Three Degrees of Jon Bannenberg: Tracing Seymour Diamond’s Design Lineage

Press  ·  Boat International

Three Degrees of Jon Bannenberg: Tracing Seymour Diamond’s Design Lineage

Jon Bannenberg is widely regarded as the founder of modern yacht design, running his own studio, Jon Bannenberg Ltd, from 1972 until 2002 and training many of the designers who would go on to lead the industry themselves. Boat International mapped that legacy in an infographic tracing three generations of talent that passed through his studio, and through the studios of those he trained in turn. Fiona Diamond’s name sits on it.

From Bannenberg, to Disdale, to Diamond

Terence Disdale trained directly under Bannenberg between 1967 and 1973 before opening his own hugely influential studio. Fiona spent fifteen years there, from 1995 to 2010, working on more than thirty projects before launching Seymour Diamond. On the chart, that makes her one of only a handful of designers to sit three clean generations from Bannenberg himself: from Bannenberg, to Disdale, to Diamond.

It is a neat piece of industry history to be part of, a reminder that Seymour Diamond’s approach to yacht design did not appear from nowhere. It was shaped over three decades, under some of the same influences that built the profession as it exists today.

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