OnBoard Magazine - Issue XI - Summer 2019

V iewed from above, Bluewater’s Yacht Service Yards present a pretty picture: orderly rows of boats framed by manicured landscapes. Back down on the ground, your senses gain another perspective amid the acrid scent of paint and fiberglass, roaring machinery, buzzing tools. The lower perspective wouldn’t normally inspire the avid waterman to spend much time here, instinctively reluctant to trade this for time spent on the water. But that characterization disregards a perspective that both the soaring overview and blind immersion miss. By looking deeper—past the paint, sawdust and power-washers—these distractions mask a fascinating choreography of engineering, artistry and imagination. Yes, Bluewater Yacht Yards can change your props, sandblast your hull and fix your bilge pumps—they do that every day. But sitting right next to the mundane repair, perhaps hidden by drop clothes and plastic, daily, something special is happening— something you may not have imagined or believed possible. For every other ordinary work order, someone arrives asking for help with an unusual problem or simply asks VP Earle Hall, “Can you do this?” The answer is often surprising and invariably positive. GETTING CREATIVE “The best parts of our work are the biggest challenges. The customer who comes to us with a problem to overcome, or an experience they want—and can’t quite see the solution yet. We get to create it for them, build it and give it to them—it’s a good feeling,” Hall says. Unlike building a boat from scratch, refurbishment, refits, or rebuilds don’t start with a clean slate and get to roll straight from imagination, to engineering and design. Starting with an already constructed vessel means re- imagining, re-designing and re-engineering. This presents an added level of difficulty. Bluewater’s multifaceted workforce has built vessels from the ground up, completed half- built boats and literally rebuilt boats from the inside out. With over fifty years in the boat business, Bluewater technicians have worked over the guts of nearly every production and custom boat you can imagine, all with different designs, systems and structures. Every day—even every hour—they are troubleshooting a completely different set-up. That’s not easy. And this, their biggest daily challenge, is also their greatest strength. This broad- spectrum expertise combined with their craftsmanship and artistry buttress a creativity built on necessity. Getting “creative” is required for working within the parameters of an already existing structure and recreating it in tune with the owner’s wildest dreams. Bluewater’s decades of experience, doing exactly that, uniquely positions them to deliver tailor- made results within this challenging paradigm. To start, there must be an intimate knowledge of the subject boat. The years of experience add up to knowing what parts of the structure are integral, what can be safely INGENUITY AND EXPERIENCE MAKE THE BLUEWATER YARDS EXCEPTIONAL by Deirdre Bell Loftin "The best parts of our work are the biggest challenges." Service customers lined up at Bluewater Yacht Yard Hampton Harry Hindmarsh 40 BLUEWATER