This week on the SHIPSHAPE Podcast we sit down with esteemed boat designer Clifford Denn. Brought up in Malwai where his father ran a successful architectural practice, Clifford developed an early love of water and boats, and has since left an indelible mark on yacht and ship design, whether through creating the Queen Mary 2 ocean liner or penning some of the world’s most extraordinary superyachts. In this episode, we hear Clifford’s expert take on what makes a design truly timeless, and discover the beauty to be found in that first hand sketch.

Transcript ——

Farah [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Shipshape Podcast, a series of podcasts where we meet amazing people and talk about their experiences, personal, technical and all related to the maritime world. Come and dive in and dive in.

 

Georgia [00:00:26] Today on the Shipshape podcast. We are going to be speaking to Superyacht design extraordinaire Clifford Denn. Whether it’s 200 meter cruise ships or 100 meter plus luxury yachts, Clifford has ten some ups and incredible pieces of floating artwork over the years. But we don’t know that much about the man behind the pencil. So today we’re going to be finding out more. So my name is Georgia Tindale, and I’m a freelance writer and journalist within the yachting sphere based in Lancaster. Presenting this podcast alongside Meryl.

 

Merrill [00:00:58] Yeah, Merrill Charette. I’m a liveaboard on a Ta-Shing Tashiba 36 in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Georgia [00:01:04] So first off, Clifford, where you coming to us from?

 

Clifford [00:01:08] So it was really nice to be joining you guys on this podcast. And we are based in this South Bronx near Whalebone Island team area. So yeah, very nice area to be in as far as I’m concerned. I was brought up in Africa, so it’s nice and warm here and that’s perfect.

 

Georgia [00:01:27] So tell us about how you wear your background and how you got into design. You mentioned you just mentioned now that you were growing up in Africa.

 

Clifford [00:01:34] Well, my father was an architect and he was working in Africa for a long time prior to that. He was in Iran, Persia, which is where I was born, in fact, myself and my brother, and then went to live in Holland for a while. And then then I went to live in Africa. So he was an architect that had his own business and we grew up there as kids. On the lake was an African lake later, and we did a lot of sailing, boating, things like that and love of to develop there basically and ever a sense of black water with boats. And after my industrial design engineering degree, I happened to join Norman Foster, the architect, or my first job official full time job. And then I met Martin Francis, the yacht designer, and he asked me after a while to come down to join him in France, which is why I’m here.

 

Merrill [00:02:32] So when you were sailing in Africa, what were you sailing?

 

Clifford [00:02:36] We were sailing little, little villages, basically. We were sailing enterprises. We were sailing darts, catamarans. We were sailing dubcek We had a Dutch with a large rig on it, and we used to put the enterprise rig on it to my father’s frustration because when that really broke, it pushed the whole mast right through to the bottom of the boat once, and he was not that chuffed. But yeah, that was great, great times and a mirror doing with little Gottfrid. We’re a dinghy various boats over the years, but small dinghies basically. And we used to raise them in the local club. But sometimes it was a bit tricky because you couldn’t start the race because there were hippos on the start line. So that’s a different experience. But it’s beautiful just to sit in a boat, little dinghy drifting along by the coast and you just see the balloons on the boat, on the rocks, and rather it’s the fishing. Go. It’s gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. So not quite the same down here. Lots of boats and things making waves and not quite as peaceful in France here, but good memories.

 

Merrill [00:03:41] So you said that you built up a love for the water when you were doing that, and then you went to industrial design school. But at what did you while you were there, were you like, I want to be in maritime and like, design boats? Like, where did that come?

 

Clifford [00:03:56] And this was nearly that came because I met Martin Francis at Norman Foster’s, basically. And he, I was working on technical furniture of a system there with them at that time. And he, I left because actually there was somebody smoking a cigar in the office all the time. And I didn’t like the smoke, so I thought, I can’t take this anymore. I’m leaving. And Martin said, Why don’t you join me south of France? And I thought, I can’t be too bad. So I rode down with my motorbike with everything I had on it in those days, and I joined him and it was brilliant. Absolutely great, great place to be. So I went and he was designing yachts. That’s what he still is. And designing yachts. Yeah. And the great, great, great to work with.

 

Merrill [00:04:39] MARTIN What was that transition like going from, like industrial design and and then all sudden, like naval architecture, right?

 

Clifford [00:04:48] I wished I still do industrial design work on Jacuzzis. Well, hydropower, whose out of my Jacuzzi. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s all very, very similar approach to all these things. They’re all designed. Have a brief. You go through the brief and you come out at the end with a solution. Whether it’s a big item or small, we all have the same considerations, really cost, manufacturing. And then it’s just a question of sketching it. But it was great. It was. It was a it is different. There’s no doubt one of the hardest things about jobs is to understand the three dimensional shape of the whole of this day and what can fit into it. And then over the years, gradually the watertight bulkheads can be and crush bulkheads and all this sort of stuff, which after many years in the industry, seem to have picked up a little on all that. But yeah, right.

 

Georgia [00:05:43] So what in a nutshell, to the uninitiated, does doing the exterior design of a yacht actually entail?

 

Clifford [00:05:53] Well, normally I am involved in the interior layout as well, but generally.

 

Georgia [00:05:59] Though, you do exteriors and interiors.

 

Clifford [00:06:01] And interior. Well, not not interior design, not the.

 

Georgia [00:06:04] Correct layout.

 

Clifford [00:06:05] But the layout, the general arrangement. So what it means if you have a client coming along and they say, I want X amount of cabins range or whatever, and you work out how many, you know, the brief as such with a client, first you try and sketch out the type of yacht. Does he want a sporty type yacht or does she want a bit more of an explorer, for example? Slower, fast? What sort of how? So then you have to start thinking about all these considerations to define the brief clearly in the first place, and then then try and fit it all in basically into a home that is either a brand new hull which will need tank testing or maybe have a an existing platform from the existing shipyard, which is obviously cheaper to work with for a client. But so I forgot what your question was.

 

Georgia [00:06:56] I just asked you what it actually entails and you’ve answered it. But in terms of what you do within your company, obviously you have clifden design. Do you have a team?

 

Clifford [00:07:06] So I used to have an office in Sofia last year with a few guys in it and ago and after the 2008 crash I chose to go another route. And so I work independently with subcontractors now and it works very well. So I have some guy and it is those in Italy or go in England and various people, various places, and it works really well and it’s much more enjoyable like that. And we work like this by Skype or whatever a lot of the time. And so that’s how it is. And so I will do the concept, generally speaking, and I use the various people for a three dimensional modeling, mainly of the shapes, which is, which is really interesting. I should learn it one day myself as well, because that’s a very interesting whole thing to to yet it’s very I’m very fussy with the guys obviously have to be in this business and it’s it’s very it’s good but sketching I think one of the biggest impacts of my whole design profession was the Wacom Digital Digital Pad, which I have a 17 quality digital thing with a pen and I just draw in there that is paper anymore at all.

 

Georgia [00:08:21] And so when I describe the man behind the pencil, that’s a bit of a misnomer. It’s basically behind the the pot.

 

Clifford [00:08:28] And you did you did say up to 200. I think the Queen Mary might have been bigger than 200 meters as well.

 

Georgia [00:08:34] But I know I was waiting to read that.

 

Merrill [00:08:38] 145 meters, which is 1132 feet.

 

Clifford [00:08:44] Wow. That’s and so that was a great project to be involved with with the SNC in Tilburg and Thomas Tilburg as well as in America, that we had a great time designing while I was involved in the exterior styling of that one. And not so much the general arrangement. It wasn’t just exterior look, but great project.

 

Georgia [00:09:05] So what have been some of your sort of like standout projects outside of? We’ll get to your asking in a minute. But outside of yachts, what have been some of your kind of highlights.

 

Clifford [00:09:16] In design generally?

 

Georgia [00:09:18] Me Yeah.

 

Clifford [00:09:18] I think well actually I really enjoyed I used to work for a company a long time ago called Design Technology, and we used to do medical products and some of these I mean, I really enjoyed those. They were very small items and a lot of detail and injection molding. So we did little, we did swimming pool lockers, for example, and things like that. So I used to really enjoy that aspect of the little detailing of the projects and extrusions and injection molding and all this sort of things. And so I think one one of the projects was the, the swimming pool locker, which we did, which we, it was this company had. Three different types of lock up for different security levels and cost. We managed to make one frame to satisfy all of them, so you just change the door and that saved them a lot. That was great, great fun. We’ll say techno with Norman Foster. It was a great, great project as well outside of Boots, but I’ll be doing lots of boats now as well.

 

Merrill [00:10:21] Do you know, designing boats and all that. It’s this bridge between like being artistic and then also having just an eye of how like a boat should work. Can you explain a little bit about that?

 

Clifford [00:10:33] That’s exactly that’s that’s half the trick, isn’t it? Basically. And because I have an engineering background, I’m industrial design engineer in brackets, so I do I’m not an engineer, but I do know about engineering a little bit. We did have to work out friction and this and not the other occasionally. So when somebody comes up and says, Oh, we can’t do that, for example, a shipyard, I will go, I’m sure we can go and ask and push that a little bit further. But you’re absolutely right. For example, it makes a big difference if you’re on a commercial ship or a yacht, obviously. So if you’re on a commercial commercial passenger ship like the Pioneer Ferry that you went on there, that they were we put just a half tube on it to make a nice line on the side. And there was a big discussion about the cost of that, for example. So styling on commercial vessels is a different story to starting a yacht, starting in the Arctic. You basically do what you want it within reason. And in fact, with adhesive related reasons, we’ve done a very heavy rounded shapes of the 50 meter and quite complex to make. But from what I’ve heard, that the world is enjoying making something special and the clients obviously want something a little bit different. It’s a bit like having instead of a Landrover, you have a Ferrari or an Aston Martin or something. You want something a bit more refined.

 

Georgia [00:12:00] Yeah, I mean, I was incredibly excited actually, when I found out that I went to Rotterdam the other week and back to Hull and went on this ferry. And then when I looked it up and found out that you’d actually designed, I was like, Oh, because I made sure I took lots of videos standing on the dock. And it’s just extraordinary thinking, you know, the absolute scale of it. But as you’ve said, when it’s a yacht, it’s private. And I feel like what you’re saying about you might just have more freedom to be able to really express your creativity, whereas a ferry at the end of the day is more about functionality. Would you say getting people from A to Z?

