coliholic
New member
So happily back from a great weekend with tcm and B1 and apart from the trip, which was excellent, the tour round the shipyard was an eyeopener.
Whilst tcm was doing his stuff with the Yard Foreman or whatever, B1 and I had the run of the place. They just left us on our own and we could go anywhere and look at anything and even, dare I say it, touch things and generally have a good snoop. And I learned lots.
Like the biggest "f'r instance" is that boats are not built quite how I'd imagined them. I'd always thought that when they build a boat or any component, they make a big mould, put release agent in it, slap on some gel coat then loads of layers of grp rovings or whatever, and then when it's all nicely cooked and gone off, take it out of the mould and you've got a finished boat. Or bit or whatever it is you're making. So the finished item is as good as the mould and the colour is the whatever colour gelcoat they put in the mould to start with. That's always been my understanding of how GRP works.
Is that what you think too?
Well not a bit of it. Least ways not here. Sure they have a basic moulded boat or bit, but that's not the finished article. If they want to change something, they just build it up on the surface with filler and GRP then sand it to shape and then spray it with loads of coats of some type of 2 pack "gel coat" type stuff. Exactly what it is I didn't find out but it's definitely two separate components mixed together. It can't be gelcoat as I've used on repairs to baots, since that doesn't go off in contact with air, (does it?) and it can't be paint because this stuff is really hard and doesn't scratch and goes off almost on contact. The working atmosphere is laden with dust and they take no special precautions to get the area dust free before spraying it, just a brush over with a broom and an airline, then spray away. And this obviously works, 'cos they've got 6 boats under construction in the shed there, 2x23's 2x 24Opens and 2x 27's and one of the 27's is being finished in silver, just like the one that was in MBY a couple of montrhs ago. With any luck B1's pictures, when he gets them all uploaded wiill show you this, but the top sides are already done and whilst we were there they were prepping the sides and doing a bit of touching up of damaged and changed bits. For the sides, two blokes were standing on scaffolding along the side of the boat with a 2 metre long chunk of wood with four handles on it wrapped in 40 grit sandpaper, hand sanding the side of the boat. Sort of swaying in time with each other edging along the side of the boat. Any imperfections, or scratches had been filled with filler, and they were sanding it down ready for this paint\gel coat process.
And all the white finished internal furniture is built up as individual units in ply and treated the same way. Oh and the rounded corners come to them as a finshed plywood section, about half inch thick and 6 inches long either side of the bend and then they just scarfe together the corners to the front or side pieces and after sanding etc, you really can'te see the join. The finished article looks exactly like a GRP moulding, but it's not. Its sheathed and covered in layers of this GRP looking gelcoat stuff. Quite amazing to see how it's done.
Must be very time consuming though. They buy in the hull and superstructure mouldings from two different suppliers, one about 80km's away, the other 50km's away. The hulls are delivered separate from the superstructure. The hull of the 23 weighs in at around 8 tonnes and it's all delivered by road. Hull and superstrucutre are too big to get on the road, so they come separately and I guess are joined together on site, thoguh we didn't see a boat that early in it's production cycle.They build about 12 boats a year, employing 80 workers, I didn't find out their wage levels but they work a 45 hour week. No doubt jfm will work out the costs and profitability and turnover per employees stuff for us all.
They're currently having a new mould built for their next model that'll be launched next year. The mould should be finished in December and the first hull and superstrucure are due to be delivered to them in April. This new boat is going to be 35 metres and they've so far sold the first three, so if you want one, better get your order in soon.
From a Health and Safety point of view, the place is "interesting". All the hand tools are 240Volt, with long extension leads lying about all over the place and several leads plugged together to make them longer. In their woodworking section they've got big circular table saws and not a guard in sight. And they use the same saw to cut wood, ply, aluminium and stainless steel. Likewise there's a big band saw with a blade about 2 inches deep, just left running all the time with no guards on at all. The boats are scaffolded all round with new purpose designed scaffolding, but where it doesn't quite meet the steps, or where they join two sections together, they just lay a piece of wood over the gap. Or if it's not quite high enough then they just stand a box on the scaffolding and work off that. No hand rails. They're working at what 9-10 metre height? Not a hard hat in sight Some of them wear overalls, some just tee shirts and shorts. No safety shoes.
