Boat Building in Dubai?

savageseadog

savageseadog

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I found out that Seaquest the builder of the Prima 38 has moved production to Dubai. I was surprised at this and wondered what costs were involved and how it was organised. I can see that the tax free status is a good starter but is there the skilled labour available, technical infrastructure, is it too hot to be laying up GRP and so on. Has anyone any experience?
 
Dubai has a long term plan to introduce industry to provide an alternative source of revenue to oil. Seaquest was purchased in its entirety including the owners (I do not know about the staff). The idea of producing racing yachts sits well with the image of Dubai as a leisure/sporting location and Dubai has an active racing scene. Boat building works best in dry conditions and no doubt all facilities in Dubai are air conditioned. Skills with woodworking are traditional everywhere, and the rest of boat building involves the fitment of branded parts.
 
Yep,

Same as building construction. They will hire a few experienced western guys to manage it and then bring in cheap Labour from India to do al the work. The quality depends not only on the standard of expat management but how much the Dubai owners listen to the western managers!

If done right you should get good quality at a lower price....but things do go wrong!

Paul /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Thirty years ago I bought the first production GRP yacht made in red China (as opposed to Hong Kong). It was a Doug Peterson half tonner design, quite fast. The production team was led by a single expat, the rest being Chinese boatyard guys who were great with wood - but had never used GRP or stainless steel. It was hot and humid, being on the Pearl River, and aircon was definitely not on the menu.
So, as you can guess, the woodwork was a work of art, BUT
the stainless steel was strangely rust prone and orange after a week or two, and the GRP layup was pretty OK except for a patch on the deck by starboard shrouds that remained soft and slightly tacky for months after delivery. Then the first outing demonstrated that the stern gland had not been properly stuffed, necessitating a middle of the night dash back to a hoist!
Oh, and the rudder fell off during the annual RHKYC regatta, just after I had put it up for sale.
The good news was that I still sold it at a profit!

All this probably has no bearing on Seaquest's manufacturing standards, of course.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Yep,

Same as building construction. They will hire a few experienced western guys to manage it and then bring in cheap Labour from India to do al the work.

[/ QUOTE ]

The rate western boat building companies are laying off workers, there's no shortage of highly skilled labour on the market...
 
[ QUOTE ]
Same as building construction. They will hire a few experienced western guys to manage it and then bring in cheap Labour from India to do al the work. The quality depends not only on the standard of expat management but how much the Dubai owners listen to the western managers!

[/ QUOTE ]

Living in a house built that way, I expect they'll get through an awful lot of bodge tape.
 
Remember the 'Taiwan takeaways'? Great idea once the production control was sorted but initially...Beautiful shapes, hundreds of manhours spent on the teak but little understanding of what happens when the water migrates past all that lovely wood to the ply substrates or-worse-the hollows inside their box section wooden spars...
 
Boat building in Dubai.

Abu-dabbi-boat.jpg
 
Galadriel beat me to it with the wood boat photo. The Dubai Ship Dock repair yard was constructed in the late 80/s with superb lift out facilities with cross rails to move boats about. They were still using the "bird [--word removed--]" mix for anti fouling. It kept the wood borers from doing there bit. Not shure if its any good on the "Tupperware Armada". Should have put "poo" instead.
 
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