 

Clifford [00:12:39] That’s exactly that. So the trick is somehow to give that box of the ferry something a little bit different, you know.

 

Georgia [00:12:47] Because they’re not paying for a ferry. If your owner feels like he’s on board a ferry, you’ve not done your job, right? I think.

 

Clifford [00:12:53] Exactly. Well, exactly that. So, no, he wouldn’t want to go to buy himself a Rolls-Royce and end it looked like a Land Rover would, you.

 

Georgia [00:13:01] Know, but not casting aspersions to the piano. I mean, I had a fantastic time. The the Disney Entertainment was phenomenal. You know, there was great nightlife on board. But yeah, I think people tend to go for something a little bit more refined.

 

Clifford [00:13:15] In all honesty, if you’re standing at the back when you’re coming onto that ship and you look up and the funnel and everything is very yacht like, shall we say.

 

Georgia [00:13:24] I wonder why was that you?

 

Clifford [00:13:26] I wonder why. Exactly.

 

Georgia [00:13:29] So it’s it made me think of a superyacht, though there weren’t as many Jacuzzis on board as I was hoping for.

 

Clifford [00:13:35] No, I remember sitting in one of the I can’t remember even how many it was a while ago, but when when we had finished it, we all jumped into that Jacuzzi, getting off across the channel there. And it was great fun actually having a few drinks. Anyway, that was good fun. Yeah, but that was good, actually, as far as the ferry goes, it’s quite a high class ferry. Quite a nice ferry in all honesty, and was quite old and still looking good. I think I tried to change the front and it’s quite flat on the front, but they weren’t having, there wasn’t any possibility to do that.

 

Georgia [00:14:11] And how does it work with budget as well? I mean, I would imagine that’s always a consideration. But is there is there sort of psychological difference there in terms of budget between a yacht owner versus P&O Ferries?

 

Clifford [00:14:25] Absolutely. Your hands behind your back with a commercial ship. Yes, Not a lot of having said that, working with the I mean, in fact, that ferry was quiet. It was more flexible than normal, shall we say. And working with Viking is fantastic as well. They gave us a lot of freedom to do what we want and where, and they had to go through all the details and refine them and keep us on to look after stuff like that as well. So it’s really good, very yacht like, although there are cost differences, you can’t put stainless steel everywhere. You can’t have the sense. The shapes you have to think about. Having said that, there are certain things you can do which are still worth doing, even though it’s commercial shit. But yeah, lots, lots of considerations for these things. I don’t know. I mean, on a cruise ship, obviously you’re thinking passengers. How many passengers can you give them? What is it? You know, how how can we create another company? And then we have to try and style that in somehow. And that takes preference over the styling choice, say, most of the time. So we have to work within the shoe box, as we say.

 

Merrill [00:15:32] Well, as of now, I mean, you’re a legendary designer, but when you were first getting into this industry, what was that like? You know, the early days.

 

Clifford [00:15:43] Or the early days, John John Vandenberg was the main man on the on the scene and lovely, lovely man. He really kick started a lot of things in yachting, as you probably know, and challenged a lot of concept design for yachts. And and I used to worship all his designs. In all honesty, I used to think, Wow, that’s brilliant. Absolutely fantastic. But also quite dated now. But actually, if you look back at some of them, still quite good looking. Not too bad. You know, some of the concepts that we did.

 

Georgia [00:16:14] You know, personally.

 

Clifford [00:16:15] I had we did work on a project together at one point and I can’t really say anything about it.

 

Georgia [00:16:22] But nothing.

 

Clifford [00:16:24] Said. So that was.

 

Georgia [00:16:26] It was a boat. What float what floated on the water, I imagine. Right.

 

Clifford [00:16:30] It didn’t actually float in the end, unfortunately. But had it been built, it would have been absolutely stunning. Yeah. There we go. That’s.

 

Georgia [00:16:40] Yeah. What proportion of. Yeah. I mean, how many of your designs do you think. What proportion. Haven’t ever. You know, that’s this is a bit of a main question actually, but like many said.

 

Clifford [00:16:55] Because every project you do you do about hundreds of different or like you did plenty of options even for one project. So even though you’re designing one, you showed like many various versions, but probably I would say, well of inquiries that come in and what actually happens, what I would do, it’s I would say 20%, if you’re lucky, get built.

 

Georgia [00:17:20] Yeah. And what’s your what’s the boat that was never built that you like which you know that you’d love to see built.

 

Clifford [00:17:26] Where we did a 160 meter once, which was a very classic shape. I can’t remember if it’s on the website.

 

Georgia [00:17:33] Does that one There’s one on your website.

 

Clifford [00:17:36] That would have been absolutely gorgeous as well. That one. I think if that had happened and it would still have been, you know, that was a long time ago. But it’s a very, very elegant shape and done it in a contemporary way. I think it would have been. It could still be very.

 

Georgia [00:17:54] Yeah. Never say never.

 

Clifford [00:17:56] Exactly.

 

Georgia [00:17:57] So I’m going to I’m going to really irritate you now because early. Yeah, we’ve done this before. I wrote an interview article with you and I remember bandying around the word automotive inspired and and you being quite irritated. So I’m going to take this opportunity to ask you about that again. So how do automotive elements feed into your design?

 

Clifford [00:18:21] Well, the reason I was irritated was I think you brought up that if I was meant to be referencing classic cars, you know, it.

 

Georgia [00:18:28] Was the.

 

Clifford [00:18:29] Classics all the time. And that’s not necessarily the truth. I might may be inspired by all sorts of things, including modern vehicles, cars, whatever, and latest design. So, yes, I think I think there are a lot of things in common, actually, the way the light shines on the car, the sun, you make a little curve or a hot little shape and it’ll pick up the sun. What details and a bit of chrome or whatever on a car. There are lots of common, common things, I think, happening within a yacht and and car design. Obviously the different car is mass produced, the yacht isn’t mass produced, so you can’t do the same sort of production techniques and things. But there are still a lot of common things about both of them, I think.

 

Georgia [00:19:13] Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of crossover in terms of learning from each other and facing similar challenges. I mean, when you think about obviously fuel sustainability, you know, all these different finding the right materials is a lot of different things where they’re sort of developing in parallel. They’re not developing exactly the same, but they are definitely can sort of learn from each other and feed off each other in that way. So I think there’s definitely interesting parallels to be made. But no, I will not accuse your boats of looking like classic cars anytime soon. I’ve learned my lesson.

 

Clifford [00:19:49] But the idea is that whatever the design is will become a classic. That’s the concept. So even if it’s new and may be influenced by whatever it should. Become a classic in a now iconic classic, but so subtly.

 

Merrill [00:20:05] So, you know, one of the interesting things about the side of the industry that you’re in is there’s such a long legacy of, you know, naval architects and passenger ships and all of that. How did you draw any inspiration from past things, you know, like past ocean liners and all?

 

Clifford [00:20:24] I love I love the old Norma. I love the old liners, the S.S. United States, which I believe can do 44 not to something. So they are the Normandy, which was which. I’ve got a fantastic book with a picture of the Normandy on its side in America and in New York. I think it was because they they what they did was they took it over during the war to make it into a troopship and they tried to convert it. Do you know the story about that? And they were busy welding. As far as I understand they were welding it to convert. It caught fire and started burning. The firemen came along, started pouring water and put the fire out, of course, and it was going down, you know, and the French naval octet was there, apparently. And he said, all you have to do is undo this at the bottom or whatever, and all the water will go out. But it wasn’t listened to. I mean, so so goes the story and maybe somebody listening might might differ with different but they didn’t do that. And the whole boat tipped over and they lost such a beautiful ship. And that was a real impact for the war, actually, because it didn’t it wasn’t very useful vessel to have a big liner like that lost and transporting troops around. I love those old lanterns, all of them. Queen Mary, the original, obviously, if you look at the Queen Mary, two inspirational things from that. If you look at how the supports of the bridge wings are, that’s similar on Queen Mary to some of those old lines. I love them and they’re very lovely shape hulls, you know, aspect ratio hulls, whereas the modern ships are a bit more boxy.

 

Merrill [00:21:57] I got to ask you, what are your thoughts on the design of the Titanic?

 

Clifford [00:22:01] That’s well, I didn’t I quite like the Titanic. I mean, the funnels leaning back and all that sort of thing. You know, those old things. I like the old sailing ships as well, if I’m honest. Some of those old ship saving boats and things, you know, they’re beautiful. And I actually love the way they used to. People paint them as well. Actually with what I do with I used to what originally used to stretch boards, watercolor paint, for example, when we were doing the Queen Mary, I had to do watercolor painting of what it should look like. This is the before the days of what campaigns and things. And so I know how hard it is. And some of these paintings are beautiful. They do the water on the boats on both of those. I love those old ships, actually, on the Titanic. Yes. It was a nice long, thin polymer and but what a shame.

 

Georgia [00:22:53] And obviously I finally watched the Titanic. I was actually not allowed to watch it as a child. My parents would only ever let me watch the first half. So I spent the first sort of, you know, 20 years of my life thinking, well, what happens next? So don’t spoil it for me. I finally watched it the other day. I watched the entire thing. It’s incredible. So what do you think that we are past? The heyday of yacht design was the heyday was the golden age of Yacht Design John Bonham book, or are we still are we still think.

 

Clifford [00:23:24] It’s still going and it still will carry on? It has to go on. I mean, people are going to they’re more and more boats being built all the time. They’re all diversifying in different ways. You’re getting explorers in all sorts of things up. And I don’t think it’s over by any means at all. That was just the start, in all honesty.

 

Georgia [00:23:43] Yeah, and there are a lot of up and coming young designers coming through the ranks. I mean, there’s an awful lot of, you know, it’s very different now, as we’ve already alluded to with everything being done, you know, via card and other tools different to how it was. But that doesn’t mean that it’s the pace has change is slowing down anything that.

