Most beautiful designs?

I'm a little curious... on a completely informal level, who do you all here think designs the most beautiful boats? Big boats, little boats, power, sail, one particular design, or a designers general model line... whatever genre you prefer. I'm just curious to see what such a diverse group of designers (pro & amateur) view as a "beautiful" design.

 

Can of Worms...

Hello...

Currently - Rodger Martin - http://www.rodgermartindesign.com/ - not encumbered by 'traditional beauty' ...

Also Rodney Johnstone - now his son - http://www.jboats.com/ ...

But then I also lean towards Bruce Bingham and his Flicka - Pacific Seacraft - out of production - http://www.coslink.net/personal/flickafriends/covers/index.html - bit gloppy...

Aslo Ian Outred...

Perhaps Bruce Kirby for all of the Nonsuch and Niagara and Kanter designs - and his sharpies - http://www.duckflatwoodenboats.com/mainpages/gallery?KID=42 ...

Kurt hughes - http://www.multihulldesigns.com/ ...

Jack Holt for all his speed sailing mental meanderings...

Lars Oudrup for some early catamarans - and Aurther Piver for early Trimarans...

Finally my best friends kid for his Radio Controlled boats that he picks my smallish brain to get built...

BUT THEN - Uffa Fox - and his metre boats - Waterwitch 30 and the 15's - http://www.uffafox.com/ - my wifes crank father apparently knew this mutt and hated playing him on the links because he cheated with same balls - thats about the only link my wife and I have with sailing - - or golf ...

As for power I will give that to Dave Gerr and his Summer Kyle - which I would very much like for myself - http://www.bremer.net/bellemarie/ - save not with the flush front glass..

Yup...

SH.

 

Interesting choices.

 

I'm really fond of Maurice Griffiths designs, but I also like 70's music better than what they make nowadays! (not really a good comparison, is it!?)

 

Mark Ellis gets credit for the Nonsuch Catboats. Were you thinking of Kirby's Norwalk Island Sharpies?

William Garden. As Bob Perry said "Ole Bill has magic in his pencil."

 

As long as you're talking about 70s ROCK and not 70s DISCO (blech) it's all good.

 

Can't it be both??? PLEASE!!!

 

Disco?


Anyways..... my pick for designers of contemporary sailing yachts has to be Dubois. (I like their motor yachts as well, but it's hard to find any motor yacht "beautiful" IMO.) I haven't picked a fave "classic" yet.

 

I think the price for the most stylish yachts has to go to http://www.spirityachts.com.

Which I had enough change in my wallet for one of them.

Karsten

 

L. F. Herreshoff, his dad and his son,
Stevens,
Atkin,
Benford,
White,
Lapworth,
Robb,
Hendel,
Paine,
Hand,
Crocker,
Seaborn,
Nevins,
Davis,
Payson,
Gartside,
and countless more . . . including Bolger and Buehler whom have designed some of the ugliest and most attractive yachts around.

I'd like to include myself, but frankly never in the list above, even if Bolger makes the list. I know a few of those guys and have met a few others and I'm not in the same league. We all have been forced to draw up some ugly stuff to please a client . . .

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - expect some loooooong lists.

 

“designs" would imply is designing, as in currently? Rather than has designed or did design?

The stunning thing about Par's list is that only the last three are still active in the field. Great beauty has ceased to be overriding criteria in yacht design, and any concession to beauty is frowned upon in commercial vessel design. This, for a lover of traditional beauty for its own sake, is a source of great concern. I do see occasional flashes, but on the whole, things do not look good. (pun intended!)

There are, (IMO) two schools of the beautiful, the first would be beauty for its own sake (and dam the consequences), and there is practical beauty. I would put Paul Gartside's work in the first category, all his designs are first off really beautiful, and he'll do the best he can with modern naval architecture. But practicality does not drive the design concept, beauty does.

Phil Bolger's current work fits the second category, it is so rigorously practical as to ignore completely traditional aesthetic values, but the work and the thinking behind it remains impressively beautiful.

So the "most beautiful" category is really small, as Par says, you have to please the client; well don't let him tell you what to design. LFH certainly didn't, of course he also didn't need to make a living. That's where great beauty is going to come from, design that is unfettered by economic (and performance) prerequisites.

Designers’ currently practicing whose work is (mainly) driven by traditional values of beauty.

Paul Gartside - small boats of British heritage
Ian Oughtred - really small boats of Scottish heritage
Nigel Irens - brilliant interpretations of traditional types
Ed Burnett - again British heritage
Andre Hoek - quasi American style "yachts", only occasionally good
Gerry Dijkstra - (as Hoek) but more European influence
Dick Newick - interpretations of ancient pacific types (equal value of performance)
Bob (Robert) Stephens - struggling not to be pushed around by clients
David Ryder-Turner - copies of traditional designs
Francois Vivier - excellent interpretations of traditional types

Designers currently trying to achieve traditional values of beauty in some of their work.
Chuck Paine - interpretations of traditional American types
S&S - poor tries at traditional interpretations
Ted Fontaine - traditional interpretations, too many concessions to practical
Spirit Yachts - interpretations, completely missing beauty
Bob Perry - interpretations of Scandinavian types, occasionally good

There are undoubably others who I've missed or forgotten, for that I apologize.

I notice that the above concerns almost exclusively sailing yachts, someone mentioned that it was hard to find any motoryacht beautiful. I would submit a couple.

Tad

(edited to add) see images in gallery

 

4 sailing yacht one-design
Old Class J
Bruce Farr do very nice yacht &they're fast...
Backewell-White in New Zealand
Nigel Irens make nice racing trimaran
Owen -Clarke in UK
Joubert-Nivelt in France
4 big sailing yacht builder:
X-Yacht
Power boat : Italian & english do really nice one: Sunseeker(UK) or Azimut(IT)
RS boat do certainly the best sport dinghies
For really huge one the Queen Mary II is quite nice inside ;-)

Anyway 95% of yacht looks like old caravan ..... they're just waiting inside marina..... so maybe we need forget about stability ,ergonomy and hydro so we can play with design as much as we want..... Unfortunetly it becomes to be like that in lot of company (mine too) and it really break my balls when designer want draw a whole yacht &it's quite a disaster most of the time So it'll be a nice if designer just make little sketch with color pen & leave the job to yacht designer and naval architect so maybe after we can sail on proper yacht. I don't speak about power boat cause it's a bit different.

 

I have built a Griffiths Lone Gull II , scaled from 24lwl to 28lwl , comes out to a 33loa.

Hardly the prettiest boat at the dock , but sailes like a witch and powers just fine.

I "stole" the Myth of Malham cutter rig from the ocean racing days when boats were more honest , and the cutter was being refined & raced.

Built of Airex and GRP the boat weighs less than the Myth did in wood.

With a fully battened mainsail the boat is very easy to single hand , sail out anchor etc.

The SA is 737 sq ft and gets over 1000 , with the light genoa.

Can't keep up with a Cal 40 , but with 120 lbs of eutectic plate to keep the ice cream ,and all the cruising weight (200G of FW) never expected to.

No problem beating Valiant 40, till the breze is over 14 or so and they get a bigger lwl.

Griffiths writes delightfully and is MUST reading for folks that enjoy the cruising life.

FAST FRED

 

Bruce Farr is cool

This is the 806 not a spectacular design but nice

http://www.806er.de/Segelbilder.htm

Knut H Reimers is a good designer the Tumlaren is a nice boat.

well there are so many

Hans