Issue 50 | February 2016 www.superyachtbusiness.

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SUPERYACHT BUSINESS

Industry insight for decision makers

Touring IMS700
After a 25m injection,
the French yard is
now fully operational
w GERMANY FOCUS | w industry insider: TEAK & DECKING | w yard insight: IMS700
Germany focus Teak & decking
Efficiency and quality The suppliers negotiating
continue to draw the embargoes to lay the
highest value clients best deck possible

Rob
Doyle
The Irish yacht designer on why,
in naval architecture, nothing
measures up to experience

+ Noise &
vibration
Consulting with the
experts in this niche sector

Deep water
Miami
A new marina adds to
South Floridas attraction
FEBRUARY 2016 |Issue 50

Oceancos new
facility
The vast high-tech hall
optimises quality control

cover_JB.indd 1 03/02/2016 15:43

 the interview Rob Doyle

career
details
w In 1989 Doyle was
accepted to study
yacht and small
craft design at
the Southampton
Institute (now
Southampton Solent
University). After
graduating he sailed
as a crewmember for
a year before landing
his first job at Rodger
Martin Design in
Newport. He became
head designer and
naval architect for
Ron Holland Design
from 1996 to 2014.
Photo: Andrew Bradley

In 2014 he took
over Holland's team,
founding Rob Doyle
Design, which is
based in Ireland.

Rob Doyle
Principal designer & naval architect | Rob Doyle Design

Drawing on 20 years of experience, the Irish yacht designer and naval architect
tells SB why he deserves his place alongside the veterans
Interviewed by juliet benning

R
ob Doyle was going to talk. I dont mean
the kind of heavily edited propaganda
often trotted out to superyacht industry
journalists. I mean he was really going
to talk. I knew this because we had met
at the lively HISWA drinks during the
METSTRADE Show and he had promised me that if I
interviewed him he wouldnt hold back.
A few months later we meet in London where the
previous night Doyle had been rubbing shoulders with
colleagues and potential clients at a dinner thrown by
Benetti. Not a great believer in publicity, Doyle instead
prefers to dress up and get out.
Doyle begins by impressing upon me the delicate
juggling act running a yacht design studio now involves.
The pace of yacht design and naval architecture has
undoubtedly stepped up in recent years, and to survive
designers must now woo precious clients, keep track of
finances, constantly work to create concepts as well as
doing all the work required on current projects. Its an
exhausting job spec by any account.
Its hard work to keep on top of it all the time,
Doyle says, through his reassuring solid Irish accent.
Its a constant battle between actually getting the
work, publishing the work, doing the work. And theres
a lot of effort involved in the concepts and pitches. We
have to produce lifestyle booklets to invent the story for
the client. If we dont someone else is going to do it in
their presentation, so the next staff member Ill have to
hire is actually a graphic designer.
In it to win it
Elaborating on the fierce competition required to win a
client, Doyle says: What we used to do was rock up
with a couple of drawings under either arm; now its an
entire book thats required. And its just a lot of effort to
do that because to put a package together, depending on
the time, could amount to $25,000. And we dont

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 the interview

have a lot of clients and there are too many designers.

Doyle is undoubtedly a safe pair of hands and much
of the rhetoric in his work revolves around
seaworthiness, performance, but also the sense of fun
that should come with creating a yacht. The Rob Doyle
Studio is known for its relaxed but hard working
attitude. Not one to suffer fools lightly, Doyle recounts
some occasions when egos have rendered a project less
than pleasant but confirms: We dont need to show off
that were a yacht designer. Its all about just getting the
job done and making sure that the people involved enjoy
the process. And you have to appreciate you are trying Doyle worked closely with Ron Holland early in his career
to run a business as well. So you have to be very mindful
of how a builder might want to implement something racing boats for a year before I got my first job in
and be conscious of that. But dont make things so Newport with Rodger Martin. I did that for a year and
complicated that it will be a nightmare to manufacture. then I got the call from Ron Holland who was a big
Have a little bit of common sense. believer in hiring locals. He liked people to come in and
stay for a long time. And he was rejigging and going
In good company through a tough period at the time so it was just myself,
Doyle tells me that although he is 45 he is still seen as Ron and the secretary a very small studio.
the new guy on the block. I have 20 years experience The dynamic pair were soon working with Perini
and thats the tough thing about it, he says with a mild Navi on the naval architecture of 64m Felicita West. The
sense of exasperation. relationship with Perini was later cemeted as the studio
Having studied among some of the best-known yacht was asked to create a series for the shipyard. Ive now
designers in the industry at the Southampton Institute done 23 Perinis. We've had a really good relationship
of Design, Doyle later landed a job with the much- with them and with Nuvolari & Lenard [interior and
esteemed Ron Holland. After graduating I went off exterior design]. After Felicita West, Perini started