 

Clifford [00:24:03] You can do. I still find even with the guys I’m using, if somebody can draw, whether it’s on a digital pad on a piece of paper, gives them a huge advantage and clients love it. If you sit in front of the client and you actually can draw something and with a bit of pastel, you put a bit of color on it or whatever. It’s just absolutely lovely. People love it. I think there’s an energy literally on a piece of paper with a drawing actually as well. I do go to meetings on the road, tracing paper and a ruler to tear the paper off and drawings get to work on things. And that’s I don’t think any designer should. They should every every designer should have that ability ideally to.

 

Georgia [00:24:39] And do they do they need to.

 

Clifford [00:24:42] Or a lot of people are the guys I find or go study they just cannot draw anymore and it’s a big chain reaction and I think it comes out in the work because they don’t know if you can draw. You can understand three dimensions and things like that. I think in a better way. Perhaps the my experience of. People use that Everybody, everybody’s different. And there may be exceptions.

 

Georgia [00:25:03] I’m going to ask you to do the thing that no parent should do, and I’m going to ask you to choose between your children, I’m afraid. Do you have any yachts, favorite yachts you’ve designed?

 

Clifford [00:25:13] I suppose Angie is a good one, the one we did for Jason. I just want to know the rewards. People do like it. And the client involved with that one. He. He allowed us to spend money on the detailing, basically, which was great. And he insisted on it. Pushing, pushing, pushing until he had something nice. And it always comes from the client. A lot of the time. I mean.

 

Georgia [00:25:36] How closely do you work with the clients in these projects and what does very closely mean?

 

Clifford [00:25:42] It depends. Sometimes we can work, you can do a project for a client. And they not involved at all? No, they can’t even read a drawing. And you will put a staircase, go from one debt to the other, and the client will say, Can you take that away? Because I want like having rigor. And how do you get up to your your standards? Whereas on an on another in another way we had a I had a client who came in and so we were working on AutoCAD. The next time he comes in, he’s working on AutoCAD as well, and he will know exactly how big the square may introduce what’s there. And so, for example, with Angie, he was particularly interested in the angle of the stairs on a 50 meter under 500 gross ton. He wanted it not to be too steep like a lot of boats that size up. And he wanted a bigger boat feel. So we made the stairs bigger, worked on the whole J with corridor widths, all this sort of detail very closely with him, not not meeting him every 10 minutes, obviously. But when we have a few meetings that we are taking input and feed the team and work as a team. So I like it when it’s like that. If we can match with somebody and create something that they like. So it’s a team effort. I’m not normally one to just say, This is what you have to have. I’m not listening to you. You know, we, we we’re listening.

 

Merrill [00:27:04] So, you know, all these boats, how often do you get to go out on the water?

 

Clifford [00:27:09] You know, I actually like sitting on a little sailing boat most of the time, if I’m honest, and sailing time. I like sailing boats as well, or windsurfing. I used to spend a lot time. So I do go out on the boats occasionally. Yes. And very kindly offered to go on cruises here and there. And for example, Viking, they we go on the shakedown cruise. It’s quite often as well. So and it’s obviously good to get on the boats and to see what they like and how they operate and very, very eager to get out there. So, yes, perhaps not as much as one should, perhaps, but certainly a boat shows you go on a lot of boats and have a look. But I think it’s another story, staying on a boat, seeing how the crew work, make sure that, you know, you can see, for example, whether the doors opening to the galley in the right way where it’s no easier or smells coming out or the sort of thing you you understand it. I mean, I know now after all this time how it should be, but it’s always nice to see and you walk on and you can tell immediately if if the job is well planned or it was a waste of space or looks and stuff, you know. But yes, so yes, we did get on occasion and it’s very useful to see.

 

Merrill [00:28:19] Well, that must be interesting, right? It’s like you’ve come up with the design and all of that and it’s not till it’s done that you really realize if that was a good choice or not.

 

Clifford [00:28:28] Right now it’s changing all the time and with hindsight you may do something different again. But then again, it may be that decided to do something this way and use. Okay, that’s fine. As you wish, you know, but I love it. I think it’s great. The main thing is that you have a happy owner in the end and everybody’s happy and proud of what they’ve done with a bit of luck. And it’s and the relationship with the ship is important as well. So for example, with Angie, I think we had a great relationship. We were with Anglicanism and he she we’re very happy with that relationship that we had with them, with them when they asked us to do their new series, which is fantastic. We really enjoyed that.

 

Georgia [00:29:13] Yeah. I mean that answers a, a question for those who, you know, maybe on in the industry. You’ve mentioned that you’re kind of a bit of a one man band. Is your work does your work come from afar? Well, it’s like that basically word of mouth as shit. You work with someone before and they think, Oh, he’s fabulous, we’ll just have him again.

 

Clifford [00:29:32] Absolutely. It’s just reference. Absolutely reference. Just past projects. Somebody referencing you. That’s how it is. Yeah. Seems to be.

 

Georgia [00:29:41] So then how do you break into it if you’re 25?

