Yacht Building Success in China

Get a bigger stick.

I remember watching a BBC report of the ghost cities in China the Goverment is spending money on building cities that has nobody living there and shopping malls which too few customers actually use .

Chinese Goverment/ businesses have profited from endless years of Western companies who have used them as a source of cheap labour would a westerner here work for those such wages I think not !!!.

And when US media was slating Chinese products because of High lead content they never once slated those American companies using China source for manufacturing because it's cheaper produce abroad than it is in America .

The bubble will burst in China and in spectacular fashion it will and when it comes i will be laughing and cheering .

On another note it's ironic how West use China as a manufacturing base yet Western leaders slate them over Human rights ..and the imprisonment of the noble prize winner with the Chinese asking Norway to apologize .

Speaks volumes IMHO

When people talk about the U.S. media and their bias I have to chuckle. Although certain corporate giants want to control the news, the pleasure of our free press is that if you hit Fox you hit blatant bias. When you turn on MSNBC you find an opposite bias. Again for BBC, CBS, CNN, and local news stations et el. Between it all, the thinking mind ends up with most of the information to form a valid viewpoint. There aren't too many countries where you have that. As for the huge corporation you are referring to, hardly a week goes by where they're not brought to task for their labor practices abroad, their wages here, their treatment of women, their lead painted toys and jewlery and their family squabbles. They're just too big for anyone to do too much about. Has nothing to do with media.
I tend to agree with you about most else of what you wrote, and especially about that bubble. Per today's paper it won't be the place where most will invest this week.

I'd file that under 'Misplaced Western Arrogance and Wishfull Thinking"

Regretably so.

Auto Prices in Singapore

Check the prices of automobiles in Singapore. They were being taxed at a very high rate to try and curb too many autos on tht little island nation. If I remember correctly a Mercedes would cost you about 3 times what you would pay in the USA...yet it was the highest per-capita MB ownership in the world

I think a few things need to change in China before everyone starts rushing over there - Quality and Copyright Laws can be a starter.

Far

Quality is a matter of money. With the use of appropriate products and the right supervision quality can be assured.

I wonder how much damage can be caused by breaching copyright laws when it comes to building yachts.

Designs will be copied but if features are not applied correctly they will make a boat look hideous. (I've seen powerboats with a combination of all the nice features of several Italian designs combined in one single boat)

Far, what in your design is protected by Copyright Laws and would be protected but could be breached in China?

The West has no monopoly on 'misplaced arrogance''. Personally, I want my country to prosper, but I get no joy from another's suffering. It's seldom a country or corporation's leaders that pay the price.

And that's exactly where competition should be taken. I'm so tired of everything being about price, and the resulting c--p that hits the market. (not just boats) If China spends what it costs to bring a 1st class product to market and then adds what it costs to bring it to the U.S. or Europe they'll end up more expensive. They'll have to have the quality to entice a customer to spend more. But they'll be building their Asian market where American and European companies will have to do the same. We were once proud to pay more for imported goods, because they were worth more. Competing on quality; Cool idea.

I do not believe China will compete soon when it comes to high quality larger boats but it will compete with mass produced cheap boats very soon. Sea-Ray is already building in China (Zhuhai)
In consumer products you see the same trend. High end products like Rolex, Rolls Royce etc are still manufactured in the West and why not, the margins are large enough.
Chinese buyers are usually not impressed by Chinese produced products, they rather prefer Western. It's the wannabees who will settle for Chinese build boats. Chinese produced products have a bad reputation in China.
Having said all that I do believe that quality production houses in the West will one day be taken over by Chinese ownership.

Simply check out Japanese cars and we know finally where China stands in 10 years from now.
Regarding not only quality but in everything.

BTW, we just signed contracts 2 for very nice boats to build in China and they are not cheaper...

Only they can build it faster then anybody else.

Quality is up to us...good production managers inside and buy top quality components..

Who will beat us?

As does a vast improvement on Human rights and the illegal occupation of Tibet ..


Time for the Chinese to give back the land to Tibetian's

Sorry, but you cannot build faster than a yard that is tooled up and doing it for 50 years without cutting corners. You cannot build it less expensive without cutting corners (generally using an unskilled and desperate labor force). Production managers don't drive the screws. Faster and less expensive equals cheaper in every sense of the word. Yes, "quality is up to us", but remember, reputations last a long time. China is not known for quality products. On a semi-positive note though, the world has shown over the past 20 years that they are willing to sacrifice quality for price and a good advertising campaign. If that trend continues, China will do fine.

I agree with NYCAP on that one. There's a reason why here in Holland, a 110 m river cruise vessel for 160 passengers can be built in 6 months, while a custom-built 50 m megayacht (12 passengers) takes two to three years (often using many of the same subcontractors).
I also could not understand this when I came from commercial shipbuilding (cruiseships) 8 years ago. Now I do, and believe me, it's not a matter of throwing more low-cost labour at it (the Dutch also have experience in that field).
And it's not just the experience of the project manager which counts. It's the experience of every welder, pipefitter, carpenter, electrician,...
My advice would be - try to build it in the same timeframe (or slower) but slightly cheaper. Not faster. And start very well prepared.

I agree with that. Many Tawain & Chinese built yachts suffered horrible with electrical installations, both in the past, and likely to this day.

Some Italian also. The bottom line is that where the corner is cut it will eventuallly show. That's why cheap price should never be the motivating factor. There is an old expression: "The cheap becomes expensive." There's a reason we all know the name Feadship. There's another reason we know some other names. As said, for the past 20 years or so the world has been willing to buy glitzy, cheap c--p whose makers biggest investment is an advertising campaign. Maybe it will continue. Maybe not. Cubic Zirconia looks as good as a real diamond. Try putting one on the finger of a quality woman and watch what happens.

dead on!

As much as cheap is not always good, expensive is not always "quality" either. I can see why things should be done properly and it's never as simple as just hammering stuff together with the cheapest labor on the globe, but hyper-expensive "brand" builders on the other side of equation might one day have to learn restraint with their prices, either.

I once gave my wife a "gold" (plastic) braclet from a Cheerios box. She treasures it to this day. She'd have been happy with a cigar band for her finger. But if I give her a "diamond" it better be a real one. Nothing wrong with inexpensive. It's when you try to pass it off as 'the same as' that it becomes 'cheap'.