Ship shapes.

• Author: Gray, Tim
• Position: Ward Setzer, yacht designer's works - Biography

For Ward Setzer, working for Jack Hargrave was like a summer at Parris Island, the Marine Corps boot camp. Setzer, one of the country's best-known yacht designers, had graduated from N.C. State less than a year before he signed on with the famous yacht designer. From the beginning, he knew to expect a slog at the West Palm Beach, Fla., company. Hargrave was known for his gruffness and toughness. * "We were human drafting machines," Setzer recalls. "We were lined up like an old factory, drafting table after drafting table. Jack would make his rounds twice a day. Because he only had one eye, you had to have a pad of sketch paper on the right side of your table so he could see it. It wasn't a wonderful existence, but you sure did learn. I chose to work for him because he was a traditional naval architect--a hard-nosed, crew-cut traditionalist. He created the Hatteras line with the original owner." Hargrave's designs exhibited the same combination of beauty and buildability that distinguishes Setzer's work. And if Setzer, who today is based in Cary, didn't adopt his old boss' hairstyle--his cut is country-club conservative, not jarhead slick--he does hew to Hargrave's exacting standards and perfectionism. He's the sort for whom "good enough" never is. * "Ward has said to me, 'More of Jack rubbed off on me than I realized,'" says Dudley Dawson, a naval architect who also worked with Hargrave and is now an editor at Yachting magazine. "Jack believed that a boat should look good without stripes or tailfins, that it should be a sculpture. Ward has picked that up." * Setzer's yachts are elegant and well-proportioned, melding styling from the past--like the Carolina-flared bow that Hatteras made famous--with that of the present. Yachting called Setzer's Wombat, launched last year, flawless. "Ward's boats are like a Victorian house where every banister was turned by hand," says Don Wallace, the magazine's executive editor. "They're top of the line in terms of craftsmanship." Setzer, who's 45 and president of Setzer Design Group, specializes in big powerboats for the simple reason that they represent a much bigger market than big sailboats, whose popularity has waned lately.

Despite his design prowess and the kudos for his creations, Setzer remains hired help for a very demanding clientele. His customers tally their net worth in tens of millions, even billions, of dollars. They're typically Type-A personalities accustomed to issuing orders and seeing them executed promptly. Setzer thus spends as much time these days as a go-between as he does as a designer. He coordinates owners, builders, interior designers and even lawyers. "I should change my title to marine mediator," he jokes. He wants to be more the captain of his fate, which is why he's starting a line of Setzer-branded powerboats. So far, he has designed a 34-footer and a 38-footer, each in two versions. The sport version will be outfitted for diving and fishing, the express for cruising.

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Production has begun on the 38, which will sell for about $400,000--a premium price for some folks but a relative bargain from a guy whose creations typically cost more than $10 million to design and build. Setzer's fee varies with the size of the boat--the bigger the boat, the smaller the percentage. He also has entered an agreement with Taiwan-based Global Yachts to build a limited-production 66-footer. In early August, he was ironing out details of the collaboration. "What we're trying to do is build the Setzer brand," he explains.

He doesn't say it, but the implication is obvious: A brand represents freedom. Microsoft's Bill Gates and Nike's Phil Knight, after all, don't have to answer personally to every carping customer. A brand also should enable Setzer to make more money because every boat will no longer begin with a blank computer screen.

In some ways, Setzer's choice of career was an...