 

Clifford [00:29:44] Very good question, Meredith. Well, it’s always perhaps good to work for somebody else. And the trouble is people do ask me to come to work, you know, but I don’t that they do. People I always say was subcontractor. Send me your. Show me. I don’t actually care how what they qualified. It’s long as I can draw something which is good and you can model it. But often you find that they’re doing what I’m asked somehow. So that’s not me.

 

Georgia [00:30:12] There are big there are big studios, aren’t there? Like in London and other places that employ a lot of people. Big design studio. So I’m sure you could get your in there as a young designer, but I do know a fair few superyacht designers who are very much one man, one man bands or, you know, have these small teams and you just think it’s maybe quite tricky to get in now as a young person. But there are always ways on the system. What I think is probably quite important, but what. Sorry, persistence.

 

Clifford [00:30:43] Yeah, perhaps. Yeah, skill being good, being able to draw and model. I think one of the really useful things is certainly in what I’m doing is if you can do 3D CAD modeling to get your foot in the door and you’re very good at that, it’s really an accountability. That would certainly help me to work with somebody, that’s for sure. So and also if I can sketch sort of when if I said, okay, this is what we need to do, this it, and if somebody can have a bit of input design wise whilst they’re doing the 3D CAD modeling and not just rely on my and watching every single moment, that’s the objective. But so yes, maybe get a job with a big company, then why not all freelance when I have done work some people for freelance work and ask us to do that and I say yes, no problem to try. And that’s not not often very successful is the truth.

 

Georgia [00:31:37] Well, we know the ups and downs of freelancing as a freelancer. I know the ups and downs of freelance work. It can go very well or not.

 

Clifford [00:31:46] That’s absolutely true. But you have to be confident. You have to be good. That’s the thing to get out of it, though. It’s interesting, actually, you’re coming out of the 14 people that did our industrial design degree course, only two master’s degree in design can imagine. All the others have gone and done something else. I mean, prioritize or whatever, you know?

 

Merrill [00:32:04] Yeah. I got to ask, what is the weirdest design request that you’ve ever received.

 

Clifford [00:32:10] To make a special door so the girls can come in so that nobody notices?

 

Georgia [00:32:15] It’s okay.

 

Merrill [00:32:18] Secret Doors.

 

Clifford [00:32:18] Nice record. Can’t tell you, Rich client. That was vulgar.

 

Georgia [00:32:24] Well, so what are some kind of apart from secret shady doors like you’ve just described, What, if anything, are some sort of up and coming trends in your design that you’ve seen? Where do you think it’s heading in the future?

 

Clifford [00:32:38] Energy. Energy to be so hybrid, everything’s going hydrogen, the stuff, whether all green is the way it should be going as well. Yes, I mean, why not? So I mean, I can’t really talk about it, but there’s there’s there’s possibilities with sales and things, I think, which could happen. But I think that’s the way that it’s it will be going in the future. Absolutely. That’s so important for our planet right now, obviously, especially with what’s going on right now, just the cost of fuel and everything, doesn’t they really need to need to be. Yeah, but from my book, yes, I carry on.

 

Georgia [00:33:15] I was just going to say, if you weren’t doing this, what do you think you would be doing sitting on a little sailing yacht? Cruising? I would be really surfing.

 

Clifford [00:33:22] I’d be. I had a dream, I had a thought. I had a wish that I would be able to do a forward somersault. My windsurfer before I was six feet and I didn’t manage it. I was 60 last year and now I’ve got to move it to 70, I think. But the trouble is my have I had four children, so I used to insert a lot and then my kids came along and actually two years ago they hadn’t even seen me on our school board. So that was those that come on. I can actually live with my own board for 35 years and everybody loves old school, but it’s still going well, still goes well. The truth is, old boards have quite a thing aft often to them, so there’s not a lot of water friction. And these new big floating boards have got a lot of friction, longer floating boards. And they they don’t go so quick. That’s great. I love that. So I’d be doing or painting. Painting.

 

Georgia [00:34:16] Joe I’d love to. I, I do some painting as well. Not very well, but my, my solution is I can’t draw, unlike you, Clifford. So what I do is I call it abstract, but you can’t see this listener’s. But I’m actually wearing a very abstract shit. I was.

 

Clifford [00:34:30] Not yours. Did you design?

 

Georgia [00:34:33] Oh, I wish. I tend to take I tend to take quite an abstract approach to painting because then it doesn’t last if you’re not very skillful. That’s my approach. But I’m sure that you can do a lot more detail than I can afford.

 

Clifford [00:34:45] I can’t see on the wall behind you is that now that’s photographs, this mode of painting, is it? Which is. No.

 

Georgia [00:34:52] But I can see some things behind you if you got some of your designs behind you. Clifford.

 

Clifford [00:34:57] We’ve got a few cruise ships and then. Yeah. What I was thinking of, you know, Echo the Echo, which I worked on with Martin Francis for many years. The big the bigger one in the corner with the silver windows. That was a very special, you know, every single dimension on that wrote three point or whatever, you know, the curvature of the windows and but for many years that was all done pre CAD as well. And it was launched in 1991. I mean, obviously that’s not a process project, but I was project designer on that. Right. And it was great fun doing that. Yeah, it’s a gas turbine 70. Yeah, that’s pretty impressive. Bit of kit actually, and a great team that worked on it.

