Yacht Design School?

Westlawn Institute

Westlawn Institute has trained more practicing small-craft naval architects than any other school in the world, period.

More boats have been built to designs by Westlawn Institute alumni then have been built from the designs of alumni from any other school in the world.

Almost all the university naval architecture programs in the U.S. have no dedicated classes in small-craft design at all. I gave a guest lecture a few years back at one of these universities. I started to prepare a talk on the basics of planing hulls. Then, I thought, "This is a top NA school; they must have had this." I contacted the dean, and he told me, "No, they don't get any of that." so:

• No planing hull design
• No planing boat speed and powering analysis
• No sailboat design
• No rig design
• No courses in appendage design for powerboats or for sailboats
• Very little in fiberglass composite engineering (and what's taught is aimed at ship structures)
• No construction details, methods, or procedures for boats in fiberglass
• No construction details, methods, or procedures for boats in aluminum
• No construction details, methods, or procedures for boats of wood
• No fiberglass production boatbuilding methods courses
• No courses or introduction at all to ABYC standards
• No courses in systems or machinery installation on boats
• No courses on ergonomics or interior design for boats

I gave my talk to virtually the entire student body (about 60 students, all four years). Basic planing hull design was completely new to all of them. I believe that there are a few hours (less than a dozen hours) in an early semester, where the students are presented a brief overview of powerboat design and sailboat design. This compares to over 3,300 hours for a Westlawn Institute student in these subjects.

This is NOT a criticism of the superb education offered in university naval architecture programs. These university programs simply offer courses focused on different core subject matter than Westlawn Institute offers.

The list of famous and successful Westlawn Institute alumni is incredible. You can view this Success Stories list at:

http://216.119.80.31/who/success.asp

You can review testimonials of Westlawn Institute alumni at:
http://www.westlawn.edu/who/testimonials.asp

Westlawn Institute has had alumni in important positions on 20 different American's Cup campaigns alone--and that's just what we know of. (Listed on the success stories page.) I don't believe any other school has a record like that.

Don't forget about accreditation; it’s important. Westlawn Institute is accredited by DETC (Distance Education and Training Council, Washington, DC). DETC is recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Education, and by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). This is the gold standard for education accreditation, and Westlawn Institute is listed as a recognized institution on both the U.S. Dept. of Education website and the CHEA website.

Full details at:

http://216.119.80.31/who/accreditation.asp

Westlawn graduates are properly described as small-craft naval architects, or naval architects specializing small-craft design. Boat designer is another good term. The size cut-off for small-craft or boats is 60 meters (197 feet). See details at:

http://www.westlawn.edu/student_center/definitions.asp

Forty percent of Westlawn students and alumni are outside the U.S. Westlawn alumni are actively designing and building boats all over the world. This has been the case since Westlawn’s founding in 1930.

Westlawn alumni design commercial boats in substantial numbers, not just recreational vessels. There is a post on this at:

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/education/help-career-advice-13021.html

Dave Gerr
Director, Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology
www.westlawn.edu

 

Dave, nice to hear from You. My feeling was that Westlawn is great course, but taught by group of enthusiasts for enthusiast students.

Yes, standard curriculum of NA university course is not aimed at small craft design (most of NA graduates do not work in small craft sector); besides it gives much wider all-round base supported by access to labs, towing tanks, wind tunnels, libraries, opportunity to listen professors, etc.

I see no problem to study small craft design in depth within standard University course of naval architecture - teachers will encourage it if student is interested, besides most of them have small-craft related experience.

There are 'small craft design' specializations for NA's in some Universities also - Southampton for example.

 

I should add that prior to starting the course, I did a great deal of research into which school's catered to my field of interest. Westlawn was, at the time, the only credible oprtion. I still feel that it is one of the best options for those wishing to specialise in small-craft design...
In other words... what Dave said!

 

This is great advice:
http://www.sponbergyachtdesign.com/ArticlesDesigner.htm

I share Sponberg's opinion about differences between 'boat designers' and 'naval archtiects' (real ones, not self-named)

 

The facts speak for themselves:

Westlawn Institute has trained more practicing small-craft naval architects, who have had more boats built to their designs—yacht and commercial—than any other school in the world. These Westlawn alumni are professionals, whose record of achievement speaks for itself. Refer to:

Success stories:
http://216.119.80.31/who/success.asp

Testimonials:
http://www.westlawn.edu/who/testimonials.asp

Alumni Gallery:
http://www.westlawn.edu/Gallery/Gallery.asp

At Westlawn Institute, from faculty to the Board of Directors, to our parent company, ABYC (American Boat & Yacht Council), all are full-time professionals with decades of experience in the boating industry, in design and in construction.

