Company Description

Why us

Over 500 motor and sailing yacht designs completed and today there are over 10,000 boats on the water with the Tony Castro design stamp.

Expertise

The Studio is set in the beautiful sailing village of Hamble in Hampshire. Operating from a traditional thatched manor house, it provides an ideal environment to create high-quality, creative design-work. It has a friendly and quaint atmosphere which helps to build good relationships with clients. 40 years in business provides us with the best source of knowledge, i.e. experience!

Heritage

To really understand yacht design, a passion for the sea and proven track record of success on the water is a surely a prerequisite for a yacht designer?!

Tony started racing boats as a young boy and by his teens had won numerous championships. This expertise proved to be the bedrock of his understanding of boat dynamics, which proved invaluable when he started; he formally set up his studio in 1981. In those days you were judged on the competitiveness of the yachts you designed and the only way to secure a fully crewed raceboat, further commissions was to win on the water ...

Thankfully, the first Tony Castro-designed yacht broke records, and in 1981 JUSTINE III won the One Ton World Cup – becoming the first, and to this day the only, fully crewed race yacht to win all five races in a world championship, which was one of the most prestigious and challenging yachting championships of its time.

From this illustrious start, the studio won four more world championships in different classes, various commissions from numerous manufacturers and individuals wanting the Tony Castro Design stamp. Over the following almost 40 years it led to a yacht design business with numerous awards for production and custom yachts for both power and sail, for both manufacturers and individuals, ranging in size from small boats to superyachts.

My design team

My team is built from a highly talented and experienced group of individuals, each accomplished in their own right and extremely dedicated. We are one of a handful of teams worldwide that can deal with all aspects of a yacht design, able to offer a complete harmonious package of naval architecture, exterior and interior design.

Personality

Q : How were you introduced to the world of superyacht design?

In 1984 I designed one of the first “superyachts” as we call them nowadays. One of my clients, who had been involved with one of our most successful racing yachts, approached me after my involvement with the America’s Cup boats and asked for a 31m sailing yacht. This was considered to be a massive yacht at the time and was to become a cruising yacht, built in steel—strong, sleek and nimble. She had a shallow draught keel with winglets and twin rudders. She is still a joy to sail today and on its third owner since new. Soon after that the interest in larger yachts increased enormously and further advances in materials and building techniques were made, making the superyachts of today possible.

Q : Where does the inspiration for new projects come from?

Unlike the majority of my fellow designers, we don’t have a particular brand of style of our own, or sell ready-made designs, therefore I rarely find myself sitting down and wondering what to do next. We find that our projects always start by listening to the client and from there we create an original and unique design to suit them. After a few years you use your experience from previous designs to draw a refined solution. Despite starting with a design brief, we still need to turn dreams into reality and be able to generate new ideas, and ‘create’ the designs.

Q : If there were an award for the best design of all time, which one would you choose?

I would like to give the prize to nature because there are things in the world such as the egg that simply cannot be improved upon. It’s perfectly designed for its purpose, simple, light and yet strong. However, if pushed I would have to say one of my favourite and admired designs is a Breguet wristwatch, not only because he was the first person to make one but also because it does what it says on the box. It is extremely precise and accurate—a masterful piece of micro-engineering and manufacturing that always looks beautiful and never goes out of fashion.