Owen Clarke Design 

Owen Clarke Design was founded thirty years ago and is recognised as being at the leading edge of performance sailing yacht design. We are particularly known for our earth circling IMOCA Open 60’s such as Ellen MacArthur’s Kingfisher, and as pioneers in the field of canting, lifting, and lifting/canting keel racing and cruising boats. As naval architects and yacht designers our portfolio of cruising and racing designs are as diverse as our experience in large sailing yacht design. We specialise in designing and managing complex projects. A prime example of this; three of our most recent cruising projects have all been high latitude explorer yachts.

Owen Clarke provide a full range of naval architecture, yacht design, engineering, and project support. As well as designing our own yachts we act as consultants for both new commissions and the refit of large sailing yachts. We are also expert in performance analysis and undertake consultancy work and rating optimisation for IRC, ORC and the ORCsy Superyacht Rule. Owners, project managers shipyards, legal and professional bodies are supported locally by offices in the UK, New Zealand and through our associates in the United States.

Our own designs have been styled by Allen Clarke, who having completed three years studying yacht design at the world-famous Southampton Institute worked for the largest interior design company in the West of England before forming Owen Clarke Design with Merfyn Owen in 1991. Allen designed OC’s first large cruising yacht, Spirit of Adventure, a 20m performance blue water cruiser built by Marten Yachts, New Zealand and delivered in 2004.

Merfyn Owen is a graduate of University College London and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects. He is OC’s senior naval architect and to date his responsibilities have been mainly focused on the office’s race boat designs, including running the research and development programs associated with grand prix projects. In 2009 he was the lead naval architect of Owen Clarke’s first superyacht design, a 45m carbon-Nomex schooner, designed in partnership with the Finnish design studio Aivan.

Clay Oliver, co-designer of our last three Open 60’s is an American naval architect based in Annapolis who also brings to the group his experience gained at Farr Yacht Design and subsequently principal designer for Team New Zealand. He is co-designer of Mari Cha 4, and the 30m maxi Genuine Risk and the winner of the 2011 Sydney-Hobart, Loyal (ex Maximus). The fourth designer and lynch-pin of the superyacht team is Tim Sadler who runs the office in New Zealand. Before he joined Owen Clarke in 2001, he spent the previous decade working at Marten Yachts and Sensation Yachts, where he was the design and project engineer on new builds including the 147’ ketch, Mari Cha 3.

If as an owner you’re looking for something exciting, innovative and of course stylish for your next sailing yacht then we would like to share in realising that dream.

Our team brings over a hundred years of experience in the marine industry working in disciplines as diverse as heavy marine engineering and pre-preg carbon composite design. We are expert naval architects of vessels with one, two and three hulls, have worked on sensitive projects alone but also in Americas Cup teams of more than a hundred. Since 1987 we have been professional skippers, hands on builders, as well as designers, engineers and project managers of yachts from 6.5m to 75m. 

OC provides consultancy services to the yacht and superyacht industries in the following disciplines; project consultancy, naval architecture, design and engineering. Work is carried out by our experienced design and engineering team and/or by our associates with our oversight. Work is undertaken independently or as part of the client’s team, from our offices in the UK, New Zealand and through our associates in the United States. Historically we have undertaken and offer our services to:

• Designers and naval architects
• Shipyards
• Owners
• Project management and yacht management companies
• Skippers and teams
• Yacht surveyors and insurance companies
• Legal and professional service groups
• Class associations and governing bodies
• Government