Are designs from female designers different ?

Ladiesn and Gentlemen,

a very easy question:

Take a given configuration for a sailboat (LOA, Beam, Draft, Sailarea, Purpose etc) and give it to a male and to a female designer.

Will the output be very different ? If so what will be the difference ?

Serious background for this question is taht we do a marketing research for a sailboat producer and is thinking about women as the target customers. So the question is if women want different boats than men.

Thanks for any seriuos reply

Ken

 

Well Ken personally I don't know of a single female designer. Hopefully I'm wrong. Iknow of a few husband/wife design teams, but any working female designers on their own...?

 

There are at least two in germany: Sarah Voss and Juliane Hempel.

There must be more out there in the world....

 

In France, i think there is only one (in yacht design office), she is working for Berret Racoupeau.

 

Women want different boats than men. The marketing of modern boats reflects that. However, I think it is a fallacy to believe that a woman designer will reflect what most women want. The fact that she is a designer competing in an almost all male field, makes her an unusual woman.

 

I don't know what's become of Eva Hollman, but I like her designs. You'll probably find some if you search a brokerage site like www.yachtworld.com

Diana Russell's site is www.wingsystems.com

I'll bet the professors / teachers at naval architecture and yacht design schools could give you a good answer to this question. See the directory elsewhere on boatdesign.net. If it were me I'd start with Webb and the University of Michigan.

An interesting person to put this question to would be Sheila McCurdy, who is married to the president of SUNY Maritime Academy in New York, is active with US Sailing, and is a partner in McCurdy & Rhodes. Diana Russell knows her.

There was a female naval architect at Derektor-Gunnell in Dania Florida in the '90s. I have no idea if she's still there. In the '80s there was a composites engineer named Deborah Berman active. I think she may have been a Webb grad. There've been some female graduates of the Landing School. I know one got into tugboats.

While Gonzo may be largely correct, there are a number of enthusiastic and capable female sailors these days. Why shouldn't there be more female designers? An article I read about clipper ship designer Donald McKay held that his wife taught him much of what he knew of design and drafting.

There are a number of women in yacht interior design & styling (esp. large motor yachts). They often work more closely with the clients than the naval architects do.

One innovation in trawler yachts that I think would appeal to women would be a galley on the upper level, just behind the pilothouse rather than on some lower deck.

 

Stephen,
I believe Shiela McCurdy's father was the McCurdy in McC and Rhodes.
Having not seen her to talk to for some years now, I can quite believe that I'm talking rubbish and that she is a partner there, however ;-)
Steve

 

Both are correct. Ian does the designing, so in that sense things are true to gender roles, but Sheila's part of the business such as it is. I'm afraid I'm having trouble remembering their father's name. I get him mixed up with Dick McCurdy, who's unrelated. Pa McCurdy is no longer with us, but the design office is still in the back of his widow's home. Diana Russell would be able to get the names right. When not in the office designing, Ian McCurdy teaches naval architecture at SUNY Maritime.