David Pedrick is a naval architect and marine engineer. He learned about naval architecture – the architecture of ships – and its application to yacht design soon after he started sailing at an early age. He shaped his love of sailing, eye for aesthetics and talent in science into his career as an industry-leading yacht designer.
Sailing yachts are dynamic works of art – vehicles designed to harness the energy of the wind to overcome the resistance of the sea. Offshore and coastal sailing yachts – David’s core design work – are created to be pleasing to the eye and hand, but must also be engineered for ultimate safety in a hostile, storm-tossed operating environment.
The common goal that owners request of David is for their yachts to be beautiful, comfortable and fast. He and his design team have delivered these qualities in a wide range of yacht types, including winners of the America’s Cup, course record holders in the world’s major ocean races, exquisite custom cruising yachts, offshore sail training sloops, durable production sailboats and concours d’elegance classic yacht restorations.
Yacht designers are the integrators of all aesthetic and mechanical factors that go into making a yacht beautiful, agile and safe. Art and science are forged together through technical disciplines such as specialized structural engineering, computational fluid dynamics, and sailing performance prediction. David’s clients and colleagues value the intuitive design sense, technical rigor and attention to detail that go into each of his firm’s designs.
David is a 1970 graduate of Webb Institute of Naval Architecture with a B.S. in both naval architecture and marine engineering. He began his yacht design career under the mentorship of the renowned Olin Stephens, and established Pedrick Yacht Designs in Newport, RI in 1977. He is a Fellow in the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME). Past volunteer positions include: chairman of the International Technical Committee for ocean racing; board member and awards judge of the International Superyacht Society; a founding trustee and chairman of the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS); and a corporation member of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).