We couldn’t discuss a business such as yours without mentioning Brexit. What are your thoughts on how exiting the European Union will affect your industry? Only negatively. That said we have structured our company to make the most out of the opportunity to sell in Euros and buy in Sterling, making the most of some of the currency variances. In the short term this has led to around a 15% margin. We are however very concerned as we export all goods and the main market is France, Spain, Holland, Germany and Italy. Free trade makes a huge difference. Finally – if you could sail away over the horizon tomorrow, where would you choose to go? When we sailed from the Caribbean to New Zealand we stopped off in Galapagos, which was amazing, but 4000 miles further west we came to the Tuamotus north east of Tahiti. The one place on earth which I would like to go back to is a place called Fakarava. We did some amazing shark diving there and it was incredibly unspoilt. We have such good memories of the place and it was a real treat – particularly as our boss at the time paid for us to go with him!
What made you locate the business in East Anglia? Purely convenience. We have family in the area and after running and managing yachts abroad we wanted to move back to the UK. Claire, my wife got a job at Oyster Yachts in Ipswich and so our tickets were booked. We set up the company and it has grown from there. We do still travel a lot and in an international sector we need to ensure that we keep an eye on our marketing, but the comparatively low rent, ease of operations and other advantages such as having a good work life balance are much more important. We export 100% of sales and it would not make a lot of difference if we had an office in France, Monaco or Fort Lauderdale (the main yachting destinations) as we are regularly shipping to the UAE, Qatar, Saudi, USA, Australia and more. I think in the modern world we can work from anywhere. Some of the toys, such as jetskis and jetpacks look amazing! Who buys them, and do you think that market is growing? Unsurprisingly, many of our clients are billionaires, or multi- millionaires. Owning a yacht can be expensive, for example it costs around 10% of the original purchase price to run a yacht for a year. We deal with clients at all levels, sometimes the owners directly or we can deal with project managers, captains and crew at various levels. The outlook for our business is very positive we currently have contracts to supply yachts up to 147m in length at present. The largest yacht we ever supplied is 180m, so there is definitely a market out there! What do you think the next big thing is for boat toys? There is a lot of interest in foiling boats and toys at the moment. This is essentially where a wing is put into the water, lifting the boat or toy out of the water so it flies. We are currently supplying some foiling electric surfboards and have some boats in design.
Scrutton Bland’s Business Advisory team regularly work with businesses operating in the leisure and lifestyle market. Contact James Tucker on 01473 267068 or james.tucker@scruttonbland.co.uk
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