The shipbuilding industry has varied widely throughout history. This paper traces the history of ship design since Roman times, when ship designers began to use curves for drawing frames, through the Venetian techniques (XIII-XVI centuries) reusing templates, to the most modern methods for ship design with CAD/CAM Systems. Throughout the first half of the XX century, ships were getting bigger; so it was necessary to work on larger scales. The templates allowed working on different scales, such as widely used 1:10 scale. But with growing ship size, the moment came it was no longer practical to use templates. This happened at a time when the first computers came to our industry, promoting the development of ship design CAD tools. The new CAD Systems offer a comprehensive process for the design and construction of ships, offshore platforms and submarines, with the help of computers. There are many advantages of using CAD in shipbuilding: ease of design, speed of construction, use and reuse of information, etc. It is expected that in the future CAD tools will advance further and allow greater information management and virtual access through smart devices. In general, CAD Systems provide tangible benefits while the process is optimized, reducing design time and production, and therefore costs.