Quote:
Originally Posted by downunder
You should read posts 33 & 34 regarding some real world experience in China with copying. Without a fundamental culture of boatbuilding sure a copy can look the same but without the proper real structural engineering in the copy particually with composite catamarans it can be very dangerous to have a structural failure at sea.
I am not saying that decent boats can't be built in China just that more than one builder had had serious issues trying to build there.
Certainly care needed. Beware.
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Sure... no doubt about this. downunder. Some boat owners will pay the prize by sunken yachts. We will read such headlines by sure. Thats always the way of "progress & development". No risks, no chances.
This new development we will see over next 10-20 years in other places, too. Not only in
China. Soon we will see boat warfts in
Africa. Why should they only
import "Western products" ??
There is a new wealthy middle class in
(West & South) Africa, within the community of black people. In Mobile IT they are one of the world leaders already. - If they feel to have an own African Identity they will prefer African boat builders. - So why should they not learn to build modern, elegant and fast sailing yachts ? Such countries will go through try & error, no doubt... but same we went through in Western world.
I only remember the huge number of bankrupcies we experienced over last years... so to read in January 2015
3 Yacht Builders that have Bounced Back from Bankruptcy
We may not forget, in China and in
Africa there are already very, very super rich people... I know Indian company owners. For them a small company is something in the size of 10,000 workers. Thats small for them.
I remember the headline in 2012:
"
Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Ferretti Group was sold to the state-owned parent of China’s biggest bulldozer-maker, putting the Communist nation in control of the world’s largest luxury-yacht builder."
The times Western (post) industrialized countries have over-dominated the word are gone... big
money is done in
Asia. These are the future markets even for yachting &
boating.
Same we see up-coming the new self confidence in
South America. They try to find their own identity, and they will be successfully. You can see it everywhere from
Chile up to Equador. - And one day they will build yachts again. Unluckily in
Brazil many, many warfts have closed in financial crisis.
Everywhere on this planet we have smart people... to be intelligent is not just the luxury of Western world (luckily). - its just how the knowledge transfer works, thats relevant. E.g. a completely take over as seen with Ferretti is the quickest way to grab the knowledge.
Shall an African or South American student of naval architecture visit a Western University, then experience practical
work in a Western boat building company and going back to his home country to start a "copy" of what he had learnt ?
I dont think, this is the future anymore. So it happened last century.
In the future these countries/continents will have their own universities. They organize own investors, will take Professors from Western world and will educate their own students in the own country. So it works these days in the
Arabian countries and in
India very successfully. In
India every year 1 million engineers leave the universities with a diploma in pocket. Huge brainware the Western countries cant compete against. As we see with the new
Google boss Sundar Pichai (from South India).Such smart Indians can be very successfully everywhere. Same will happen in boat building.
India has 400
ports on the
West coast alone.... lots of knowledge in boat building.
The times are gone, that Americans can think to control the world with a military super
power... thats what makes me most upset about the accusation by Gunboat owner against Chinese. It sounds like George W. Bush era. We dont need this anymore as it only evokes new conflicts.
Forcing other countries to be servants for the huge American energy hunger and madness for quick
money making (so called "American dream") belongs to the past. - Too many Americans have to learn this probably most urgent and more than every other nation.
Its a good lesson par excellence happening with Gunboat. People should take a closer look at the real reasons behind, and not being blind waving emotionally "stars & stripes" flag.
I always had been a cosmopolit, I am a civilian of mother earth. I dont care about national borders... no sailor should do so as winds dont know such borders, too. :-)