Tuesday, July 23, 2013




Here is Attessa IV a 330' Megayacht cruising the Canadian San Juans.
This is the last yacht for which I was project manager at Glade Johnson Design Inc. I worked with Glade and the team for 17 years and gained the confidence to design something as crazy as Frog Prince. Thank you Glade for all that you taught me.

 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

The Drawings

The drawings for Frog Prince went through many iterations before satisfying all the criteria. The main requirements were, ease of construction, I couldn't afford a Mega Yacht; folding capability, I couldn't afford to pay moorage fees for a 53 foot yacht; beauty, it had to be beautiful to my eye at least; comfort, it had to be a place where my family would feel like accompanying me.




Wednesday, July 10, 2013

My Early Efforts at Boat Design

In June 1963 at age 16, I wandered into a grocery store and came upon a copy of Yachting Magazine which cost $0.60 back then and became immediately fascinated with boats. Soon after, I built the yellow kayak pictured below. It proved less than successful, needing an outrigger to keep it from tipping over, a good lesson for me.
After visiting a naval architect I became intimidated by the amount of math involved. Architecture seemed less involved with math and still very creative. So in college that is what I took. After practicing for 20 years, not very successfully,I realized that I still loved boats and moved to Seattle Washington to be closer to the ocean and more boats.
I got a job with a very well know yacht design firm Glade Johnson Design Inc. and worked there for 17 years involved in Mega Yachts from 130 to 330 feet in length. The Frog Prince is the culmination of all those years of designing houses and boats for others. Now it was time to design my own boat.
The same long, low, slim shape as my new design. 

Thursday, July 4, 2013

We Begin: The Planning Stage

A beautiful day in the sun with wooden boat builder Brad Rice " The Boatwright" at his shop on Whidbey Island, Washington. I view my design in model form for first time. It is more beautiful than I imagined. Long, low and thin like my old yellow kayak from 50 years ago.  

We discuss the fine points of hinging the various hull sections to take the boat from 53' down to 18.5' to fit a 20' shipping container bound for the canals of France. We eventually made the house a little longer and took the beam down from 7'- 0" to 6'-10" allowing better access to the British canal system.