Idea
to boat
Part
One: Design sketches, out of the closet
They
have different names: envelope sketch, napkin sketch,
cartoon. None of them are particularly complimentary tags,
especially considering the importance of these first
capturings of an idea on paper. They are the pillar that
the whole design rests on.
In Common Sense of Yacht Design, L. Francis Herreshoff
emphasized the importance of the budding designer
practicing his or her drawing skills. Not drafting skills,
freehand skills. His first sketches of boats like
Ticonderoga or Rozinante would be fascinating to see. Cy
Hamlin, in his book on preliminary boat design, devoted a
whole chapter to freehand drawing.
I’ve always sketched out my boat ideas, but they were For
Office Use Only. I’ve shown a few to potential customers,
sometimes they helped make a project go, but the customer
often looked doubtful—until they saw the final drafted
drawings. . .and especially the boat that resulted from the
process that began with that sketch. There’s a feel, a
heart, a massing, a subtly of form that is captured in the
sketch and I work hard to hang onto it in the drafted plans
and built boat.
Going directly from the sketch to a fully drafted sail plan
can work very well, as it did for the Somes Sound 12 1/2,
but for most evolving designs I need something cleaner and
more refined than the first sketch but quicker and looser
than the full drafting.
I
found that by enlarging the rough sketches, then taping
them to a light table and tracing freehand, I can take the
lines of the rough sketch—that often look like they were
drawn with a crayon—and begin to refine the curves, lines,
and shapes. One thing I like about
this second level of drawing is that if we hang it on the
wall and think “hmmm, what about changing the stem shape,”
fifteen or twenty minutes later I can have a whole new
drawing to hang up next to the first. We did that several
times with our new (and still evolving) design for a
folkboat-inspired, competitive but family-friendly boat.
Quickly scanning and emailing these simple little drawings
works perfectly for exchanging ideas with others and aiming
the design in the right direction. I can make more
presentable drawings by tracing them in ink on the light
table, but pencil sketches generally scan well enough for
discussion purposes.
This process also makes it
easy to come up with major changes quickly, like a new
cabin design or sail plan. For example, the first sketch
for our Silver Penny daysailer, a requested (and also
evolving) 19’ relative of the Scandanavian work boat Sjogin
had a gaff
rig then an hour or two later there was another one,
with the marconi rig. The little trunk cabin as sketched
wasn’t quite right, so that changed, too. The trunk
cabin is a fine example of using these simple sketches
to figure out the gnarlier aspects of form vs. function:
one of the many charms of the original Sjogin is her
cabin and how it settles into the whole boat, just
right. A 19’ boat cannot have the same amount of cabin,
there just isn’t enough length in the boat; something
has to give, somewhere. But a cabin is incredibly
useful, its practical functions are many, from providing
a bit of warm and dry to offering a modicum of privacy
for necessary, err, functions.
Though we haven’t
mentioned the word “computer” yet in this discussion, this
is the point at which it enters into the process, not to
generate the design but to have some fun with Photoshop’s
pots of paint to produce a new perspective, and a better
feel for how the boat will look out there on the
bay:
These sketches are just
the beginning of a design process that continues through
the paper stage, through the building, until the boat comes
to life upon the water.
TO COME. . . . .
Paper to wood, shaping the
design in three dimensions.
Once we’ve established the
basic design and have a firm go-ahead, I’ll draft the final
sail plan and start a lines drawing then carve a half model
and record the sections from the half model to the lines
drawing. We’ll talk about that part of the design process
in the next installment.