International Boat Industry – August-September 2019

ibinews.com International Boat Industry | AUGUST–SEPTEMBER 2019 49

We tried to boost

production too

quickly, but ended up

undermining build quality

and our delivery

schedules

early September 2017, the market needed
replacement boats, Travelopia included.
R&C did its best to respond, but ended
up overcommitting, says a candid John
Robertson. “We tried to boost production
too quickly, but ended up undermining
build quality and our delivery schedules...
In the end we simply had to put our hands
up and admit that we couldn’t deliver...
In the past we had always been able to
find enough staff relatively easily when
we needed to and always managed to
train them fast. Last year we couldn’t. It
was a shock and a lesson learned.” Those
production issues caused a real headache
down the line for Travelopia too, which,
given its charter-booking commitments,
has ended up having to source cats from
elsewhere for the first time. “Ultimately
last summer we realised we were going
to be 24 units short of the 45-footer,” says
Franck Bauguil. “Given that R&C couldn’t
supply what we needed, our agreement
with them allowed us to look elsewhere
and that’s what we have done... We buy
more monohulls from the Beneteau Group
than anyone else, so not surprisingly we
ended up ordering 22 Lagoons, a mix of 42s
and the new 46s, all for delivery between
fall 2019 and spring 2020... And we have
since ordered an additional seven Lagoon
50s for delivery to Sunsail in the Caribbean
for summer 2020.” R&C employs around
1,700 employees directly at seven facilities
across Cape Town – four production
locations with six dedicated production
lines and three support sites. The company
does everything in-house, save for the
upholstery and electrical installation

+

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 Capitalworks’s Darshan Daya (left) and

John Robertson of Robertson & Caine