Because of the purpose, character, size, appearance and status symbols of yachts, designing them brings you in contact with a very rich clientele. Have you ever had a problem with demands of your clients? We would also like to know whether you had a request by some of your clients that have remained in a special memory for you as the most unusual request?
I enjoy contact and constructive interaction with a knowledgeable client who is appreciative of design and the beauty of form and shape. To me, their input is very important because I always try to interpret their ideas and to some extent their personality when I am designing for an individual. With the owner’s representatives, who are most of the time captains, approach is on a professional level encompassing regulations, workability, security and above all safety! This is very different industry from many others, and you meet many very interesting people.
Speaking of moments that remained in your special memory, tell us whether there is a yacht or any other project that you were working on, which is for some reason very special for you?
This is like asking me which of my children do I like the most. I love them all, that is our children and my yacht designs.
You are the founder and owner of the company named “ER Yacht Design” (Ivan Erdevicki Naval Architecture & Yacht Design Inc.), which deals (as its own name suggests) with the yacht design. Tell us more about it?
The company, based in Vancouver BC, Canada, engaged in the design and development of luxury Superyachts, from 30m to over 120m in size and also high quality performance Leisure Craft, founded in 2001 and now with representative office in London (United Kingdom) and Porto Montenegro in the Mediterranean.
My work is based on a long experience of boat design and naval architecture for some of leading yacht builders and shipyards in the USA and Europe. Over the past 14 years, yacht designs have been developed for a number of leading yacht shipyards such as Nobiskrug, Icon Yachts and Lurssen in Europe and Burger Boats, and Perry Yachts in the USA and many others as well as for private individual clients in Europe, the USA and Canada.
I started my career as an engineer and then designer working for some of the World’s most respected US custom built yacht shipyards such as Delta Marine Industries in Seattle, WA and other design offices in the USA.
I studied naval architecture in Zagreb, then mechanical engineering at the UCLA, USA and the yacht design at The Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology, Maine, USA. This background and the hands-on experience of yacht construction and an extensive boating experience on variety of vessels enabled me to develop into a designer with the main objective of blending the art of design and engineering into what has become today a distinct form, the Erdevicki style.
Yachts are naturally associated with traveling. We’re wondering whether you love to travel and which are your favourite destinations that you have visited. We would also like to know where would you like to travel that you have never been before?
It’s all work, work, work but I’ve managed recently places a varied as China, Hog Kong, Singapore, Mexico, Seychelles to mention few. I enjoy Vancouver where I live but love London-so cosmopolitan, Venice-so romantic and the whole of the Adriatic-so unforgettable. I would love to make a landfall by boat in Japan and see the Mount Fuji at sunrise, probably during the Cherry Blossom season, in late March or April.
