Learning small boat design with Rhino

[Robert-Shetland]

Good day all,

I have posted before about learning boat design and what program to use etc, i have been learning Rhino for a good while to get to grips with it and finally took the plunge to start with a boat, here are a couple of snips of it, 16ft x 7ft design.

Going back to the boat design part, I have a fair amount of knowledge in boat's, design and Naval Architecture with my background being an MCA Engineer, sailed deep sea, part of that qualification is Naval Architecture, since then i have now started a business where i have built 4 small boats so far part time as i am still working offshore and doing this in my time home.

Are there any official distance learning type courses which you can learn Boat / Yacht design or are they all in house? Looking on the internet, certainly in the UK there doesn't seem to be much.

Another way to look at it is, do you need to have any specific qualification like that to design and put into production a boat? Or is using knowledge gained from building, and gleaning knowledge from books and such enough?

I look forward to your replies.

 

[bajansailor]

Another way to look at it is, do you need to have any specific qualification like that to design and put into production a boat?

I don't think so - many of the famous and well know yacht designers have had very little in the way of formal qualifications, but they had / have obvious ability.
And if you are designing and building the boat yourself, I think your main hurdle would be getting it 'approved' if you are looking to sell it commercially - would that require CE approval?

Re distance learning courses, have you come across the Westlawn Institute?
Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology https://www.westlawn.edu/
They say that if you complete the course in 4 years, the total cost is approx US$23,200.

Re your 16' speedboat in the drawings above, will she be built in aluminium?

 

[Ike]

Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology.. There are others that teach Yacht Design but as far as I know this is the only one that is distance learning. Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology https://www.westlawn.edu/

 

[Robert-Shetland]

I don't think so - many of the famous and well know yacht designers have had very little in the way of formal qualifications, but they had / have obvious ability.
And if you are designing and building the boat yourself, I think your main hurdle would be getting it 'approved' if you are looking to sell it commercially - would that require CE approval?

Re distance learning courses, have you come across the Westlawn Institute?
Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology https://www.westlawn.edu/
They say that if you complete the course in 4 years, the total cost is approx US$23,200.

Re your 16' speedboat in the drawings above, will she be built in aluminium?

Thanks for the reply,
I am already building boats, webiste here https://rlmarineltd.co.uk/
They are being CE marked, or as it is now UKCA marked, but i am getting a boat designer to design them at the moment rather than doing them myself, just with the knowledge and experience i have, i think i am more than capable and experienced enough to do it, just wanted to clarify the part about the rules, so thanks for that.

Will have a look at Westlawn also, but it may be something further down the line at that cost.

As far as the 16ft boat goes, I started with a 16 just as a trial run, I already have a 16foot design which looks the same as the 14 on my site, just 2 foot longer and a bit wider. The 16 in the pictures above was just a first run at designing a boat. I have had a lot of enquiries about 19's and 21's so now that i have done the 16 and am happy with it, I will be moving on to a 19 and 21 which will hopefully go into production in Aluminium.

Thanks
Robert