Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design

• Founder: Malcolm McKeon, naval architect
• Background: joined Ed Dubois full time in 1981 after studying yacht design at Southampton, and stayed 31 years as lead naval architect
• Studio founded: end of 2012, after McKeon left Dubois
• Based: Middle Barn, Efford Park, Lymington, Hampshire
• Team: a group of naval architects and yacht designers led by McKeon
• Experience: involved in more than 200 yachts including over 55 superyachts, by the studio's own count
• Disciplines: naval architecture and full yacht design for monohulls, sailing catamarans, motor yachts, chase boats and tenders
• Flagship: Sarissa, 59.7m sloop, Royal Huisman, 2023, 499 GT, interior by Liaigre
• Sarissa awards: ten in total, including Sailing Yacht of the Year at the 2024 World Superyacht Awards and Yacht of the Year from the International Superyacht Society
• Zemi: a McKeon design that took Best Sailing Yacht 30m to 39.9m at the same awards
• Nautor Swan: a 43.5 metre alloy sloop, design 118, announced in March 2024 to open Swan's 40 metre plus alloy range
• In build: MMYD 095, due to launch in 2026

Thirty one years with Ed Dubois

McKeon started working for Ed Dubois while still studying yacht design at Southampton in the late 1970s, delivering boats and sailing regattas during the holidays. He joined full time after graduating in 1981 and stayed for thirty one years as lead naval architect. Dubois was one of the two or three names that defined the large sailing yacht through the 1990s and 2000s.

He has been candid about the ending. The two men had developed different approaches to design and it became impossible to work together. He left around the end of 2012 intending to take time out. Projects already in his hands needed finishing, and the studio started because those owners wanted him and not a replacement.

A studio in Lymington

Malcolm McKeon Yacht Design works from Middle Barn at Efford Park outside Lymington, in the stretch of Hampshire coast that has produced a disproportionate share of British yacht designers. The team is a small group of naval architects and designers led by McKeon. He puts his own involvement across more than two hundred yachts, of which more than fifty five are superyachts.

That number is the point of the studio. An owner hiring McKeon is buying four decades of decisions about keel depth, rig loads and where to put a bulkhead. He is also buying continuity for the Dubois fleet, since a good many of those boats now coming up for refit or replacement were drawn under his hand in the first place.

A superstructure pressed as low as the engineering allows, wrapped in glass the rig would rather not have there.

Naval architecture and the whole boat

This is not a styling practice. The studio does the naval architecture, the exterior and the general arrangement, and covers monohull sailing yachts, sailing catamarans, motor yachts, chase boats and tenders. Interiors normally go to a separate house, as they did on Sarissa, where Liaigre took the inside.

Doing the hull and the profile in the same office matters more on a sailing yacht than on a motor yacht. The rig loads, the keel, the deck structure and the shape of the superstructure all argue with each other, and on a sailing boat the argument is settled by physics. A studio that owns both sides of it can decide where to give ground without a negotiation between two firms.

Low superstructure, and a great deal of glass

The recognisable move is a superstructure pressed as low and as long as the engineering allows, with wraparound glazing that runs almost uninterrupted. The sheerline typically shifts from convex forward to concave aft, which is what gives a McKeon boat its slightly predatory look on the water. Rigs are tall and mainsails square topped.

The reason is not only appearance. McKeon designs for connection to the surroundings, which in practice means an owner sitting in the saloon can see the water without standing up. Getting that on a sailing yacht is difficult, because glass is heavy, high up, and structurally awkward exactly where the rig wants to load the deck. This is where the naval architecture in house pays for itself.

Sarissa

Sarissa, 59.7 metres, was delivered by Royal Huisman in 2023 as yard number 404, with the full design by the studio and an interior by Liaigre. She carries an 11 metre beam, 499 GT and a lifting keel that moves her draught between 4.7 and 7.7 metres. The rig is a high performance sloop with a large square topped mainsail.

She won ten awards. Sailing Yacht of the Year at the 2024 World Superyacht Awards, Yacht of the Year and Best in Sail over 40 metres from the International Superyacht Society, Best Interior Sail and a Design and Innovation award for her propulsion. Four of those came at the BOAT design awards alone. Awards do not make a boat sail, and this one does both.

What Sarissa actually solved

Her superstructure is carbon, which let the studio use much slimmer window mullions and gain headroom inside without raising the roof. The saloon opens to the cockpit through a four panel sliding door 3.7 metres wide. The beach club door is carbon and folds out to around 20 square metres of platform. Finite element modelling was used to get the structure around the feature windows right.

She also carries forward facing retractable electric propulsion, which took its own innovation award. The practical list is longer and less glamorous, including retractable bollards, flush fairleads and drums for sail storage. An owner cares about those because they are the difference between a clean deck and a deck covered in hardware. The boat still has a jacuzzi, a sauna and a climbing wall.

Royal Huisman, Nautor Swan and the yards

Royal Huisman is the deepest relationship and the yard that built Sarissa. In March 2024 Nautor Swan announced a 43.5 metre alloy sloop to a McKeon design, listed as design 118, opening the Finnish yard's range above 40 metres and moving it into aluminium construction. The boat is being marketed with Edmiston and is drawn with hydrogeneration and provision for methanol and hydrogen systems.

A yard choosing an outside designer to open a new range is a strong signal. Nautor Swan has its own long design tradition and brought McKeon in specifically for large alloy sailing yachts, which is the part of the market he has spent his career in. For an owner, a designer who is trusted to set a yard's direction is one who will be listened to when the build gets difficult.

How a commission runs, and what it costs

McKeon has said he shows a client the boat they asked for and then one or two more radical alternatives alongside it, and that most owners take the conservative option because the money at risk is their own. From there the studio produces the lines, the sail plan, the general arrangement and the exterior, and the package goes to yards to price. On a 60 metre sailing yacht the design and engineering phase runs to many months and delivery usually follows around three years after contract.

Naval architecture and design at this level is charged either against defined stages or as a share of build cost, and on a boat of this size the fee runs into seven figures. The interior is a separate appointment and a separate budget. The design decisions that cost the most are structural, so an owner who changes the rig or the keel after engineering has started should expect that change to be expensive twice over.

Recognition, and who it does not suit

The studio is barely a decade old and has already produced a Sailing Yacht of the Year, which is unusual. Zemi, another McKeon design, took Best Sailing Yacht from 30 to 39.9 metres at the same awards. Recognition of that order tells an owner the boat satisfied a panel that had crawled through the engine room, and it helps at resale.

This studio does not suit an owner who wants a traditional or classic sailing yacht, because the work is deliberately modern and McKeon has said he looks forward and not back. It does not suit an owner whose main interest is a very large motor yacht, where deeper portfolios exist elsewhere. Anyone wanting a single office to deliver the interior as well will need a second appointment. MMYD 095 is due to launch in 2026.

Who it is for: Owners commissioning a large modern sailing yacht who want the hull, the rig and the profile settled inside one office.