Naval Architecture vs. Yacht Design

Washington state and Oregon have had PEs in NA for decades, and most other states don't differentiate licenses by engineering discipline. The main thing that is new is that there is now an exam available in NAME, which allows someone to be examined in their preffered area of expertise. Strictly speaking nothing has really changed.

 

In my opinion just having a degree (meaning theoretical knowledge), per se, doesn't make an excellent professional in whatever field. Talent (brilliant mind) and expertise (skill) are the other two componets of equation. Talent is something you may or may not have, but most people live happily without that. But you may become a rather good and competent professional, just with a degree and lots of skill acquired through many years of hard work.

You also may have a talent and lots of expertise and so become a good professional. As talent helps, most probably in the pursuit of skill you'd probably acquire a good theoretical knowledge too.

Expertise alone may be good for other professions, but not for NA's in my opinion. Neither talent or theory alone.

And, as well as there are some not enough skilled NA's, there are also many incompetent self-taught 'experts' around. Much, much many. I can tell you.

One of the reasons (For sure not the only one) why the society favours to qualify professionals by means of a degree and try to impose them over others, is closely related with the fact that most of humankind (we, humble common people) has not a brilliant mind, and expertise alone is not sufficient, generally speaking, may even costing a price in lost lives (Stability problems, i.e.). Society expects that proper degreed people may acquire enough expertise with time and so become a most useful member to the community. Even if they are not highly talented.

A second derivate is that because the society expends so much money in prepairing degreed people, it makes economical nonsense to it to accept that non degreed people may become into the market taking work off from the degreed.

In my country, Spain, to guarantee that degreed NA's are skilled enough to sign designs and other specilaized tasks, we are discussing now about a further licensing after a period of time (3 years or so) of practical training in real life situations, much in the way medicine doctors do.

And there is an additional problem involved, mentioned down here in this thread by D'Artois: Insurance. Insurance companies press also to get the proper professionals involved in design, construction and whatever, because they have to pay huge indemnifications when an accident occurs. And professional organizations as SNAME or the COIN in Spain, etc., help to keep a reasonable level of guarantee (Not absolutely, indeed, but much better than noting).

In my professional career I assist, from time to time, Courts of Law as an expert for naval accidents (forensic engineering). And I usually see Insurance companies looking for every wrong 'comma' to not being obligued to pay. In the boating and shipping business this means if rules, regulations, codes of practice, etc., have been complied with, as well as if design, calculations, etc., have been authorized with his/her signature by a competent professional.

All this may sound to bureaucratic nonsense to many people, particularly to those not having a degree. But this is real life, at least in my country. Most probably nobody will put happily his life in the hands of a 'said' medicine doctor. Why should we do it with boats...?

Just to end, I would like to refer to some cases I know in Spain of lost fishing boats because of stability-related problems. In some other places of these Forums I've read some callings to 'civil disobedience' against what seem to be stupid & bureaucratic rules made by NA's. OK, may be there are stupid rules about boats, but civil disobedience doesn't solve this kind of problems, just worsens them. The families of those fishermen did not get paid indemnifications because some clever guy decided to exercise 'civil disobedience' and not carry out with stability rules. So...?

 

As I felt, an interesting thread.

Yachts and ships, are they different in the eyes of the Public Authorities or not?

You see the heaps of regulations nonetheless, the most stupid accidents happen (see Ethan Allen, The McGregor 26 case etc.);

The Titanic catastrophy started some progress regarding the safety of sea-passengers nontheless even the biggest ships are small when something grave mishappens and on a 3500 pax and crew ship, a catastrophal accidents is lying awake at all times.

Regulations are there to keep such accidents as low as possible and in general the rul works as long as the ship does not fell in the hands of lower class operators. Even a Queen Mary II would not last long in N++++ian hands.

Does a yacht comply to international safety rules?

No - they don't have to;

Are there specifical safety rules for yachts that are internationally required?

Below a certain length and not carrying paid passengers - the answer is no.

Are there minimal requirements for the construction of yachts?

Since the introduction of the CE norm, there are; but it took almost ten years to get them assembled and put into effect.

According to the European regulations, everybody may design a yacht, maybe even a ship as long as the designs and calculations are approved by at least one classification society. The Insurance Company might request such an approval.

And let's keep it practical: no single designer is able to design a superyacht or commercial vessel on his own. At least a number of other engineering companies are involved, each with own capability and responsibility, wher the shipyard will be held responsible for the overall product. The we fell in the hands of the lawyers because then the chain-liability starts to come into effect.

Yachts are still hovering in the grey: they are not recognised as professional seagoing vessels - even if the law say otherwise they have no priority at sea; in case they provoke an accident - in spite of their underdog position - they might be asked to the bench.

If you have to import a vessel, yacht or commercial, the questions are:
Where built; which year; which shipyard; which engine mfr; but never: WHO DESIGNED HER!!!!!!!!

It is the builder, the shipyard that counts!

Many yachtdesigners, even of famous name, do not have a N.A. degree - they came into the field by practice and what they learned during the time they became known to the public.

