About Us....

Established in 1997 by John Fitzhardinge and Chris Smart, Southerly Designs is based in Port Denison at the heart of Western Australia's rock lobster industry. While the company's origins can be traced to the many fishing boats and patrol vessels John designed for the Australian market over the past 25 years, as a recent client list shows, today Southerly Designs is just as likely to be working on designs for vessels based in Malaysia, Singapore or Jakarta.

As a professional fisherman with 40 years' experience, John has taken his knowledge of the sea and translated it into designs which handle well in all conditions, are fuel efficient and offer comfort without sacrificing performance. Chris has a passion for innovative design and ensures the ideas are brought to the market using the best of the latest technology available. Chris is responsible for implementing Southerly’s use of CAD software & design data to realize their designs, and has taken the lead role in new vessel design for most projects to date.

Since joining Southerly Designs in 1999, Andrew Taylor has worked his way through the organization adding a wide variety of specialist naval architecture skills to his core degree, a bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Western Australia. In 2006 Andrew was appointed a director of the Southerly Designs company board and in 2007 he was appointed Managing Director.

Over the past 11 years John, Chris & Andrew have grown the capabilities of Southerly Designs, taking on more senior & support staff, and have built a professional and dedicated team catering to vessels for the fishing, pleasure, offshore oil and gas, military and surveillance industries. With a portfolio of over 400 designs ranging in size from 4.2m up to 56m, their boats are just as likely to be built by yards in Singapore or Vietnam as they are in Australia. Southerly Designs have developed a reputation for high quality design packages to international classes such as ABS, Lloyds, DNV & BV.

Southerly Designs has a modern office in Port Denison surrounded by the best in CAD/CAM hardware & software, backed up by an extensive database of real world data from the many vessels built to our designs. A typical Southerly Design package includes performance prediction, 2D & 3D visualizations, structural design, nested plasma cut part files & stability analysis, and with the benefits of modern internet technology we can deliver designs to shipyards anywhere in the world.

Southerly Designs has a long association with Strategic Marine and has helped Strategic Marine deliver over 340 vessels to a diverse range of international clients. Southerly began this relationship with Geraldton Boat Builders & Asia Pac Geraldton. Southerly Designs is also lead designer for Western Boat Builders & has designed for Extreme Marine, Hound Dog Marine, Peter Milner Yachts & Select Marine.