Design Process
Getting to know you and what is important for you is the foundation on which we build your dream boat.
The Process of Yacht Design
Drawing is just a small part of turning your ideas into a final design. Most of it is talking, asking questions, thinking, more talking and coffee. A lot of coffee.
Aluminium is our material of choice when it comes to yacht building. It is lightweight, strong, stiff, low maintenance and customisable. Moreover, it can be recycled indefinitely.
Yacht exterior design
Using existing hull designs can shorten the lead time of your build. Hulls we’ve built before can be perfectly suited for your ideas. Drawings can simply be ordered form the naval architect and building can commence relatively quick.
Yacht interior design
Knowing the hull type, we can take your wishes and put them in a preliminary design. This will be a rough outline of the general arrangement (interior layout), a sail plan, a lateral view of the underwater hull and a deck plan. Together with you and the architect we can tweak this plan into a final design.
Building a yacht: step by step plan
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Let’s Meet
Drawing
Prepare for building
Start Building
Mockup
Finishing Touch
Testing
Launch Time
Getting Ready
Testing
Ownership
Aftercare
Let’s meet
After a first contact, usually by phone or email, we make an appointment to meet. Face to face, digital or in the flesh, whatever works best for you. We discuss initial ideas, wishes and demands. We want to get to know you and your sailing intentions, so we understand what kind of boat fits you. When we have a general idea of the intended use, the size, hull shape, riging wishes and budget, that’s when we can start sketching
Drawing
We draw our initial designs. Top view, side views. These sketches form the basis of a process that can take anything from a couple of months to more than a year. There are many choices to make. Shape, size, exterior, interior, materials, number of masts, huts, bunks, engine type to name but a few. After each round of schetches we discuss the design choices. If they meet your demands and how they have consequences for other wishes you might have. You can imagine how for example the choice for a lifting keel influences the interior.
Prepare for building
When the final drawings are approved, we can prepare for hull building. This means breaking the whole design down to a list of all parts and materials and checking their availability. Once we know when we can have all necessary materials, we can start planning the build.
Start Building
The day we start the actual build is a special day. If in any way possible the owners are present and get the honour of performing the first weld, much like laying the first brick when building a new house.
Mockup
When the hull is done and it is time to build the interior, we ideally make a mockup of the yacht so we can walk you through it and make sure we’re still on the right track.
Finishing Touch
Now it’s time for finishing, electricity, plumbing and then we’re ready for testing.
Testing
Before we can launch, we test everything inside. Water, plumbing, lights, gas and if everything works as planned, it time to launch.
Launch Time
The moment everybody has been waiting for. Launch time. But the yacht isn’t finished yet. The next step still holds some essential parts.
Getting Ready
Mast, rigging and sails are installed. Quite important for a sail boat.
Testing
Now your yacht is ready to be tested in the field, or in our case in the lake, the IJsselmeer.
Ownership
And then, after what usually has been more than 12 months, we can hand the ownership officially over to you.
Aftercare
A custom built yacht is unique. There is no way of knowing beforehand that what looked like an excellent idea on paper, will perform exactly as expected. So after a few weeks of sailing, you might want to come back and have some options changed or added. This is normal and we still have to build our first yacht that doesn’t need a few tweaks here and there before its new owners are perfectly happy.
Questions about the design process?
Building Process
A yacht isn’t built in a day. For the future owner it starts when after years of dreaming they decide that the time to have their own yacht built is now.
Our Fleet
With close to a hundred yachts in our portfolio, chances are you can find your next yacht, or at least inspiration for your new build here.