Royaldesigners

Fascinated from a young age with ideas for efficient ships and boats, Nigel Gee graduated from Newcastle University in 1969. He was employed in the Hovercraft industry, and developed low-power hovercraft for passenger and workboat applications at Hovermarine. He taught ship design at Solent University, before setting up a design consultancy, specialising in fuel efficient fast ships and boats. Early projects included minimum wash river buses for the Thames, fast catamarans and hoverferries for the international market, including commuter ferries and water taxis for New York, and the world’s fastest ferry for South America – providing a greener alternative to short air routes. Nigel tackled the question of reducing costs of fast container ship transportation with vessels using lower power than previously thought possible. He proposed a revolutionary Pentamaran design for transoceanic delivery of containers to compete with air freight. Nigel served for three years as President of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects.