TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Building A Name For Himself

ADVERTISEMENT

By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 1, 2008

Updated: 01/31/2008 10:22 pm

"Some people think naval architects sit around all day and sketch pretty boats," Nick Boksa says. "That has very little to do with most of my projects. Basically, we are trying to design a luxury house that can be blasted through 4-foot waves at 30 knots and still stay in one piece. It's all about engineering and number-crunching."

Boksa, 34, has rapidly built a name for himself in a very exclusive industry. The design and engineering of big yachts and commercial ships is a rarified business, with a limited number of qualified individuals and a market literally as big as the oceans of the world.

It's the demand for his services, plus the wired world of the Internet, that allowed Boksa to set up his office at FishHawk Trails, east of Brandon - well away from the yachting centers on Florida's east coast or California's southwest coast.

Boksa got his master's degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan, then added a B.S. in marine engineering systems from the Merchant Marine Academy, and jobs started coming at him fast. He worked for Buddy Davis Yachts, a famed North Carolina builder of offshore sportfishing boats; for Berger Yachts in Wisconsin; and for several commercial builders.

In 2003, he launched his own company, Boksa Marine Design. He now has three other engineers working for him, and said it's likely he'll add another in the near future.

"When people want to know what we do here, I tell them we try to put 10 pounds of stuff into a 5-pound bag," Boksa said with a grin. "You're dealing with people who have money, they have a lot of stuff, and they want it all on the boat with them. But even a big boat has very little room compared to a luxury house, so that's one of our challenges, finding ways to fit all the comforts our customers want into a more limited space."

And occasionally, fitting the customers themselves can be an issue.

"I did a boat for former basketball star Scottie Pippen a few years back," Boksa recalled, "and we had to make all the doors extra tall, allow extra headroom in the shower and make the beds extra long."

Boksa said his company also does a lot of work fitting engines and drive systems below decks.

"You not only have to fit the power into the available space," he said, "but you have to position it so that it doesn't have a bad effect on the balance and running attitude of the hull."

Boksa said most of the largest yachts these days have what is known as diesel-electric power; diesel engines run at a steady pace to charge massive batteries, and these batteries then turn the drive shaft and propeller.

"That sort of setup gives the longest life for the diesels, it's relatively fuel efficient, and it can be considerably quieter than engines coupled directly to the drives," he said.

And, while much of the boating industry is languishing with the current economic slump, the customers for the largest boats seem unaffected.

"Some of these boats run $20 million, and the people that have that kind of money are pretty much insulated from the ups and downs of the world economy," Boksa said. "We work on a lot of yachts headed to the Middle East, and lately we've done a number of Russian boats, too."

He said most large yachts have steel or aluminum hulls, but many now have fiberglass superstructures or cabins - an area his company frequently designs.

"The hulls get too heavy to be built in fiberglass as you get into larger yachts, but the appearance of fiberglass is hard to beat, so we use that to make the flowing lines and curves of the living area," Boksa said.

Boksa grew up on the water around Lake Michigan, boating with his family when he was too small to walk.

His parents moved to Englewood a few years back to be close to the Gulf, and he said that was a factor in setting up his business here.

"I still see my parents frequently. My wife and I go down there and go fishing and boating with them all the time."

Though Boksa's professional life has been spent on multimillion-dollar big boats, his dream is to someday build small boats.

"I'd like to come up with something similar to a deck boat, in the 20- to 30-foot range, maybe a bit more upscale," he said. "To have my own company and control the boat from design through construction and marketing, there would be a lot of satisfaction in that."

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT