Take Me to the River

One of the reasons I have been so lax about updates to this blog – please forgive me – is the rapid expansion of RB Power And Sailing's operations. After several months of negotiations, an agreement has been reached to finance a new and very much larger yard on river frontage at Bangpakong, near Chonbury, 50 kilometres from Pattaya and much closer to Bangkok, just 15 minutes from the international airport. The yards in Pattaya will continue to produce the RB range of sailing and power catamarans, as well as smaller custom builds, while the new yard will focus on the construction of large motor yachts, from 60 to 150 feet or more.
Which means that in addition to the several yachts now under construction in Pattaya, I now have to focus on the $US500,000 initial development of this new yard and its environs, which will include marina berthing – essential, given the lack of marina berthing on this stretch of the Thai coast – and haul-out facilities. Exciting as it is, it is also a very large responsibility and will mean that I must begin to delegate more and more of the daily supervisory roles in Pattaya to others. Fortunately, I've been able to hire a number of new team members, from engineers to project managers, many of them multi-lingual foreigners, some of whom will liaise directly with clients.