By Sue White
Name: Jamie Nicholls
The profession: Boat building
The organisation: Riviera Australia
The job title: Master boat builder
The pay: $30 to $49 per hour plus superannuation plus penalty rates
Master boat builder Jamie Nicholls says sometimes clients will want a boat built five or six times before they’re happy with it.
Coolest part of the job: I’ve just led a team building a 68-foot-long sports yacht. It’s taken us two years to develop, and seeing the end result is awesome. We’ve already sold 40 of them. For our team this means many, many years of secure work.
Toughest part of the job: I am a manager in new product development, so I helped our team develop a full-sized model of the boat in MDF wood, to see how the actual boat would work.
The model is called a ‘plug’, and it’s not miniature – it’s to scale. This meant that on our 68-foot yacht, the plug is 68 feet, and the hull and deck are at real life scale. If we build a wet bar, it will have a sink, fridges, two barbecues and a bin, and will be two metres long.
While it takes a long time to make one boat because the plug is an actual completed boat, you can make the moulds from that and mass-produce it.
The challenging part is that it doesn’t always work right the first time. It can be frustrating for the team building it, as sometimes we go back to a second or third model. Then, if we get it in place and the owner doesn’t feel it’s quite right, we might have to do it five or six times.
But when you are paying millions of dollars for a yacht the customer has to be 100 per cent satisfied it all works properly.
One thing people wouldn’t know about this career: It’s very challenging. Unlike a house, a boat isn’t symmetrical, where you can use levels and straight edges. A house is on foundations, but our boats need to be seaworthy.
It’s a massive challenge to make them safe, luxurious and comfortable. About half of our boats are exported to America, where they are out in the ocean near Miami.
It’s the right job for you if: You are willing to be dedicated. I have worked in all aspects of this trade and can honestly say it’s not the easiest job in the world. When you are on the tools it can be physically hard.
People are surprised when I tell them: How proud I am of what I’ve accomplished. I started out as an apprentice, and Riviera could see I had “a twinkle in my eye” – I didn’t just want to be a boat builder, so I got a Certificate IV business diploma to become a manager. They’ve given me opportunities, but I’ve worked hard for it all, and I’m pretty proud.
I have five first-year apprentices now. What drives me is seeing their interest in wanting to learn. The apprentices I have now are brilliant; they want to learn and listen to the older, senior guys like myself. They are the next generation to take over, so it’s exciting.
Why I chose this career: Since I was young, I’ve always been around boats. Dad had a ski boat my sister and I loved. As he got other boats, I could see they need a lot of maintenance. I loved helping with that.
What formal qualifications I needed: Today’s apprentices do a Certificate III in marine craft construction. I did additional qualifications before taking on a managerial role.
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