This method of designing boats was THE way for many many years. Some of the most famous boats in history were conceived in this way. I was taking a yacht design course and doing lots of reading when I got the urge to learn how use the half model method. I had already learned lofting from some other projects, but coming up with my OWN shape and table of offsets from the half model, that was interesting. If I were to design another boat right now, rather than learn some CAD program, I would probably just do the half model again..