DESIGN FIRM HISTORY
Our yacht design studio's history begins in the early 1980s, when founder Ward Setzer launched a career under the tutelage of the late J.B. Hargrave. The "Dean of American Naval Architecture," Hargrave had a profound early impact on Setzer's career, instilling a lifelong drive to always ask why and why not as a custom yacht designer.
For 22 years, the Setzer team has worked with owners and builders to produce timeless and instantly recognizable superyacht designs. With a fleet of over seventy yachts in service, Setzer Yacht Architects is one of the premier yacht design and naval architecture firms in the United States, having produced multiple award-winning yacht designs for construction at shipyards around the world including Northern Marine, Christensen, Richmond, Delta, McMullen & Wing, Lyman-Morse, Trinity, The Hinckley Company, and NISI.