The shipyard who is responsible for the building will ensure that all designs and calculations are checked by a Naval Engineering bureau, like Vripack for example, or a classification society when expensive ships are involved.

Excluded from normal practice are companies like Farr & ***., Reichel-Pugh, Nelson/Marek a.m.o. who are in gthe toplevel of the building and construction of racing yachts and who do the struggle alone, in their own premises, relying little on outside help save for trusted suppliers.
( Therefore the problems with the canting keel systems )
In this small segment of the sailingsport, only the most brilliant and capable persons will come forward. Here, a degree only won't help neither brilliancy alone. The same counts in Superyacht design. The most striking design are made by people who do not have any idea how to put a boat together and rely on the help of shipyard and Naval Architect to guid them through the building.

 

My point is that if a plan for a boat comes with the title N.A. I expect it to be engineered.
I'm drawing plans for my own boat, I will do all the calculations. If it sinks at launching I'll be embarrassed in front of all those that I invite to the launching.
If it floats on the waterline and performs as well as I hope it will, can I sell the plan under the title N.A.
If I had it surveyed and the boat did well I wouldn't hesitate to sell the plans under the title Yacht Designer, N.A.? I don't think so

 

None of the people listed build boats. They are simply design offices. They are contracted to produce a design, and the contracts can stipulate to what level.

John Reichel and Bruce Nelson are both NAs.

Often the structural engineering is contracted by the buyer to outside companies like SP Systems.

The build is contracted to a builder. The designer is often involved in making the decision, but rarely involved in the contract.

So these offices do not struggle alone. They rely heavily on input from outside sources to produce boats.

 

The verity is different - try to keep out Farr & associates from the building scene and you might find yourself another designer and that counts fore other known designers as well. If it turns out that your interests differ of that of the - repeat - top designer, he won't give you the design required. That they do not build themeslves is clearly stated by me in the previous post.
Question, is Bruce Faar or Russel Bowler a NA?

 

I'm sure all of the designers mentioned will happily provide you with stock plans without regard to the builder. I've worked with home builders of designs from two of the offices you mentioned.

I'm equally sure you can commission a design from them and have it built anywhere and anyway you wish. They might require you not attach their name to it. The office I worked in routinely provided linesplans to yards who did their own engineering.

I agree that if you ask a designer to provide detail drawings of something they do not agree with they will not do that. That would put the burden on them in case of a problem later. If their design requires laminate X in an area, and you ask the to change the drawing to 0.5 Laminate X there is no way any designer of anything is going to agree to do that for any price.

Sorry, your statement was not clear to me. I read it as the opposite of your meaning.

Neither. They do employ several. The Farr Design website has bios on the staff.

 

I agree with most of what you say. The one problem is is that expert classes tend to get too comfortable. Once they get comfortable, they get lazy. Once they get lazy, they pass edicts for the ages which are mostly based on the way they are used to doing things.

The worlds most famous expert was Aristotle. And his veiws were taught at the worlds top centers of learning for centuries. Once people had learned Aristotle's possition on an issue, they, in turn, were considered experts. It got so bad that people who dared to suggest Aristotle may have been wrong on a thing or two faced being burned at the stake along with lesser sanctions.

Such things have happened in even more recent centuries. Look how long it took to convince doctors to wash thier hands between surgeries. Or how about how doctors used to believe that imfants could not feel pain, and therefore imflicted surgeries on them without anesthesia.

Don't get me wrong. I love experts. I just don't like putting them on unassailable pedestals. And giving them the insulation that we give doctors (which I reluctantly agree with) and lawyers (which I am steadfastly against) seems to invite future abuses. Somehow, we must find a middle ground.

For hundreds if not housands of years, seaworthy boats were designed and built by illiterate people who couldn't tell a joule from a jewel.

And using the excuse that crooked insurance companies will do anything in thier power to get out of thier rightful obligations does not wash with me in the least in regards to creating such an insulated core of experts.

As George Buehler so well put it: Noah's Arch was built by amateurs; the TITANIC was built by proffessionals.

Bob

 

Neither do I.

My company works, among others, for a dozen or so of boatyards still building fishing boats the traditional way in wood. They have been doing so for generations and they know much better than I do about how to build such boats (By the way: I love traditional wood boatbuilding). But unluckily wood boatbuilders were as pressed by their clients and market conditions as everyone else (specially competition from other materials), making them to lower their prices to survive. These lower prices did not allow them to pay good salaries (so nowadays there is also a lack of qualified manwork) nor build good boats and this has lead, in some cases, to boats that were unsafe both from the point of view of stability and structural integrity (Not enough freeboard, no proper joints of structural members, wood of poor quality, etc). Because of that, among other reasons, nowadays in Spain it's required not only a design signed by an NA, but also the works being supervised and finally authorised by another (May be the same one for both tasks)

More generally speaking, I find the problem is also that lately there have been many illiterate people coming into the boatbuilding, who think nobody has to teach them nothing about boats. This happens, in my country, mainly in GRP construction. To train a good carpenter as to be able to build a proper boat, even an small one, took many, many years of hard work as an apprentice, and still it is like that. But to learn to lay up fiberglass takes a much shorter time. And some of those people barely knowing how to lay fiberglass (Although maybe being very good at this), feel so confident as to begin a boatyard by themselves, committing many mistakes and building bad and dangerous boats. And, again, that's why NA supervision and ruling has become necessary.

