Information JMD Consultants
JMD Consultants was born out of a need to provide quality service to private and corporate clients involved in the construction/refit of yachts and commercial vessels.
Owner and operator of JMD Consultants is Jonathan McDonnell. He is married with 3 children.
Jonathan's background is originally from the Commercial field with service of 10 years in the Australian Merchant Marine. He gained his Second Officers Class 1 Certificate in 1980.
In 1987 after gaining his Foreign Going Masters 1 Certificate he wanted to focus more on the private sector of yachting.
Jonathan built his first boat; a 10M carbon/kevlar epoxy catamaran in 1981.
He worked as a Marine Consultant for several years organizing refits and constructions in Australia from yachts of 30M up to 55M. This was principally in shipyards in Queensland, Australia.
In 1989 Jonathan was commissioned to do the preliminary concept for a Catamaran motor yacht, in conjunction with the famous, late, Australian Multihull yacht/ferry designer, Lock Crowther, which involved build spec, general arrangement plans, tank testing (including ultimate survivability in Southern Ocean storm conditions) and this work was completed in 1991 when a shipyard was selected for construction.
In 1991 to further broaden Jonathans experience he embarked on a European trip to become more involved in the industry on a global scale. He was shortly after appointed as Master of the 65M Feadship "Cedar Sea II".
In mid 1993 he was contacted and offered the job as project manager for a new conceptual vessel. It was a rengineered version of the 25M Hi Speed Mangusta Open construction. This was number 6 in the Mangusta 80 range. This was the first successful boat in this series and as a result launched the brand internationally and helped make the Rodriguez Group of Companies a huge success in the late 90's. References can be found here.
He was then commissioned to assist in a preliminary design for 75M diesel electric powered motor yacht in co-operation with Espen Oeino Naval Architects. This project was completed in 1997.
In 1998 Jonathan was then employed as Captain for a Dutch family in Monaco where his role was to improve the vessel and also help the 1st Officer attain the level as Captain. References can be found here.
In the year 2002 Espen Oeino Naval Architects invited Jonathan to be Project/Site Manager of the 77M "Princess Mariana", constructed at Danyard in Aalborg, Denmark. This was completed in February 2004.
In parallel he was also Project/Site Manager for "Moon Goddess" the first carbon / kevlar epoxy power boat to be built by Danish Yachts in Skagen Denmark.
After the successful delivery of "Moon Goddess" in 2007 Jonathan was asked to stay on at Danish Yachts and start up the previously non existing sales and marketing arm of the company.
In addition, and at the same time, Jonathan also had the responsibility of technical consultant and Owners representative on the 38M project "Shooting Star" carbon new build + other refit projects.
After the launch and success of "Shooting Star" in 2010 Jonathan returned to Australia and revalidated his "Master 1 Unlimited Certificate".
He continued to work on various large projects with his associates. These vessels included MY Mary Jean, MY Mary Jean II, the 70M Amadeus and MY Mariu. He also did a build spec review for a 134M Motor Yacht.
Jonathan was also active in the operational mode as he did stints as Captain of the 60M explorer yacht Capella C and also during the year of 2012 on board the 60M MY Idol.
In 2013 Jonathan has been working on a number of smaller projects in the Baglietto Shipyard in La Spezia for a Monaco based Russian client.
In the second half of 2013 Jonathan has been commissioned to be full on site project manager for a 70M Motor Yacht project in the middle east.