Dick Zaal started his boat building career as a carpenter at the van de Stadt Boatyard in Zaandam, where he also trained himself in the basics of yacht design. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, he took English courses so he could read international literature on sailing and yacht design. His dedication and his love for the trade did not go unnoticed, and soon Zaal was promoted to the drafting room. He eventually became one of van de Stadt’s associate designers.
In the early 1970’s the van de Stadt yard, with its predominantly manual production methods, could no longer compete with the larger production yards and was taken over by the German Dehler Company, who used the site as a deliverance station for boats built else where.
The separated design department lost its direct contact with boat building practice. It was time for Zaal to find another job.
Becoming the main designer at the Conyplex yard, Zaal was responsible for one or two complete new designs a year, including quality control and test sails with the clients.
But working for one yard, where all his designs had to fit into a recognizable line, in the end proved too much of a limitation to his lively mind. In 1980, with the help of a few friends, Zaal established his own office in Hoorn, where he still practices.
Conyplex, now known as Contest Yachts, remained for many years a valuble customer, and ordered thirty two designs in total.
Zaal’s primary focus is on cruising yachts between 30’ and 60’, but he is also an avid ocean racer, experimenting with hydrofoils and outside, removable water ballast contained in a wing-profile. For the solo sailor Wytze van der Zee he designed New Magic Breeze, an extreme design for high-speed, short handed sailing, very much in the old van de Stadt tradition. “NMB” popularized Zaal’s name as a designer, but in spite of his interest in speed and experimentation, most of his production designs are more conventional. Several designs show traditional influences, such as the 47’ sloop Peregrine, which looks like a Danish trader above the waterline, but has the underbody of a modern keel-centerboarder, and the 40’ full-keeled Skarpsno, a double-headsail ketch in the old Scandinavian tradition.
Zaal is a member of the “Think Tank,” a group of Dutch yacht designers that get together on a regular basis, guided by Prof. Gerritsma from the University of Delft, to discuss and test developments in yacht design.