 

Merrill [00:35:39] What is the time frame of coming up with a design? How long does a design take? You know, is this like a year project or.

 

Clifford [00:35:46] I have a fun packet, Hey, you got me? Or we could do it properly. It depends. Depends what everybody’s after. If somebody is after just a styling concept sketch, which sometimes commercial boats want, just a very quick thinking, give it to them to go out and do that. Otherwise you get more involved and you spend it, but you expense with the with the owner. If this kind of testing, if you have to really develop the whole idea amount, but it could be anything from a year to two years and just sketching and I mean I’ll have a project which has been going on for a long time and we still haven’t decided to build yet. So everything is changeable variable.

 

Georgia [00:36:31] Until many do you do a year roughly?

 

Clifford [00:36:35] We do more ongoing things. Actually, we do. So for example, a lot of the time working with Viking Moment when cruise ships and the vessels we’ve done, we’ve got a yacht project, so probably one or two yacht type things and then more some smaller boats as well. So for example, we’re building the river, style’s still ongoing. I mean that depends. If you cluster the 50 meters from Heesen, they’re building those, but they’re repeats. So yeah, maybe not.

 

Georgia [00:37:11] Which is great business for you, isn’t it, When you get that kind of of that kind of contract with a shipyard.

 

Clifford [00:37:16] Fantastic. Any more welcome.

 

Georgia [00:37:21] Well, maybe a few more after this comes out though. I was going to ask you about the state of the industry at the moment, but I think you’ve made it quite clear it’s busy, isn’t it? There’s plenty going on. Very.

 

Clifford [00:37:32] Very busy. I noticed actually, here. I mean, well, obviously with the current situation, there are perhaps some boats that are for sale, which yeah, I noticed one was was held in Gibraltar last Tuesday or something and Yeah, so it’s a different different situation now as well isn’t it. There’s no doubt. But it’s amazing how it’s changed. I mean I think Darwin went around the world on a 30 meter little wooden boat with 60 crew, four and three years of stores and now you have a 30 meter and you think it’s small. It’s amazing, isn’t it?

 

Georgia [00:38:06] Yeah. The idea of what a big yachts has really changed, hasn’t it, even in the last couple of decades. Crazy what was considered a big superyacht sorry translation from our Mega-yacht.

 

Clifford [00:38:18] Sorry, Meryl, we’re not really. I know. It’s I mean, when I first came down here, there was no below. What what was it? Birds That’s called out of the Donald Trump’s original boat showed his boat. Yeah. And that was huge. Absolutely huge. But nowadays it’s nothing massive at all. But still, that was a jump on a boat. Very different.

 

Georgia [00:38:46] Yeah. Yeah. 86 meters. I just looked it up. Well, nothing. Isn’t it.

 

Clifford [00:38:50] Still big? There’s still quite a big boat, but it was pretty much the biggest and it just towered over everything else normally, but most times 13 with a big boat then, you know, still.

 

Georgia [00:39:02] And it’s amazing how much these boats. I mean, we were talking about the idea of a classic, weren’t we, earlier? It’s amazing how much some of these boats date. I mean, the Trump princess I’m just having a look at now and it’s yeah, it’s just the styling of it. Sometimes you just know it’s very much of its time, don’t you?

 

Clifford [00:39:19] That that’s how it should be. I suppose it will be. I mean, and now with glass, with three or glue on glass and all this sort of thing, things change with the design and what you can do and what shipyards prepared to take a risk with until you’re sitting a lot more. But having said that, there’s green water coming on a yacht, so you have to be careful and nobody wants to take too much of a risk, obviously. So and you see a lot of concepts out there which are just all just mass glass with no framework behind, nothing at all look great. Not somebody to build that. They’ll be steel everywhere and it’ll spoil the concept of it, but. So that’s one of the things which changes when you see this pretty pictures.

 

Merrill [00:40:03] This might be a hard question, but what do you think makes a design timeless?

 

Clifford [00:40:09] Very good question. Simplicity. Something unique about it, perhaps. The client. Sometimes there’s an input. I think it’s to give something differentiation or a beauty, perhaps a distinctive beauty, which is going to be timeless. But then we can relate to cause again, you know, for example, you go back to an old E-Type job that was cost effective. It was fast, as fast as anything else, and faster than most of the other ones anyway, and still beautiful. But and if we if we knew that, yeah, of remedy, we could sell that for a lot of money. But that is actually what we’re trying to do all the time to create something which is special and give it to something unique and timeless. So I think if you get very edgy designs and things which will go out of date perhaps quite quickly, maybe that’s maybe not going to work. So there are styling cues perhaps you can use which will go out of date quickly and others which may last longer know perhaps.

 

Merrill [00:41:12] Yeah, there was this super yacht that showed up at my marina and it had to have been built in like the seventies or eighties. And I’m like, Well, it probably was super cool in Florida during that time frame, but up in Boston, you know, in the middle of winter, I was like those lines just like, look, really dated.

