Styling Detectives: A Modest Proposal

I used to know almost every single yacht over 80 feet, but since the number of such yachts have doubled over the last ten years, I have lost it a little...

But you are right, there are clues to which shipyard or which designer is behind most yachts. To connect them with the right is not more difficult than to connect cars with their brands, as long as you have seen a few of the same brand.

In my opinion this also goes for what you think of the designs (both with cars and boats), good looking are followed by good looking designs and ugly by ugly. Strange that nobody tells them to just go for good designs...

Loren,
Sometimes to identify yachts all you need are some subtle hints. When I started to do this, I would not look at the total yacht, but some part that stood out or that remained the same regardless of the yacht length or style. Case in point, the Hatteras yachts always had the same style of forward side windows. This worked well for a while, but they have recently changed the style to more euro-shaped. Browards usually had an unbroken sheer line, also with a highly polished teak rail cap in the forward section. Older Burgers were spotted a mile away, but by the looks of the products coming out of their sheds now, we'll have to look for the nameplate as they are constructing so many different styles. I'll come up with more but need to get some rest.

The one constant with older and newer Burgers (so far) is the shape of the Bow. If you look at pictures of Burgers you will notice a similar Bow form. Tough to put in to words what I mean.

Loren may have posed the hardest question we’ve ever had. It’s difficult at best to describe a design in words, both spoken and written. To the uninitiated, yachts are often a collage of white decks that invoke more curiosity about the lifestyle, then a discerning look at the telltale signs of their origin.

Surprisingly, most people can’t tell the difference between Benetti and a Bayliner. It’s remarkable how the brain interprets and categorizes visual input. Most of us couldn’t describe the difference between a Burger and a Broward, but if we see it… we can probably tell you who built it. Funny thing, huh?

There is quit a few builders that have retained their design characteristics and are easily identified from the pack.
I guess the reason for the ever growing brand confusion is that clients prefer "custom" designs from a builder of their choice to brake away from the heard and push the envelope, as well as the natural evolution of design that is necessary to keep ahead of the pack and appeal to the next generation of buyers. (Cars get a design change every 4 or 5 years).
These can't be confused for anything else:
perini navi
grand banks
nordhavn
marlow
westport
heesen

Actually I confuse Burger and Broward all the time. Both US, both start with "B". Which is all a small brain needs to stumble.

Will agree that Heesen has developed a distinctive look for itself. Not one that I'm thrilled about, but certainly distinctive.

novice Kelly

ab. the look of yachts

some peaces and patterns ab. what the "input": YACHTS does to an observer


born in Hamburg, most of my life yachts heave been boring little ships to me, not more (although kmowing, that the harbour is and was all hundrets of years the wealth of the city). When i occasionally read about their costs i laughed.

Some 3 years ago i needed some luxury water.toys infront of new architectural objects i had to present virtually, and i was forced to look and carry: Differnciating shapes, lines, curves, what was nicest and predicable in a given surround. The only criteria: their optical impression.

So i started with Swans and Rivas, (moddeling in 3D). But there was a strange thing to learn: They all looked nice and fine from the distance. Lovely photos, often with more back- than foreground. And when i got some real life photos of them in the web they turned out more and more ugly.
Most of them seemed to be nothing else than troublesom machines!
(Can make a winch out of pure gold - it's still a hinderance).
It cannot be an neverending joy to push such things through the water, so the joy they express seems to come from some elements, hidden at the first sight.
And if one with such experience orders a new object, there is no straight line given what comes out of the halls of the shipyard.

- so i thiink let's call it the first desillusion is: what i see as a new yacht in most cases is not the nicest most lovely shape it could be, but a stage between a starting form of the designer (what ever he had in mind) and the needs, the client gets his joy from.
Only on this point there are not less than 3 perspectives with different shapes to create: - The paymen with his experiences and wishes, - the designer/yard with their expectations ab. the owner's view + the possibillities to change for more practicallity or other rules and regulations - and the observer on the shore, sometimes with a camera in his hand.

Think for yourselfe what a discussion ab. fresh delivered yachts is worth if you don't heave enough informations of all 3 expirations (right word?). Seems like talking ab. a pinup - even when real working desingers + owners are "on board".
So that could be a second desillusing pattern: If one will argue about shapes and nicer shapes he cannot get much forward when focussed on real delivered objects ('cause as long as he is'nt the owner he doesn't know what he really is seeing - ore better which state he is watching).

Obviously there is an additional twist in judging the bigger cans: The people who can place an order of 2 and 3 digit-mill. $/EU... for a new object will heave a different access to enjoy a ride with it. When i resume what i've read ab. such processes then they implement their managing activities with the yard (sometimes through an external professionell) in their normal management for to stay in that economical state. So the Yacht is a deeper laying highlight covered uo by dayly (and presumable much more important) work, glimming and sparcling through it with the hope of some leisure day ore hours of quiet (ok, representative quiet..., ore most representative quiet, perhaps globally top of the world internationally most representative quiet, ore resp. bigger than Abramovich's... something like that perhaps). So i can imagine that, when this new owner first time puts his foot on the deck he allready has in mind the first refit, a broker and the figures an immediale sale could realize. So what does an observer see when this thing shippers (that's germish) out of the yard? What do you see when you'll judge the design lets say of the Kogo - from photos, more bad: from this little photos in the yf?

Working out advises for designers of real boats and real clients is a serious thing, ain't it? I don't understand evrey thing Lars is especting from such a forum like this but a thread like this should enable someone like him him to more variety, more nice lines, right?

The pinup-part YF allready has. Perhas some experienced members can tell some more and multiple views of real projects, so we all can imagine some more real processes and meanings about the lines and shapes that was leftover from those processes and turned out to be the "Maltese Falcon", the "Princess Mariana", ore the Burger "WOW".
Could be interesting.

TS

Hi TomTom,

If I understand you right, what you are saying is that most of what we see is repeat designs, which is true. Clients turn to a certain builder or designer and asking for something along what they have designed before. Or the shipyard is building on speculation, almost like production boats, but with minor changes. The result in both cases is what Loren says, inherited lines you will recognize.

Your questions on why not better or more beautiful designs comes out when the buyers are paying so much, is perhaps also what you are saying, they are afraid of going wrong, with a bad resell value or higher maintenance costs, or simply what people would think?

On your question what I get out of a thread like this, I don´t know yet, but from the different sites I am following on the internet, I have learned that most people have no idea about what is good or bad design in general and especially not on superyachts. They are more focused on names and sizes and gadgets and costs than the built in qualities of a good design. In short, the emperors new clothes...

/Lars

I just wanted to say that I think Lar's view is right on. And this applies not only to yachts, but also to the most inexpensive production boats. Most shoppers are entirely focused on the various features packed into the product. Never do stand back and take a broader view of the overall result. Seems to be human nature.

Kelly

Great thread Loren . I , like almost every guy I know can not fight the impulse to play "name the boat" while riding the canals ,rivers and coast of the US eastern seaboard. Its an addiction.
The superstructure is where my eye goes to figure out who did it. And there are some designers that have a signature hull design ,i.e.. Fexas , Wally .
It appears that there are obvious trends in naval architecture that maybe influenced by geography. ergo west coast designers , Sarin, Monk , Crealock and their high transom combings and freeboard ; Italian design teams with beautiful curves radial cuts in the superstructure and hull , Dutch designers and builders have a plumb or traditional symmetry to many of their superstructures and hulls. New England has a Traditional workboat style & Asia has many designers like Lien Hwa.

Interesting reading TomTom's perspective of a boat .... "And when i got some real life photos of them in the web they turned out more and more ugly. Most of them seemed to be nothing else than troublesom machines!"

I agree the words boat and trouble are usually interchangeable. But for some reason when a designer and builder are on the same bend, it is becomes obvious when the boat is on the water . The balance and symmetry of the ships lines hit a nerve in the brain; freeboard, stanchions, windows everything is balanced and works together on a machine that will move you through the water at various speeds over and over again. At that point the troublesome machine has become a beautiful tool to get around on 2/3's of the Planet.

Loren still has a good point. It is getting harder to pick up the diferences in a lot of boats. Safty in repeating or imitating a successful design has created homogeneous look. Especially if it is your money fronting the cost of a mold...

Hi Loren,

it's a bit funny that you posted this thread, cause for quite a while I am thinking about the, lets call it quality of design, specialy on Lürssen and A&R but also about Espen Oeino and Bruce King. For these four it's like Carl said "if we see it...", in the case of Lürssen lets say without the ones above 100 m cause they are to unique.

What puzzles me is that this is some thing of limitation or am I wrong? If you have seen one bridge of a Lürssen you can identify them all, except LE120 and The One. Even on MIPOS and Octopus you see this style. And what me really wonders is, isn't it becoming boring? See Capri, Linda Lou, Kismet, Oasis etc. Where are the innovative designs? Where is Vitruvius? As far I have seen, Sunflower will be a mix of Octopus and MIPOS. Ain't this leading to a limitation in clients, cause everyone thinks they can only built this style?

Sorry if I maybe interpreted this wrong, but I thought that the designer makes the style and not the shipyard. Ok, dreaming of having the money, if I wouldn't have time and I am not a unique being with no own ideas then maybe I would also say "I want the same this man from the computer company got", but this is like criket, boooorrrriing....

Take a look a the *****'s website and tell me the builder of SCOUT, NEWSCOT and BERMUDA. See what I mean?

Leveller