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Charter boats: which type best
suits your needs and sailing style?low and see the lines this way,’
he told me.
These are then digitised and
loaded into computers for
performance analysis and detail,
and construction design.
‘It’s all about harmony of line –
the human eye sees this better
than a machine. Aesthetics count.
And the arrival at a shape that
goes through the water best
comes from instinct as well as
from analysis.’
Then, when the hull design
is finalised, a scale model
is tank-tested at
Southampton’s
Wolfson Unit
for Marine
Technology
and Industrial Aerodynamics.
Nothing is left to chance.
Despite his success in the
superyacht world, however, Dubois
still enjoys designing production
boats, both power and sail.
He told me: ‘For the Norwegian
motorboat company Windy, we
designed the 11.9m (39ft) Camira
and the 2011-built SR52 – a
fast chase boat for sailing
superyachts. This is also now
sold as a multipurpose vessel.
‘So far they have built
approximately 20 of these
stunning craft, driven by three
Volvo pod drives. Windy has now
contracted us to design an SR42 –
a somewhat smaller version of
the successful 52.
‘We have also designed a range
of their smaller boats marketed
under the Draco brand name –
a 27 and a 22.’
On the sailboat front, Dubois
applied his superyacht skills to
designing the largest Oyster
models ever built – the 100
and 125. He also designed
some attractive upmarket
Southerly cruisers. The Southerly
535 and 57RS, both gorgeous-
looking yachts, brought real
class and style to the top of this
range. Sadly, however, few were
launched before the builders
Northshore Yachts folded and
ceased production.
Dubois’ interest in production
designs is clear. ‘It’s now ourintention to offer our services
to other production boat
companies – sail and power,’
he told me.
We have a lot to offer with our
experience in hull design and
ideas for styling, layout etc.’The way forward
This prompted me to ask
what Dubois thinks of modern
production yacht designs
in general.
‘I think they show great variety
and some of them are exciting
and successful. Rather like
motor cars, they seem to get
bigger and bigger (beam and
freeboard) for a given number
of passengers/crew. I guess
that’s the way the market
goes. Some of them are
quite extreme.
‘A big part of design is the skill
of balancing the various elements,which all have to work together,
to get to the right function-to-
purpose factor. Hence a very
wide stern, for example, is good
providing it doesn’t make the
boat unbalanced going to
windward in a lot of breeze –
which can sometimes happen
with designs that are fine forward,
unless you have heavy crew sitting
on the aft weather rail.
‘A wide-stern boat needn’t be
unbalanced without this crew
weight providing the lines are
compensated for by fuller
sections forward.
‘A yacht designer
has to know his
onions when it
comes to hull form
and volume distribution. In my
opinion this only comes from
successful racing yacht designers
who have studied their own work,
first hand, by sitting on the rail
for hours, weeks and, if you add
it all up, years, trying to win (and
winning) major offshore races
around the world.
‘That’s what I did in the ’70s,
’80s and into the ’90s. It’s
indispensable. If I were a client for
a cruising yacht, I would only go to
a successful racing-yacht designer
who had also designed beautiful
cruising yachts. The key is to
identify the true purpose of
the yacht and that can only be
achieved by understanding the
client and what he wants. This
is the same with a private
individual or a production boat
company. Like most things
in life, success is born out of
good communication.’Still sailing
And what does Dubois own and
sail himself? ‘I sail my lovely yacht
Firebrand, which I bought in 1998.
She lives during the summer on a
mooring on the Beaulieu River and
I can see her from my bathroom
window when I shave each morning!’
Firebrand is a classic 1965
S&S-designed Admiral’s Cupper,
a yacht that, not surprisingly,
combines beauty with performance.
‘I’ve sailed Firebrand in the Cowes
to St Malo race many times, to
Scotland and all over the English
Channel, Brittany and up the East
Coast as far as the Deben. This 43ft
Sparkman & Stephens design is a
wonderful boat in that she’s stiff –
48% ballast ratio, 7ft draught and
10.7 tonne displacement – and can
be sailed single-handed if you think
ahead. She’s powerful enough and
totally seaworthy so that you can
take her anywhere in the world if
you wanted to. She also looks
very pretty! One of the best things
I have ever done is buy Firebrand.’
She’s a classic 1960s example
of Dubois’ current thinking. He told
me: ‘It’s vital to get the various
ingredients of the design in the
right proportion and balance with
the right hull form, right construction
for the purpose, right layout etc.
‘It’s then vital to make any yacht
look pretty. This is where the art
side of design comes in – to
marry beauty with technical
excellence. That’s always
been my philosophy.’Boats – Designs of Ed Dubois
Firebrand, Ed Dubois’
1965 yacht which
he bought in 1998Draco 27RS, available
second-hand from £67,000‘The human eye sees harmony
of line better than a machine’
Windy SR52 Blackbird, a fast
chase boat for superyachts