Humphreys Yacht Design

Rob Humphreys’ philosophy is fairly simple. The essential criterion is that a yacht must earn great pride of ownership. It is not enough to say that for a racing yacht this qualification is simply to win races while for a cruising yacht it is to …, well…, what single expression can one possibly find to define success in a cruising yacht?

It is more complex than that. Of course, for the owner of a racing yacht a race winning ability is essential, and this has been delivered as a characteristic time and time again by Humphreys’ racing yachts; but usually there has been more to appreciate, i.e. the manner of that winning. Similarly, now, the success of a cruising yacht is measurable not by the volume of its interior and the number of berths that are contained, but by a myriad other features and characteristics that can benefit from the sort of optimisation that has had to be part of the racing yacht world.

Moving to specifics, the hull of a yacht is essentially an envelope around a lifestyle, and the nature of that envelope contributes hugely to the way that lifestyle is enjoyed. By definition, cruising implies some level of comfort, and comfort in turn implies features and facilities that have some weight and volume. For Humphreys the great thrill in his cruising work is to acknowledge all these elements and to package them in such a way that they are, in themselves, ergonomically juxtaposed, and to ensure that their weight properly accounted for so that the hull itself knows what sort of burden it has to deal with. Translating that to a hull form of a given length, a big part of the process is to decide how to distribute the volume of the hull, both the immersed volume and the topside form. Here thirty years of race boat experience helps enormously towards the choice of centre of buoyancy location, prismatic coefficient, angle of entry and the nature of the quarter wave delivery.

Many cruising diehards equate racing yacht designers with exclusive immersion in light displacement tendencies. That is a huge generalisation and Humphreys has produced a number of highly successful boats at what is considered to be at the heavy end of the spectrum in terms of displacement:length ratio. The Sigma 400, for example, has won the Spi Ouest France, Cowes Week, Cork Week, the Scottish Series, East Anglian Week, Celtic Week and countless other regattas.

The other manifestation of racing yacht experience is an insight into yacht balance, from having to make boats steer when driven to the edge. The sort of control that allowed the Maxi round the world yacht Rothmans to average 19.9 knots over a six hour period in the Southern Ocean creates a level of knowledge that is awfully useful when it comes to deciding on the geometric and hydrodynamic aspects of rigs and underwater appendages.

Of course, making the boat sail well is still only part of the story. For an owner to have any self-respect, his yacht needs to be able to sit there and, well, look pretty. For Rob Humphreys this is a vital criterion and one which his industrial design background would not allow him to ignore.

That essential component of a successful outcome to a project - pride of ownership - only comes about through pride of creation. Given that and an experienced insight, everything else tends to fall into place.

Humphreys Yacht Design Lower Seaforth House Bath Road Lymington Hampshire SO41 3RW UK Tel. +44 (0)1590 679344 Fax. +44 (0)1590 671651 info@humphreysdesign.com