All my work concerns integration.

Boats bring us together!

A Portfolio of Designs:

I’ve always been interested in creating designs that

Though my designs are a reflection of the amateur boatbuilder movement; I’ve never done kits. I’m not comfortable promising that, “Anyone can build this!”

While it’s great that kits and composite construction have given so many a chance to get started in boatbuilding; my interest is in where we go from here.

The fact that so many have tasted the possibilities of making your own presents a great opportunity. We don’t need more boats. We need more people connecting with their own inner wellsprings and leaving consumerism behind.

My focus is on designing boats that require the skills of a traditional boatbuilder.

There are few such builders left and I fear those skills are disappearing.

We need to challenge ourselves and each other to develop skills.

Discover and develop an ethos where vitality and connection are more important to us than escape.

Traditional boats tend to be pleasure craft today.

Interested in going further?

Some designs have plans available. The smaller boats are intended to be built in lapstrake, either with marine ply or timber planking. Andy McKonkey’s Harrier, Wilbur Larch, shown below illustrates this kind of hybrid of traditional & composite construction.

It creates a boat that looks and feels and acts like a traditional boat. It’s also a chance for someone to develop their skills further, beyond what’s involved in the usual plywood kit.

These designs include:

Hand-drawn lines and a table of offsets (Small and Harrier, designed in CAD twenty years ago, do have some full-sized patterns) a basic construction plan and a sail plan.

The dream may start as a way to get away from it all.

Most of the larger designs are Cartoons.

Preliminary, proof-of-concept drawings meant to be taken as starting points for the development of boats that will suit the particular needs of a respective client.

I find the expectation that the boat-of-your-dreams already exists in some stack of “stock-plans” is almost universal.

Traditionally, someone approached a designer or designer/builder with their needs and the boat was developed to meet them. In this late-consumer-age we no longer expect to have to rummage through a pile of random boots to find a pair to cram our feet into; but almost everyone contemplating a boat expects that the only available/affordable option is to buy what’s already been developed for somebody else.

Everything involved in building a boat is expensive. I understand the desire to cut-costs. But, especially as the boat gets bigger, the proportion of expenditure taken up by design gets smaller while the stakes for ending up with not-the-right-boat gets higher.

Designer & Client covers this dynamic.

I encourage anyone contemplating a substantial build to look into collaborating with a designer. Find someone compatible with your interests and temperament. If you’d like to look into collaborating with me send me a note via the form below.

Let’s…

consult on an existing project

discuss a new design

arrange a speaking engagement

develop a workshop

Coming Soon!

Questions? Check out: