Our designs are focused on the operator first.
Seakeeping, crew comfort; and operability on the job are our main focus.
The origins of Southerly Designs date back to 1962 when founding partner John Fitzhardinge began designing, building, operating and maintaining his own vessels in Australia’s Western Rock Lobster fishery. Function and comfort were paramount but always with due regard to being safe, robust, maintainable and aesthetically pleasing.
Over the years John began producing more designs for others but never lost the focus on the operator first. The clientele always consisted of owner-operators for whom their own day to day comfort and safety was of prime concern. In addition, these owner operators often worked in close proximity to each other and to John.
This environment ensured that any success or shortcoming in a design was immediately observed by the fleet and feedback both positive and negative would be instantly and emphatically delivered to everyone within earshot by these hard nosed fishing boat captains.
Southerly Designs have built upon this, and are now recognised as one of the world’s best designers of a wide variety of commercial & leisure vessels.
Southerly Designs retains close ties with our clientele, both past and present, and are able to tap this vast resource of experience across the decades and across many sectors of marine operations.
Our designs are always at the leading edge.
Southerly Designs have consistently maintained the vision that producing the best boat for the job is the primary concern. Rather than producing the smallest / cheapest vessel that can possibly satisfy a given requirement, our drive is to produce a vessel that will enable the crew to perform their functions efficiently and in safety and comfort.
We maintain an unwavering commitment to the final operator. Southerly Designs maintain a strong focus on producing vessels that not only perform well and are eminently practical in function and arrangement, our designs are also aesthetically pleasing – and built to last decades at sea!
We place significant effort into including style with function and have evolved a signature styling that is classic and appealing, while being inherently practical and devoid of gimmicks, and resists the often inevitable decline to pure utilitarianism.
Our holistic approach to vessel design and firm focus on the operator ensures that we have many satisfied and repeat clients, our vessels are built to last and will never go out of style.