TO THE POINT
Do you have any important rules
you work by?
Rule number one, dont believe
your own PR. You can slap
yourself on the back from time to
time but dont believe your PR.
How do you market your design
studio?
The best marketing I have is
to get up, dress up, turn up.
Youve just got to go to events,
the buckets and the shows,
and be seen on the yachts. The
networking side of running the
business is important.
What do you think about the
yacht concepts published in
magazines?
The only time we send stuff
to magazines is when its done
the rounds to every yard and
its been put out to pasture.
Its not cutting edge at that
stage. Weve already moved on.
And thats why nobody really
gets excited about the stuff in
magazines because well have
done something similar four or
five years ago.
Do many of your clients
consider fuel efficiency when
commissioning a yacht design?
Owners dont care about fuel
efficiency. They might consider it
to then use as a bragging right,
but Ive never heard an owner
complain about the price of how
much fuel theyve burned. They
probably spend more on flowers
than they do on fuel and thats
not an exaggeration.
Can you describe your
relationship with shipyards and
suppliers during a project?
At the start of the project
everyone loves each other,
we all hate each other in the
middle, and then we all love
each other again at the end. Its
a small industry, we all have to
learn to get along and thats
why its hard to criticise yards
because next week you could
be in bed together.
What is your opinion on
kickbacks within the industry?
Of course there are supplier
back-handers and thats been
going on for ages, but once you
go down that path youre screwed
so we can put hand on heart and
say weve never accepted money
from anybody even though we
have been offered.
Do you have any advice for the
next generation of graduating
design students?
I think students need to be
taught about how to go about
getting a job. Theres a lack
of awareness of how to do it.
Ie not addressing me as dear
sir know my name for a start.
Youve got to build up the rapport
and make the effort and well
make the effort back. Just dont
send us a whole load of PDFs
expecting us to fall in love with
your designs. Most students
think theyre going to walk in
and have an artistic role straight
away. No, youre going to start

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P038_SB_feb_interview-DO_JB.indd 3 03/02/2016 11:18


