZ (or southhampton for that matter) because of the facilities and the academic staff.
Once here other positives came up
- learning Nav Arch stuff from year one (from experienced nav archs)
- very small school, i think there are about total 500 students enrolled in all courses including seagoing and aquaculture.
in my year (3rd) there are about 16 Nav arch, and 12 ocean eng students.
so: very small class sizes, we know the lecurers very well, and anytime we want to see them about pretty much anything you just go knock on the door. class sizes about 10-20. Not the experience I'v heard about large city universities. Same goes for things like computer labs there are always computers available.
It is very much a maritime college -ie most staff seem to have significant sea time and or ship yard time up their sleeves. Also the new Cavitation tunnel is nearly operational so thats cool.

don't be turned off by the thought of ship design. I also Also found out that dirty great ships, and rig tenders, and all the other heavy industry parts of Nav arch are pretty cool to. yacht design and heavy ship design are the same game-basically the same flavour of number crunching, just slightly different outcomes.

Having said all that (reads like a brochure statement or something..) there are problems. AMC has just been eaten by University of tasmania (they live on the same piece of dirt), and the experience so far has not been good for AMC students. that all happened a few months ago. eg lecture notes have nearly tripled in price to about $30 a subject, parking fines have gone up to about $80 a pop where it was free parking last year, the AMC bar has pressure from the UTAS people to stop serving alchohol because they serve it at cost where the UTAS one makes healthy profit. Printing an A4 has doubled in price, colour x5.
all fairly harmless i 'spose. however the mutterings, comments and reading between the lines i don't think the AMC academic staff are to pleased with proceedings.
and last but not least UTAS has 'Human Movement' students . say no more.

AS far as yacht stuff is concerned - lecturer Giles thomas has done lots of yacht research and is keen for anyone to take up the charge, Jon Binns (BMW Oracle) is right into yachts, and so on. Mind you I'v thought of doing a masters at Auckland at the yacht institute there.
The other major problem with AMC is it is basically land locked. No sailing for miles. great shame, a lot of the people that come here to do nav arch are into yachts, but then there is no sailing and so it knid of goes by the wayside.
they end up going off to work for a oil and gas company getting millions of dollars an hour... if you are into MTbiking there is miles and miles of it round here, same goes for tramping and that kind of malarkey.

by the way, Kitto:
I was at unitec 12 years ago doing boat building (two years that finished in '96)- scumbag unitec... I was in the same year as John Norton, Tony Kelly and Roger Woodbury do you know them? if you do what are they up to? I think it was the last year Chris Lovegrove was running the show.good man.

sorry if the rant goes on a bit, i'v had an assignment due every three days for the last three weeks and now it is over. i'm kind of dribbling and twitching.

and another thought: I can't speak for other schools, but AMC does not teach aesthetics (sp?) or other 'fluffy' subjects. -there is some truth in the claim: 'good engineering looks good'. however i have thouight about taking some subjects at the UTAS Architecture school 'form and function' etc'

and another one: launceston is a small country town and it is reflected in prices (and attitudes-think eketahuna). I bought a 3 bdrm house a 5 minute walk from the class room for 170k. 3 bedrroms house to rent around here is about $2-250 a week .

and yet another! very few girls at AMC is true! but there is a nursing school next door, with quite a residential component to it. not to mention the Human Movement students.

 

you know, i like it because i have nothing to compare it to - maybe UNsw AUT, southhampton etc are great schools. i just came here and don't regret it yet.

 

Unitec offers the 'Bachelor of Applied Technology (Specialise in Marine)'

which is a 3 year course fulltime or part time options.

I'm looking at doing that one myself

 

Another option, which is basically what I have done, is stick to your BE Mech, and in your 3rd year try and come up with a yacht/marine based project for your 4th year.

I did mine on high speed planing hulls and subsequently got involved with AMC and their tow tank. It is possible to find projects you could combine with at other universities.

Second thing is, get an engineering related job at a marine company in NZ. There are some well known ones such as Alloy Yachts, Southern Spars or High Modulus who do composites and structural engineering for many large power craft and yachts including TeamNZ, who I know for a fact are looking for production staff at the moment. Check their website http://www.high-modulus.com/.

Although I have stated above I wish I had done Nav Arch from the start, I do now, in my humble opinion, believe that an engineering degree prior to any postgrad in Navarch will make you better engineer. The Nav Arcs tend too (and Im an very much generalising here) be confined to the physics and concepts associated with boats and ships, and may or may not in some instances limit design ability - some generic engineers can offer some fresh light to old problems. Im not bagging Nav arcs, just providing a little bit of an opinion.

It is also possible to become a qualified Naval Architect with an uindergraduate mech eng degree and masters at a nav arch school.

All the best

 

The other thing which I forgot to mention is that if you go to Aus you will be given a fee exepmtion under the commonwealth research grant, also if you have really good grades, i.e a 2:1 honours you may also automatically qualify for an APA scholarship which will pay, yes PAY you to study at a postgrad level. It is about $20k AUS tax free per annum.