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Yacht Design School
Yacht Design School is primarily a distance learning institution, though we have had a few students in residence here, two of who have stayed permanently. Please read the material in the Brochure first, and then browse the lessons contents summaries. This will suggest questions which you may find the answers to in our Frequently Asked Questions. You may enroll and buy educational software using the buttons below. All Books recommended for students, both in print and out of print can be ordered through us, if you wish.
"The education, and career, that you don't have to go into debt for." - Tom MacNaughton
"Genius is learned behavior" - Tom MacNaughton
"I want to say to you that the decisions to change my work from building to designing and the choice of following the Yacht Design School for this, are the best decisions I have ever made!" - Evert Jan Boot, The Netherlands
Yacht Design School offers the brief CAD Course amd two groups of lessons which form the Main Curriculum
Computer Assisted Design Course: Normally referred to as the "CAD Course", this curriculum is the most common entry point into YDS, and teaches students "on screen" drafting and 3D modeling using the Rhino software, which is the standard for yacht and small craft naval architecture. This prepares students to take our Main Curriculum, and results in a Certificate on completion of the CAD Course lessons. Those with prior CAD experience and limited finances, may be able to start the Main Curriculum without taking the CAD Course, but will be expending time to save money. This course will not make you a qualified yacht draftsman, though it may be of assistance in getting CAD related employment. Most students will buy a bundle of the CAD Course and Rhino software. You can buy the Rhino software separately.
CAD Course & current version of Rhino Educational License bundle: $1,404
CAD Course only: $1,209
Rhino Educational License only, Educational License: $195
Bongo animation plug-in for Rhino, highly optional: $195
Sagittarius 33 - A true Colin Archer type. Typical of working drawings produced by those who've mastered the Yacht Draftsman Certificate lessons of the Main Curriculum.
Main Curriculum - Granting a Professional Degree of Naval Architect with a Specialty in Yacht & Small Craft Design
Completion of Lessons 1-11 will qualify the student for our Yacht Draftsman Certificate which is normally sufficient to obtain an entry level marine drafting job with an established firm.
Completion of the entire Main Curriculum, through Lesson 20 will qualify the student for our professional degree of Naval Architect with a Specialty in Yacht & Small Craft Design. Those completing the entire Main Curriculum will be highly knowledgeable yacht designers capable of running their own firms.
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On completion of all the above Lessons you will receive our Yacht Draftsman Certificate, which will amply qualify you for an entry level drafting position with any established yacht design firm or any firm designing small commercial craft.
Occasionally a student will wish to acquire all the above lessons at once. In that case the bundle of all lessons from number one through number eleven can be ordered as follows:
All 16 Lessons, 1 through 11, required to qualify for the Yacht Draftsman Certificate:
$6,975
The advanced Lessons needed to receive the professional degree of Naval Architect with a Specialty in Yacht and Small Craft Design can be acquired only after completing the above Lessons. Completing all Lessons through Lesson 20 will qualify the graduate to run their own design firm. They will be among the most highly qualified designers in our field.
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Colby Cruising Sea Kayak - CNC kit for 2 people well over 6 feet tall, in 3 interlocking sections, student Seth Colby design.
$450
18. Reserved for Future Use
$450
Wealth for the Working Person - Required book for Lesson 19, if not previously purchased
$40
$450
Yacht Design School Residential Study, Design Internships, & Research Internships - In Eastport, Maine
Residential Study - For a number of years it was common for students to come to Eastport to study with us full time. This had the advantage that students could work on their lessons here in our office days and continue their work wherever they were staying in the evenings. This gave them access to our extensive library and the ability to watch our design firm in operation. The consensus always was that, while they could learn well through distance learning, it was inspiring to be right here where they could ask questions easily, look things up in a wider variety of books, and usually interact with other students. Since on screen design has taken over, and made it much quicker for students to send CAD files back and forth to their instructors quickly over the Internet, there have been fewer students who have moved here for year round study, but an increase in those who have come here for a few weeks or months at a time. These have come from all over North America, Europe, and Asia.
