Michael Peters Yacht Design is a full-service design firm with a proven record of delivering yachts from production motorboats to luxurious, fully custom superyachts, and pretty much everything in between. At Summit Motoryachts, we knew we had to talk to this firm if we were going to launch a new line of performance motoryachts, and, after we did, we knew we had struck design gold.
Michael Peters is a straight shooter who explained to us how his firm got its start and what sets it apart from other design firms. He explained how the firm began by serving competitors in the world-class offshore powerboat racing, and grew his designs from that point to deliver performance hulls of virtually every description.
To deliver the full package of performance and onboard comfort, we knew that Michael Peters Yacht Design would understand what we were after. The designs the firm presented would present a profile that would fit in with our aesthetic sensibility, all in a hull shape that would deliver the speed that we wanted.
At the same time, the company is not just an exterior hull designer, and this is important. Michael Peters Yacht Design creates the design inside and out, lending stylistic cues and lines that leap off the page and created our boat’s brand before our very eyes. He just took the descriptions and ideas that we had and synthesized a yacht design that would evoke the feelings and deliver the ride that our company was looking for.
Michael Peters and his team design every aspect of the yacht, from the running surface, to the propulsion system, to the exterior look and decks, to the interior layout from engine room to accommodations.
When you present Michael Peters Yacht Design with a list of performance metrics and layout considerations, his approach is to take it all in. He doesn’t try to push us one way or another on any concept. He will present concepts based on what he knows of how the market is served today, and how other builders’ designs stack up, and in that way he provides useful insight into what’s out there and where design is headed. But he listens closely to what’s important to us, and if the more important idea needs to change how a less important trait is handled, he shows you how and why he managed that.
Where other firms try to force every design into one hull form, Michael Peters Yacht Design has five forms they can use. This allows the design to grow out of a hullform that starts out closer to what is needed.
“What we try to do is choose which of those five hull forms is best suited to the yacht program we’re involved with,” Peters says. “Look at a boat like the Summit. We didn’t want a hull that would go 40 or 50 knots. But we also want a higher cruising speed range, so we don’t want a full-displacement hull. So we came in with a hard-chine boat with a moderate deadrise.”
The other thing that Michael Peters stressed beyond the importance of the hull shape is the weight. Keeping the weight within strict limits, and also making certain the weight is distributed properly for the hull bottom and propulsion system to work in concert to deliver the performance. “We try to keep the weight right on the boat—don’t let it get too heavy,” he says. “Weight and balance is everything.”
Hear Michael Peters and Tucker West of Summit Motoryachts Talk About the Design