 

Clifford [00:41:32] Yeah. But having said that, sometimes the old lines still look beautiful on some old sailing boats without luggage, share line and everything. Absolutely beautiful. I think you don’t have to have reverse year on a boat for it to be modern Marina. I think you can have beautiful, classic sheer with a nice rake. You don’t have to have reverse barrels. But it’s. It’s all a mix of everything, I think. And the detailing. I mean, we did have a client that was saying, well, just so long as they made something really simple and beautiful and elegant instead of a big caravan. And and you look at how to detail it well, and it maybe don’t even have to ferry, you know, like several numbers, not a yacht, which doesn’t mean fat or anything. It still has a beautiful shape. And you just like a beautiful woman wearing a beautiful dress. Just one, perhaps diamond, simple little outfit with a diamond set. Sort of. Maybe that’s the gloss or how you do it. Maybe that’s the way to go. Yeah, it was ways. Every project is different.

 

Georgia [00:42:35] So how do you feel like looking back on your career as a superyacht designer and a yacht designer in general? What kind of how do you reflect on your career and how you’ve come, how far you’ve come with it?

 

Clifford [00:42:46] Very happy with it, actually. I mean, I get paid to just draw pictures, all that basically. And in effect, I do what I like to do. And that’s that’s why I like to work with subcontractors and things as well. So it’s much less stressful for me. It’s very, very lucky to have involved in this profession, I think, which is great. I have enjoyed being involved in the medical side, Mr. Design as well, because I feel that helps people a lot as well. You know, perhaps with yachting, maybe that’s the only thing that I haven’t thought know, it doesn’t help anyone as such, you know. You know, it’s the water. So yeah.

 

Georgia [00:43:24] And it’s enabling the love. It’s enabling a passion of an individual to create a beautiful object and then pragmatically also enabling the careers of however many people at a shipyard. Actually, to myself and yourself, you know, it’s enabling all these jobs as well at the same time, isn’t it? But I think it’s the creation from, you know, a sketch to the final thing that makes it designing a custom superyacht or whatever just so special. I imagine it’s.

 

Clifford [00:43:52] Really special to draw something and then go and stand on it when it’s built. It’s just nice. Well, you’re under a cruise ship, for example. You’ve got 16 decks and you go walking around it under the image. It’s just, wow. I mean, it’s.

 

Georgia [00:44:06] Just.

 

Clifford [00:44:07] Growing you made and then people building it and it’s awesome.

 

Georgia [00:44:12] Yeah, we had we had some photos on and the Superyacht photographer on earlier I was speaking to him and he was talking to us about Lego. You know, he creates a thing. It’s the same thing. You’re creating something and then it’s it’s out there in the world. So maybe you should get some Lego superyachts done. That would be cool.

 

Clifford [00:44:30] There was a spate of Lego yachts being built, but that was that what Tom was on about?

 

Georgia [00:44:36] No, I just he enjoys Lego is just like a hobby hunter.

 

Clifford [00:44:42] I gave all our kids Lego away. Actually, we did. But yeah, maybe that’s the I think we need to try and make before CAD 3D cartridges to try and make the models out of foam, which was another whole story, which is what you do. Try to make models. And that was interesting, standing out there in the garden, piling bits of foam down and making the piano very David Bowie was awesome. He made a foam model to start a little board onboard foam and stuff like that. That was brilliant. The role model and clients love to see a model as absolutely no doubt about it.

 

Georgia [00:45:20] No one ever had the patience for Lego myself.

 

Clifford [00:45:23] No, it’s incredible. Lego is very good. Connor and all those.

 

Georgia [00:45:28] Yeah, Meccano and all the rest of it. Yeah.

 

Merrill [00:45:31] Well, as we wrap this up, where can people find you and see more about your designs and all of that? What’s your website?

 

Clifford [00:45:39] They just look at Clifford and design and you should find that on the internet. I just look at Cliff and then you design and you will find a website with all the contact details on that. And we’ll be a pleasure to speak to anybody. If you want something designed, I think, yeah, why not? And you’re you’re not me. You can’t see if you’re moving around on your boat there at all. He can’t because you’re inside, aren’t you? You know. Are you?

 

Merrill [00:46:04] Oh, yeah, I’m inside. It’s like 90 degrees in here. I thought it was going to be a little bit cooler. I got no AC on this thing, right? It’s so.

 

Clifford [00:46:12] My God.

 

Merrill [00:46:14] And I got the teak decks. And the teak decks light up like the third level of hell. I feel like the heat come underneath this.

 

Clifford [00:46:22] I’m going to look at your boat soon as I finish this and see what it is. And it was. What was it again?

 

Merrill [00:46:29] It’s a Toshiba 36.

 

Clifford [00:46:31] Receiver 30.

 

Merrill [00:46:32] Get ready for timeless design.

 

Clifford [00:46:35] Okay, Danny, check it out.

 

Merrill [00:46:38] It was amazing talking to you.

 

Georgia [00:46:41] Pleasure. So much, Clifford. You want the next. See you on the next piano ferry.

 

Clifford [00:46:45] Oh, I take care, both of you. All right.

 

Farah [00:46:51] And check back every Tuesday for our latest episode. And be sure to, like, share and subscribe to ship shaped GoPro Dot Pro.