In the initial stages of ship design, designers represent geometry, arrangement, and dimension of hull structures with 2D geometric primitives such as points, lines, arcs, and drawing symbols. However, these design information(‘2D geometric primitives’) defined in the drawing sheet require more intelligent translation processes by the designers in the next design stages. Thus, the loss of design semantics could be occurred and following design processes could be delayed. In the initial design stages, it is not easy to adopt commercial 3D CAD systems, which have been developed f3r being used in detail and production design stages, because the 3D CAD systems require detailed input for geometry definition. In this study, a semantic product model data structure was proposed, and an initial structural CAD system was developed based on the proposed data structure. Contents(‘product model data and design knowledges’) of the proposed data structure are filled with minimal input of the designers, and then 3D solid model and production material information can be automatically generated as occasion demands. Finally, the applicability of the proposed semantic product model data structure and the developed initial structural CAD system was verified through application to deadweight 300,000ton VLCC(Very Large Crude oil Carrier) product modeling procedure