Boatbuilder

By MARK STORY

Jimmy Pauling

Position: Boatbuilder/project manager

Employer: Lloyd Stevenson Boatbuilders

Qualifications: New Zealand trade certificate through the Boating Industry Association

Q. What do you do?

A. I served my apprenticeship with Lloyd Stevenson and worked my way up through the business as a boatbuilder.

I still get involved with boatbuilding from time to time, but most of my work these days is project costing. Once the order is confirmed, I'm involved in the ordering and quality control.

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Q. Why did you choose this line of work?

A. It really came from my childhood passion for boats.

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Q. What are the essential qualities to success in this job?

A. There are no formal qualifications required, but we like apprentices to have done sixth form.

A passion for boats and boating is essential as this can be hard, dirty work.

We want hard workers and strong characters who won't back out when the work's physically demanding. A mechanical mind is useful.

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Q. Best part of the job?

A. The constant challenge and stimulation that comes from new projects.

For example, we're building three rafts for a multi-national theme park operator for a new venture in Hong Kong. Costing this alone took three months.

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Q. Most challenging/difficult part of the job?

A. Getting the price right. With employee numbers expanding from nine to 37 in the last three years, the administration side, including team co-ordination and forward planning, has become much more demanding.

Having migrated from boatbuilder to race yacht and theme park raft builder requires a real step-up in construction methods. This makes it even more critical to keep abreast of new technology.

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Q. What's the pay like?

A. Pay is comparable with the building industry. No real perks, but it offers access to a boating lifestyle.

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Q. Oddest thing you been asked to build in this job?

A. We were once asked to build some Maori canoes for a client in French Polynesia.

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Q. What career opportunities does this business offer?

A. There's no formal career ladder as such. Those who serve their apprenticeship typically progress from boatbuilders to team leaders who run jobs and staff. From there they can go into pricing and admin or go into business for themselves.

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Q. What's a typical week for you?

A. It varies according to timeline - the average week is around 45 hours. There's some weekend work and I sometimes take design work home.

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Q. What's your best advice to anyone contemplating boatbuilding?

A. The glamorous side of the America's Cup has boosted the level of inquiries we're getting from lads to enter the business. But I don't recommend anyone gets into this business unless they have a real passion for boating. Otherwise, they won't last.

The company wins and loses business based on its reputation. So we're typically looking for experienced boatbuilders. With some of the yards tight on work, they're more available now than they have been.

We tend to get guys who are particularly good in certain areas, for example, structural, hulls and decks, or joinery.