shaggybaxter said..
I see boat building as a specialised trade, and sadly I don't think we have enough critical mass in purchasing power to support it as a standalone industry.
In Europe, there seems to be a fair degree of cross pollination to the aero industry, as they have a lot of similar skills, so there's two big existing markets with an established manufacturing industry that we just don't have.
Add to that our rather obsessive OH&S requirements, and we simply don't compete well in the Asia Pac market. I helped a UK company bid a construction project in NSW. They ended up working out it was cheaper to build as much as they could in the UK and ship it complete with a installation crew than what it was to use their local office and subcontractors. That was an eye opener, and its not that unusual anymore.
read about somewhere that there are some 800 thousand registered boats in Australia. That is not a bad number to support. I always thought that for a sea-fairing nation, boat building and marine servicing should be a no.1 trade/industry.