But they do build exceedingly good boats. Oops, I stand corrected here. They insist they are not boatbuilders. They are a Shipyard. Most insistent about that.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by coliholic on 05/11/2002 22:49 (server time).</FONT></P>
Whilst tcm was doing his stuff with the Yard Foreman or whatever, B1 and I had the run of the place. They just left us on our own and we could go anywhere and look at anything and even, dare I say it, touch things and generally have a good snoop. And I learned lots.
Like the biggest "f'r instance" is that boats are not built quite how I'd imagined them. I'd always thought that when they build a boat or any component, they make a big mould, put release agent in it, slap on some gel coat then loads of layers of grp rovings or whatever, and then when it's all nicely cooked and gone off, take it out of the mould and you've got a finished boat. Or bit or whatever it is you're making. So the finished item is as good as the mould and the colour is the whatever colour gelcoat they put in the mould to start with. That's always been my understanding of how GRP works.
Is that what you think too?
Well not a bit of it. Least ways not here. Sure they have a basic moulded boat or bit, but that's not the finished article. If they want to change something, they just build it up on the surface with filler and GRP then sand it to shape and then spray it with loads of coats of some type of 2 pack "gel coat" type stuff. Exactly what it is I didn't find out but it's definitely two separate components mixed together. It can't be gelcoat as I've used on repairs to baots, since that doesn't go off in contact with air, (does it?) and it can't be paint because this stuff is really hard and doesn't scratch and goes off almost on contact. The working atmosphere is laden with dust and they take no special precautions to get the area dust free before spraying it, just a brush over with a broom and an airline, then spray away. And this obviously works, 'cos they've got 6 boats under construction in the shed there, 2x23's 2x 24Opens and 2x 27's and one of the 27's is being finished in silver, just like the one that was in MBY a couple of montrhs ago. With any luck B1's pictures, when he gets them all uploaded wiill show you this, but the top sides are already done and whilst we were there they were prepping the sides and doing a bit of touching up of damaged and changed bits. For the sides, two blokes were standing on scaffolding along the side of the boat with a 2 metre long chunk of wood with four handles on it wrapped in 40 grit sandpaper, hand sanding the side of the boat. Sort of swaying in time with each other edging along the side of the boat. Any imperfections, or scratches had been filled with filler, and they were sanding it down ready for this paint\gel coat process.
And all the white finished internal furniture is built up as individual units in ply and treated the same way. Oh and the rounded corners come to them as a finshed plywood section, about half inch thick and 6 inches long either side of the bend and then they just scarfe together the corners to the front or side pieces and after sanding etc, you really can'te see the join. The finished article looks exactly like a GRP moulding, but it's not. Its sheathed and covered in layers of this GRP looking gelcoat stuff. Quite amazing to see how it's done.
Must be very time consuming though. They buy in the hull and superstructure mouldings from two different suppliers, one about 80km's away, the other 50km's away. The hulls are delivered separate from the superstructure. The hull of the 23 weighs in at around 8 tonnes and it's all delivered by road. Hull and superstrucutre are too big to get on the road, so they come separately and I guess are joined together on site, thoguh we didn't see a boat that early in it's production cycle.They build about 12 boats a year, employing 80 workers, I didn't find out their wage levels but they work a 45 hour week. No doubt jfm will work out the costs and profitability and turnover per employees stuff for us all.
They're currently having a new mould built for their next model that'll be launched next year. The mould should be finished in December and the first hull and superstrucure are due to be delivered to them in April. This new boat is going to be 35 metres and they've so far sold the first three, so if you want one, better get your order in soon.
From a Health and Safety point of view, the place is "interesting". All the hand tools are 240Volt, with long extension leads lying about all over the place and several leads plugged together to make them longer. In their woodworking section they've got big circular table saws and not a guard in sight. And they use the same saw to cut wood, ply, aluminium and stainless steel. Likewise there's a big band saw with a blade about 2 inches deep, just left running all the time with no guards on at all. The boats are scaffolded all round with new purpose designed scaffolding, but where it doesn't quite meet the steps, or where they join two sections together, they just lay a piece of wood over the gap. Or if it's not quite high enough then they just stand a box on the scaffolding and work off that. No hand rails. They're working at what 9-10 metre height? Not a hard hat in sight Some of them wear overalls, some just tee shirts and shorts. No safety shoes.
But they do build exceedingly good boats. Oops, I stand corrected here. They insist they are not boatbuilders. They are a Shipyard. Most insistent about that.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by coliholic on 05/11/2002 22:49 (server time).</FONT></P>