OK. You may feel and think as you want, for sure. But, please, don't bring other people into big problems because of that.

Maybe the Ark was built by Noah, but design and supervision was God's

 

I guess you got me there, Guillermo.

I suppose that if the 'management fee' charged by the NA isn't too high (is that regulated too?) that system could be a very good one. It never hurts to check. But I would prefer some kind of 'build by rule' system with periodic inspectors.

We, in America, are absolutely paranoid about regulation of any kind. I suppose that is why we have such a robust tort system here. It takes the place of regulation. And it is probably a bad substitute too.

But we do have some idiotic regulators here who's example everyone falls back on as soon as the idea of systematic regulation comes up.

I met one fellow who was designing a sail training ship. The Coast Guard had to approve it. They found nothing on it they didnt like. Except one thing. The keel was to be a 2ft by 2ft box section filled with solid concrete. The Coast Guard said that that space had to be counted as cargo capacity and that once it was, the ship had to be reclassified as a larger ship which meant impossible to meet further regulatory requirements.

The only way out of it, said the Coast Guard regulator, was to make the 2ft by 2ft keel out of solid steel.

This, as you can well imagine, drove the cost of building this ship right into the stratosphere. The regulator wouldn't budge and the ship was never built.

Just about every one in America who has ever dealt with our own breed of regulators can tell a similer story.

Here in America, we pretty much pay for our own college educations. Going to the big U for anything is getting riskier and riskier these days. Will you get a good enough job at the end to pay off your student loan note? Of course, for the rich, that is hardly a concern. (they often get 'merit scholorships' anyway) And, before long, they will dominate the graduating classes (if they don't already).

A very bad nightmare would be having a system where only a graduate of the big U can design a boat. Even one that displaces a few hundred pounds.

We now have a sitting president, who graduated with what many consider to be one of the best degrees, from one of the best schools in our country.

I think you can now see where I'm comming from.

Like they used to say around here in the '70s: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.

Bob

 

As someone who does know the tonnage rules, your story is not correct. There are several ways of exempting a space from tonnage, one of which is to carry the ordinary frames across it, which would have to be on spacing no more than four feet with holes in the frames no larger than 15" x 23". This is not quite the same as a solid steel keel. Another way would be to close the space off and declare it as a ballast space. These stories tend to grow in the telling.

 

I know about this incident first hand. Either the designer was telling me a fib story from hell or it really happened. It did allegebly happen almost 15 years ago. Maybe the rules changed since then.

And remember what I said. It was to be filled with solid concrete. How much more closed off can you get than that?

Bob

 

The equivalent to the SNAME in Spain -the COIN- (Funny for me to realize now what 'coin' means in english...), publish a guidance for the fees, but these are not mandatory. The NA is free to charge whatever he wants. What happens is that you charge the most for complicated boats being built in unknown boatyards and the less for normal boats built in well known and reputable boatyards.

Taking this in account, the NA chooses how deep he gets involved in construction supervision: More involvement needed for the first case and much less for the second. In our case, when we work for known boatyards and no complicated boats(90 % of times), we only go three or four times during construction, just to check relevant things, with an emphasis in checking hull forms (boats built by the unit) and draft marks, just to be sure when the inclining experiment. And also to compliment good clients and sometimes friends, absolutely...

In parallel there is also an official authorities supervision but, as inpectors have little time, they tend to trust the NA in charge of construction and, for the well known types of boats and boatyards, in most cases they only come to testify the final inclining experiment and the sea trials.

Things use to run most of the times peacefully and painless, although sometimes you get your piece of ****

(Note: When I talk about 'boats' I talk about lengths under 24 m)

 

Guillermo,
Is there a link to this COIN guidence for NA fees? Is it in English also? Do any other countries besides Spain have this type of guidence. Thanks for all your comments.

 

The tonnage rules haven't changed in about 100 years, which is part of the problem. They are exceedingly arbitrary rules, and it takes some specific expertise to navigate them. This is because they are not entirely logical, but built up of various schemes (and reactions to them) to fiddle regulations to make a large ship appear small, legally speaking. They are just like the income tax rules.

The idea is that volume taken up by the ship's structure is exempt, and unless the ship was concrete, the concrete is not part of the structure. If the space had been closed off with a tank top (that was the same material as the ship structure), and the the tank was declared to be ballast space, it doesn't even have to be filled (though it does have to be piped up for water ballast in any case).

The rules are arbitrary, and you have to understand them and make sure that you give the admeasurer some legal leg to stand on. He can't just exempt space on his own.

(And, yes, there is an effort to go to the more logical international system, but since tonnage permeates the regulations, and owners of existing vessels have an interest in the current system, it will be quite difficult and time consuming to come up with a transition solution that is fair and doesn't create wierd results.)