How much do yacht designers make?

Can someone tell me please is a yacht designer, yacht cad designer and yacht architect and naval architect all the same thing?

I was at the London boat show and met the owner of a yachting company. He was so interested in what I had to say, obviously he would be because he really wants to sell me a boat. But this went deeper. I had ask this owner if he could do a custom build for me and he said he could. I then went into brain overload mode and started to showing my creative side. He was totally blown away. I started moving all over the boat. Showing how this feature could be made better. How the cockpit could be improved to maximize space. How the stateroom needs adjustments etc etc. Anyway he started saying where does all this creativity come from? I told him that my family are like architects. They have built from the ground up all our houses. There very creative and that's where all my ideas stem from. From watching them as I grew up. He said he was very impressed. You see by profession I'm a trader. I work in the import/export of commodities. He immediately said to me your trader right? I said yeah and told him that above field I work in. He told me that many people have come by and seen our boats at this stand. But none of them have gone into great detail like I had done. He further said I had asked all the right questions and that I had done excellent research. He even said your ideas could go into a future model. I then felt if I had amazed him so much. Then he's only at the tip of the iceberg, as I honestly feel I could create incredible yachts. I then told him how I would like an innovations company one day. Which builds amazing inventions and how I would like to build a car, yachts and so on and so on. He was very interested. I felt that he was going to offer me a job working for him which I would absolutely love. I got his contact details. Do you think I should ask him for a job? He sent me a very nice email the other day.

I would love to join his talented team of designers and present my ideas that could go into a future model say for the companies 2010 line of yachts.

Do you know what the pay is like? do I get a cut as in a percentage of equity stake in the company or is it just a fixed salary. The thing is as I work full time in import/export where I make very good money. So coming over to put all my time into boat building means losing a lot of money in import/export and I would only do it if the pay from boat building could keep up. And the only way it could is if I got a percentage cut on any boat built.

I think with my talents I could design the finest boats which would sell by the thousands. As you can see I am very ambitious.

Please give me any input

Many thanks in advance

Many thanks for your replies

Like everyone I have a budget. Sometimes I go too into the deep end with grand budgets like when I wanted a massive 100 foot yacht. As a first boat I believe now that to be too big. So I then looked at a aft cabin cruiser like the bayliner's. Then I decided to go back to having a yacht but on a smaller budget to see if I actually like the yachting first and if I do then I will get a massive yacht in the future.

I can tell you this. My parents have built magnificent homes which we have sold over the years. It's one of our many businesses. The house designs have won many awards for it's incredible design innovation. I would now liked to take this to the next level into the boating arena and believe that I really can do something special. My parents are like architects we give our design to a cad designer who then models it, that cad designer is the architect. Not us. But in some cases we actually understand the plan better than the architect. So in some cases my ideas could be better than a naval architect's ideas.

So anyway you call this profession 'Yacht Stylists'. So what is the set fee per job?

K1W1

Many thanks for your reply

Perhaps a stylist is not what I'm looking to be, as it seems from your reply that stylists are used for clients as in custom builds. I actually want to give my design talents to the boat building company designing their next model range of boats, what do you call this profession?

K1W1

Many thanks for your reply

So the boat building company would be my client and I would be the stylist that would design the boat. Then they would build it. I get paid for that a set fee. If I am only going to be paid a few thousand then I see there's no point. I would rather pay to setup my own boat building company and reek in far bigger profits. I had hoped that I could perhaps make something like 10-35 percent profit from any boats sold that I design.

It's good that I am in communication with you, someone with 25 yrs of experience is welcoming. The boats this company sell cost £380,000+ that's there cheapest model and it goes up to £650,000 across about ten of their models. I hoped they would use my design in which I would redesign all their current models for their new 2010 line as well make a brand new range for 2010. So would I make this few thousand pounds on every boat sold using my design?

Many thanks in advance

Many thanks for your opinion

I believe I have already impressed this owner and feel he may give me the chance to prove to him I have talent. You see I think he wants me to prove to him my talents by paying for a new build. As he said to me if you want us to do a new construction then you could input all your ideas. I wonder if afterwards he would offer me a job when he sees the final finish boat that I would of designed for the price he charges me. This way I am kind of buying my way into the business.

It's both, Well let me start over again.

Firstly I would love a job with this mans company designing my own boats.

Secondly, as I was at the boat show he was trying to sell me one of his boats. He said he liked my ideas and thought if I buy his boat the one on show. Then I can modify it to my liking. He also said I can design a new boat from scratch as a custom build.

Now what I was trying to say to you in a previous post is that he would probably only give me a future job as yacht designer/stylist if I can prove to him that I really do have good design skills. Now in order for him to think that, I believe he wants me to show my design skills in a new boat I pay for to design from scratch. This way it's my money being spent and not his. Or maybe if I asked him he would probably give me a job and not bother with me having to buy a boat. Because I mean what's one boat sale compared to many boat sales which it could be if I started designing them all which in turn had many many sales.

Many thanks for your reply

I am very aware of Jon Bannenberg he was an absolutely fantastic yacht designer and in some ways he was very much like me in mode of thinking. I just hope that I can get into yacht designing.

Many thanks for taking the time to answer. I can say with great certainty that I am genuine. I am not on some windup. I really feel that I have a unique talent which I would like to put to good use. When talking at the boat show to the owner of this company I can honestly say that I felt the thunderbolt strike. You know that thing people get. That feeling? I felt it, I felt this is what I was set out to do, I feel it's my destiny.

When I talk of being a designer I don't plan on managing all those things you mentioned. My vision is to basically tell the CAD design team what's in my mind. For instance I am very creative. I can view things in my head like I am actually there. I can lay out my hand in front of my eyes and actually imagine the boat being made on my hand. Then I can visualize the seat in my minds eye and go there and feel the texture of the seat and see the view point just like I would if I was on a physical boat. With this imagination I would like to simply guide the CAD designer in the drawing construct of the exterior of the boat such as doing the hull and working the way up all the way into the interior of the boat till the designer has modeled exactly what's in my mind. Then the idea is left to the rest of the companies talents to see if this model is safe and whatever else goes on into the building. Then I want to tell them the design of how the boat look in terms of it's interior design and power capability. Then if all the engineers believe what I want from the boat is possible it goes through all the different stages of development to get the finished project done. Is this possible?