Searching for boat school

Hello, I have some questions on schools and also about boat design in general. First off what is the difference between naval architecture and marine engineering? I am more interested in the area of design and my maths skills are not quiet up to par for technical aspects of boat design like engineering. Therefore I want to find a boat design school with more of an orientation toward design. I’m in high school in Holland in my 11th class. I would greatly appreciate recommendations either on European or American schools.

Thanks much

 

Joshua,
The best design school out there is the Southampton Institute in England (www.solent.ac.uk). You will need some math skills for this, but many have gone through there having started with very little math (me included )
Steve

 

Well spoken like a true Southampton graduate! Steve is correct that Southampton is a very good school. It must be, because Steve is a very good designer. However, you will find that boat design is all about math. You have to be able to calculate areas and volumes, and do some simple engineering. At the Landing School in Kennebunkport, ME, they require high school level Algebra II and Trigonometry. For the vast majority of work in boat design, this will suffice. But the better understanding you have of math, the better a designer you will be. Designing is not just drawing pretty pictures. There are mathematical calculations that have to substantiate those pretty pictures so that the design is workable. You will find math associated with all boat design courses.

By the way, my degree is in naval architecture from the University of Michigan. I was on the Design Program Advisory Board for 7 years, so I know it very well, and they take foreign students regularly. You can contact them at www.landingschool.org.

Naval architecture concentrates on hull design and engineering, including hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, stability, aerodynamics, speed and power, etc. Marine engineering concentrates on designing the mechanical and electrical systems that go inside the vessel.

Hope that helps.

 

Thanks so much for offering your insight steve and eric. This will help me tons. I checked out both schools and found them to be very interesting. Judging by what you said, I will definatly concentrate more on maths studies. I am currently trying to familiarize myself better with some cad programs. This should also help in working toward understanding better the ins and outs of the design process.
Thanks for your help, Josh

 

Josh,
Don't forget that in order to understand "fairness" as applied to lines, you really have to do some drawing by hand. the CAD software will provide mathematically fair lines (by definition), but until you have done a hand-drawn lines plan, you will never appreciate how painful it can be to get a CAD shape properly faired up.
Not to put you off, or anything, but drawing by hand is extremely relaxing, satisfying, and a real bonus to have done. It helps you to "see" how to lay out a drawing, tweak a hull, etc, etc, etc.
Steve "Yeah, been there, done that..."

 

Well ill throw in a word or 2 here.
Southampton is considered one of the best universities in the world for what your after, followed closely by such places as Strathclyde, and Glamorgan University, which is where i ended up going, mainly because they had the best lifestyle. Southampton and strathclyde are very, i dont know, all work, no play. in a nice way, not saying all graduates are snobs or anything. Glamorgan was more my style lets say. While i was there they built a purpose built area just for the design and building courses in boats, on the docks in Milford Haven, with complete CAD suits, all running Maxsurf and AutoCAD, as well as a big workshop, complete library, etc etc, very impressive, but it was new, so looked good too, im sure its been broken in well by now. Actually had a student there from holland while i was there, but she want doing boats.

umm whatelse, im bored,
Always remember, it is impossible for a computer to draw a perfect circle, or in this case, a perfectly fair and smooth curve. May look fine on the screen, but zoom in and you will notice it starts to get square. Better the computer, more you have to zoom in to see it, but pixels and the way it all works means its impossible for a computer to do it.
Im with steve, i prefer to draw by hand then on computer. Its more satisfying i find. you dont have the luxury of the computer doing some of the math for you granted, but you can always come up with the ideas on paper, draw a few designs, then once you have a design you like and feel will work, run it up on a CAD program like MaxSurf and get it right, etc.

If you want to get to know some Cad programs, Maxsurf and Autocad of the main ones. Autocad has limitations with boat design, and you cant do much in the way of hulls on Autocad, other than simple forms, but it is very good for doing thins like seats, consoles, interior layouts etc. Maxsurf is good for the hulls and the outside of the boat. However, bare in mind, Maxsurf will set you back a fair whack of the folding stuff. I have been looking into getting a copy myself, as i was able to use the maxsurf suit at the university before i came to the states, now i will have to get my own copy. prices range from $1000, to $6000 depending on how much you want from it. If you are a student though, a lot of places will give you a very very good discount (luckily my wife is a student ;o) )
AutoCAD is cheaper, but, i think anyway, a bit harder to use if you have not had any experience with it. Ive been using AutoCAD for a long time, and i still dont know everything it can do. I know people who have been teaching it for 20odd years and still discover new things it will do they didnt know about. Maxsurf is a bit easier to grasp i think, and once you have the basics down, the rest is fairly easy to figure out. But thats just my personal opinion, others may think differently.

Cant avoid the maths though im afraid. Its there, cant hide.