Design Internships – Students at any stage in their studies can do unpaid internships in our office. Usually being giving smaller simpler designs to work on at whatever pace they can manage. Students who have passed enough lessons, and done enough of their own yacht drafting to be reasonably confident in their work are often able to do actual paying work on our custom design projects. They are paid a percentage of what we are charging, acting as a subcontractor. This amounts to an automatic adjustment of the dollars per hour that they earn. That is a new intern is likely to be lucky to make minimum wage due to the number of questions and amount of dithering and revising they have to do. As they get more productive the dollars per hour goes up automatically. Generally interns will show an upward trend in dollars per hour that get as long as they work here. The Chief Designer of our design division considers himself quite moderate in drafting speed and it has not been uncommon for interns to get to the point where they earn more per hour on drafting than the Chief Designer does. Advanced student interns often have evolved into a fulltime draftsmen with out design firm, generally eventually founding their own firms in whatever country they call home. One reason we don’t retain draftsmen forever is that our design firm is the only one I know of that allows draftsmen to sign their names on drawings they’ve done and retain copies to show to their own prospective clients. This makes it a lot easier for them to establish their own firm, though often they will go on doing work for us as well.
Research Internships – We have added a modest tool shop and test facility and hope to be building new materials test equipment for a number of research projects. Students who are interested may wish to get involved in building the test equipment, undertaking the projects, and assisting in preparing papers on the results. These are unpaid internships but they do come with access to our library and public credit for the work you do, which will hopefully help you in finding your place in our field. Past research projects have been published in Woodenboat and we would hope to also publish in Professional Boatbuilder. We sell articles and books based on our research as well.
Supplemental Knowledge Relevant to Our Profession
Wealth for the Working Person – This text on investing for the ordinary working person is required for the latter part of our Main Curriculum. It teaches how to understand your financial situation and our financial system works in such a way that anyone can achieve Financial Independence and later Wealth in a moderate period of time. The impact on one’s life of realizing one no longer needs to work, and continues to work only for personal satisfaction, and to increase your net worth is extremely positive. We suggest buying this book at the start of your instruction because demand for our students is great enough that students tend to get at least entry level jobs in the field while still working on the first half of the Main Curriculum. At that point they should immediately start investing a modest percentage of their income so that they will be comfortably financially independent as early as possible. This is especially important in that for some students this is their second career, and they should be wealth building as rapidly as possible. We are still supplying the pre-publication edition review edition illustrated at left, which was sent to various investment experts and political people to review. The only alteration for the formal first edition suggested by our reviewers is a slight reorganization of the presentation. 289 pages.
Weatlth for the Working Person - Keep It Simple / Do It Right
$40
Shipping outside of the U.S. & Canada on book orders. The following charge is per shipment regardless of the number of books ordered, not per book:
$32
Khan Academy - Contrary to the belief of many aspiring students the math involved in yacht and small craft naval architecture is not complex. Most people will probably need more help in learning to be careful with their calculations and with checking their work, than actually needing much math instruction. Of course, we are always here to teach anything you didn't get in school at no additional charge and our "Basic Math Primer" can be emailed to you free of charge. However for those who want to learrr math from the simplest of addition problems up through quite advanced subjects, we recommend the Khan Academy www.khanacademy.org This fully endowed online institition is absolutely free and amazingly good at teaching from the simplest concept to the most advanced.. Though they started with math they are well on their way to providing a complete uniiversity education without charging you a cent. Though we teach in much greater depth than they do we hope to build an endowment like that we never have to turn away a student with a financial need.
The Woodenboat School - Though run by Woodenboat Publications, this school teaches everything from sailing, and cruising, courses, to survey, repair and construction. You can even learn to cast yourr own bronze hardware. This is a great family experience and a wonderful way to spend summer vacations. Virtually everything you would learn at this school would enhance the knowledge you need to be a truly great designer. We highly recommend this school in addition to our curriculum.