thinking about a series of 56m so we pencilled up those
boats. I think I did 11 and it was a fantastic series and
really successful for them.
The relationship between studio and yacht builder
needed very little to nurture it: The way we worked
with Perini is that we drew up the lines, did the
calculations and then theyd phone up in a couple of
years and say the boat was finished. So we did our work
and handed it over to them and they controlled
everything. It worked well. We didnt swing the lead or
get all upset about stuff where other designers would.
Much of why they chose us was because of our more
relaxed nature.
Taking up the baton
The Rob Doyle Studio itself was borne after an ageing
Ron Holland expressed a desire to take a step back from
professional work. Doyle considered buying into the
already established brand but eventually decided that, in
fear of meeting with artistic differences, he would strike
out afresh under his own banner. Ron went over to
Vancouver where he has a secretary and himself. There
were a lot of Ron Holland clients that came back to me.
Rob Doyle Design officially started life in 2013,
beginning with a takeover of the offices and staff of Ron
Holland Design in Kinsale, Ireland.
Doyle isnt a man to mince his words and during our
Doyle photographed at his studio in Ireland
at the bottom and you do the crap
jobs that we dont like doing before
proving yourself.
What does the location of the
studio in Kinsale, Ireland mean?
As long as youre close to the airport
you can work anywhere. I can get
from my office to the airport gate
in 20 minutes.
P038_SB_feb_interview-DO_JB.indd 4
Rob Doyle
meeting he discloses many of the flaws he has observed
in superyacht projects. You can spot in the magazines
the boats that have the bad hulls they squat. If you see
beautiful flat water and a very wet aft deck platform it
means the stern is dragging water too much and the
naval architect hasnt done a good job with the hull
shape back aft. The thing about all the bad hulls that
have been pumped out over the years is that a good hull
shines very quickly.
Doyle has high praise for Peter van Oossanen of Van
Oossanen Naval Architects but does not deem his work
to involve any kind of dark art in mathematics. Hes
done a good job of convincing everybody hes created
the perfect hull but when you stand underneath the
boat you see its just good lines. Its nothing magic. Its
The thing about all the bad hulls that
have been pumped out over the years is that
a good hull shines very quickly
just proper naval architecture. But the careful
considerations underneath the waterline are not what
most owners care about because it costs more money.
There havent been any great advances in naval
architecture in recent years. Its just cleaner design
underneath. Believe it or not naval architecture has
actually taken a step back. Motorboats have generally
got slower since the 60s but the engines and drive
systems have got more efficient. The actual hull shapes
have got wider and the beam has increased massively. So
back in the 60s boats were nice and long and slender
and now theyre more like sharp bricks.
Good sea legs
As a thoroughly seasoned yachtsman himself, Doyle
knows instinctively the kind of yacht that will see you
safely home. The yachts all do their job until they go
wrong. They all look great in the glossy magazines but
put them into a Force 10 in the Bay of Biscay and thatll
sort the men from the boys very quickly. Theres a lot of
boats out there which construction-wise are marginal or
stability-wise theyre just passing and because theyve
got rubber stamps theyre deemed safe even if its by the
skin of their teeth.
Its obvious that Doyles keen mathematical
sensibility underpins much of the frivolity of the yacht
building process. Boats are getting very heavy but
owners dont want us to spend weeks analyzing weights
so thats where experience kicks in. Weve built a lot of
boats so we know, to a percent or two, how much the
weight should be. If you lose control of weight like if
the owner demands another hot tub youre affecting
the stability of the boat. Suddenly youre fighting class
issues and many other issues that compound each other.
And youre so deep in a hole at that stage that youve
got to pass the boat in any shape or form and youve got
to cut corners. Ive seen too many boats that way so
weve encountered a moral hazard.
Doyle returns to one of his favourite themes
FEBRUARY 2016 |www.SUPERYACHTBUSINESS.net 41
03/02/2016 11:18
 the interview
(Top) A studio profile
for an 80m motoryacht.
(Below) A profile for
a 75m high speed
motoryacht
Theres a lot of fashion before function.
Like this plumb bow idea; its very contemporary
but people dont actually realise what its for
42www.SUPERYACHTBUSINESS.net
P038_SB_feb_interview-DO_JB.indd 5
experience and how it comes into play when artistic
merit competes with reliability. Ive heard a few interior
stylists tell naval architects how to tweak a hull shape
because a couple of them consider themselves to be
more powerful than naval architects. Theres a dont you
know who I am? sort of attitude. And thats dangerous.
I dont see the interior designers of planes telling the
aircraft engineers to put the wings on upside down, and
were not far from that with our stuff like the wedding
cakes that are top heavy.
Theres a lot of fashion before function. This plumb
bow idea, for example, its very contemporary but
people dont actually realise what its actually designed
for. Naval architecture-wise theres a very specific job
that they do so they might be very good at one thing
but step away from that and they go against you very
fast. A plumb bow is good in a certain wave height but
the problem is that it throws huge waves over the deck
so in that weather you cant send the clients up there
because they could get washed overboard.
Too much too soon
Now well into his flow, Doyle continues along this vein.
The problem is theres a fine line between getting cost
effective staffing and experience. A lot of yards will hire
naval architects straight out of uni at a cheaper rate to
design their first structure. They can follow the book
| FEBRUARY 2016
Rob Doyle
from Lloyds and get the job done, but if theres anything
unique in there that the rules really cant cater for, then
youre in a very grey area and thats when experience
ought to kick in. If you dont have the experience then
you dont know what to do. And we all make mistakes,
without a doubt, but the more experience you have the
less serious they are and the more youre able to sleep
at night. We do play with peoples lives and we take it
very seriously.
Doyle doesnt believe there have been any major
advances in propulsion in recent years. With the drive
systems and propulsion were not quite where we could
be yet. I think there are a couple more years for us to
wait until the battery technology catches up.
Show and tell
But owners now want engines that are as good as their
main accommodation. They want to show off their
engines and all the chrome to their guests. Yacht
builders are actually spray-painting the engines now.
The shipyards will get a brand new product, disassemble
it, sand it, paint it and reassemble it. Theyll put it
somewhere it will never see the light of day just in case
an owner walks in. Thats the level of attention youre
getting now. Everyone is upping the ante, which is good
it means boats are beautiful inside and out. The engine
room is now a key feature in the show and tell.
So whats in store for the Rob Doyle Studio and how
is business shaping up for 2016? Were pitching for a
couple of projects and weve got two or three refits
going on. Were doing a lot of the stability booklets
class regulation and so on and we do reports and
documentation for boats.
With the new build stuff weve got the Perini 60m
which will be done under the Ron Holland branding and
a third boat which is in build. Concept-wise were really
shoving stuff out there, some of which is quite far
advanced and some of which were just starting off. So
weve got about six or seven really good leads and then
another five or six outsiders. You win some and you lose
some and it comes down to the stars aligning. Most
design studios go through feast and famine so were
trying to balance out those peaks and troughs.
I leave Doyle to head off back to Ireland. A few busy
days in the big smoke behind him I have no doubt his
impressive design track record and easy Irish charm will
have left an impression on all that he met.
03/02/2016 11:18