Stuart M Roy Naval Architect and Surveyor

Stuart M Roy, BSc(Hons), MSc, PGDTech, CEng, FRINA

Like many yacht designers and surveyors specialising in yachts and small craft, he first qualified as a Naval Architect. Now, after many years of academic studies, followed by experience and professional development while in employment, he has a variety of academic and professional qualifications awarded by UK-based universities and professional institutions. These letters of designation, which he is entitled to use after his name, can be interpreted as follows:

BSc(Hons) - Degree of Bachelor of Science with Honours in Ship Science

MSc - Degree of Master of Science in Manufacturing: Management and Technology

PGDTech - Postgraduate Diploma in Computing & Manufacturing

CEng - Registered with the Engineering Council as a Chartered Engineer

FRINA - Fellow of The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, (RINA)

He is also a member of The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, (SNAME) based in New Jersey, USA. These academic and professional qualifications are supported by more than thirty years of experience gained while working in the area of yacht and small craft design. In the early 1970s he gained industrial experience with both production and custom boat builders before spending two years working in the yacht design office at the famous firm of Camper and Nicholsons.

Until starting his own design business he spent 27 years teaching yacht and boat design. This included 14 years as Principal Lecturer in Yacht & Small Craft Design at the prestigious Southampton Institute, a college in the UK university sector that pioneered the technical education of yacht designers with the Diploma in Yacht & Boat Design from 1970. He was the Course Supervisor of this programme for 15 years and for the subsequent BSc in Yacht & Small Craft Design for two years. He has also lectured on the current course programme, which includes the BEng(Hons) in Yacht & Powercraft Design and the BSc(Hons) in Yacht Manufacturing & Surveying.

Knowledge of the product itself and the environment in which it has to function is also essential for a successful yacht and small craft designer. In his case this has been gained from more than 40 years of extensive sailing and boating experience, starting as a youngster in dinghies and progressing through racing dinghies, windsurfers, cruising yachts, some offshore racing, motor cruising, workboats and the occasional charter.

A family background in the industry, in particular in yacht design and manufacturing has been an added bonus. His father, C S J Roy, as founder and managing director of Macwester Marine, designed all the popular Macwester Cruising Yachts and four of the Atlanta range, including the Macwester 26, 28, 30, Kelpie, Rowan 22, Wight Class, Macwester 27, Malin, Pelagian, Rowan 8m, Rowan Crown and Seaforth, as well as the Atlanta Rockall, Viking 800, Atlanta 28 and 8.5. These yachts brought affordable, safe and comfortable cruising to thousands of new owners in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. Growing up in and around the yacht design office at the family home and at the Macwester boat yard at Littlehampton, West Sussex, provided him with the ideal opportunity to learn about designing and building yachts, something that has since become a lifelong passion.

C S J Roy,
creator of the Macwester cruising yachts