Playing the numbers game....

Does that ALWAYS guarantee good design?

Many of the telephone calls I take ultimately lead into a search to find some calculation or design number that guarantees a perfect boat. I suppose it’s understandable. We do live in a technological age, and boat design seems just another part of the picture. Where shorthand techniques used to be successful we now use lengthy computer analysis. Reams of pages are generated, some important, much indecipherable, and a good bit meaningless. The question is, does this rigor lead us to better boats? Well, the answer is probably yes… some of the time… I suppose….

Don’t get me wrong, I have championed improving the tools available to yacht designers for 25 years. I am concerned, however, that with our gusto for reducing things to the numbers, we may be loosing sight of the bigger picture. Today there are a host of groups developing rules, guidelines, standards and regulations for yacht design. Clearly all are well meaning. Many are quite useful, Still I wonder if these magic formulas always lead us in the best direction?

Standards, you see, are designed to apply to a wide range (sometimes a total range) of vessels within their vision. Rarely, however, is this blanket approach totally effective. As a result, the effort often seems less successful at perpetuating the design of good boats than it is at thwarting the design of bad ones. I fear the result may be boats barely above average that don’t look very good or perform very well.

Never lose site of the big picture. A boat is much more than simply a collection of equations: developed and fulfilled. That is why yacht design has often been called both an Art and a Science.