In most current university naval architecture programs in the U.S., the demands of the standard curriculum make it logistically impractical to integrate substantial instruction in small-craft naval architecture. We know this from direct experiences. Over the past five years, two of the most prominent of these institutions approached Westlawn Institute about integrating Westlawn Institute curriculum into their programs as an elective.

Though all parties were enthusiastic about this, it proved impractical because of the amount of work that would be required of the students. Even articulating only Westlawn Institute’s final-exam design thesis was too many study hours to be manageable. Accordingly, it is not realistic to expect that students at standard university naval architecture programs can elect to achieve the depth of knowledge in small-craft naval architecture that the Westlawn Institute program offers to its students.

Dave Gerr
Director, Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology
www.westlawn.edu

 

If a correspondance course is your only avenue ie. full time is simply just not an acceptable option then that may be the case.

Will, have you ever visited AMC just up the road from you? Pretty sure Westlawn can't offer the sort of toys available up there to (full time) students?

 

Not many places can offer those kind of toy's...
Yes, I've been there a couple of times - a fabulous facility... if 'just up the road' wasn't 250 kms away, I'd probably partake in some of their classes...... One should never consider one's education to be at an end IMHO...
AMC didn't - and to the best of my knowledge still don't - offer courses in small-craft design. Certainly when I enrolled in Westlawn they only offered the kind of NA material pertinent to ship, oil rig etc design. I know they've broadened their course offerings substantially in recent years though.

 

Actually Will, they don't really teach you to design ships either. What they do is give you the basis to go where you want to. I have a BEng (NA) from AMC, and I design small craft (<100ft mostly), but I know others that have the same degree and work with oil rigs, ferries, superyachts and yachts and other diciplines. The degree itself is not limiting.

As to the 250km of travel, when I was there only two were tasmanian. I personally travelled a couple of thousand klm to do it. Others were international. Thats why relatively speaking it is "just up the road" for you.

 

No.. but of course 250 k's might as well be a couple of thousand... way too far to commute. I wasn't in a position to be able to move to take on further education... I'm still not, so it wasn't an option.

 

Which gets to the crux of my point, If 250 k's is not practical for someone to travel, then the options available to you or anyone else are inherently diminished, and thats where a correspondance course might be attractive. It doesn't mean that other more involved engineering/NA degrees that require full time study aren't credible at all.

 

I certainly hope I didn't infer that. As I said before, if I were just starting out with a view to a full time career in the design industry, then somewhere like AMC would be at the top of my list... though I'd probably still do Westlawn as well because of the focus on small-craft design.

 

Should we, who has a bachelor or master degree made by studying small crafts, call ourselves "Yacht architects" (YA)? Could this have international recognation?

Competences in:
- small craft hydrostatics, hydrodynamics and aerodynamics
- small craft design, ergonomics and layout
- engineering small craft materials: steel, alu, wood, composites
- engineering small craft structures (by standards, like ISO)
- small craft manufacturing and production

This is something we teach in our UAS (degree programme in boat technology). Unfortunately only in Finnish.

 

100% true, I know similar small craft specializations within naval artitecture course taught in St.Petesburg and in Nikolaev (since 1970-s). I was doing same one-semester course in Thailand. Unfortunately sometimes those who speak only Engish are not aware of variety of the world

 

There's only one unit in 4th year at AMC if I remember and that's an optional one it's called yacht design. If you read Larsonn and Eliasson Principles and understand it you'll be just as well read. A Westlawn grad will learn a lot more about small craft design than it's possible to learn in most NA courses.

It's worth trying to do a doing a post grad at AMC if you have a novel hullform that you want to research then you get to use the facilities. (But the tanks only 1.5m deep).

It's (what engineers would consider) the basic engineering that most YDS or Westlawn designers would benefit the most from, properties of materials ( including fatigue ), beam theory, failure modes, hydrodynamics. All these can be studied at any uni with an engineering school. But you need to get your maths up to scratch first.

 

"'naval archtiects' [sic](real ones, not self-named)"

Professional accreditation is basically the process whereby people get together, pat each other on the back and self-name themselves. Then after they do that, something comes along to suggest they should go to a government body and get exclusive rights to a name. Been through this process with an industry much larger than boats.

So whatever westlawn or YDI do or did, if they can convince enough people of it, they are in no different position than anyone else. It is the case that a university degree level course is more impressive, which is part of the point. Ultimately people who will generally work for others, because, say individuals generally can't afford their own oil rigs, are willing to put in the time padding their resumes to get better credentials, and without a doubt certain projects rise to the level requiring those degrees. Just not all.