Greg Boyle is a man on a mission to make Dubai the ultimate sailing capital of the Middle East.
As founding joint-partner of Bluesail, a Dubai-based yacht training school and brokerage firm, Greg believes there is vast potential for the business in the emirate.
He and co-founder Laura Muir moved from the United Kingdom to start the company in April 2005.
"We identified the growth potential of the yachting industry in Dubai sometime beforehand. We had visited Dubai a few times and saw the vast waterfront developments and thought the next thing after the lovely house on the waterside would be the boat to match," said Boyle.
Since forming 18 months ago, the company has enjoyed considerable success and is one of 18 firms to be nominated for the Lloyds TSB Small Business of the Year Award. Bluesail has also made the three-strong shortlist for the Corporate Social Responsibility trophy, despite struggling to establish itself.
Learning The Ropes
Today, the company has seven employees - two sailing instructors, an office manager, boat skipper and a bosun, plus the two partners. The cosmopolitan staff include German, Indian, Irish, Philippino and British nationals.
Bluesail teaches Royal Yachting Asociation (RYA) courses to people who are more than 16 years old and shows them how to sail yachts and powerboats, with more than 350 students taking lessons in the first year.
The company has among its fleet a 42ft training yacht, which is manned by one instructor and five students, enabling pupils to learn the different roles and responsibilities on the boat.
Bluesail offers courses for all abilities, from a two-day beginners' course to the Yachtmaster qualification, which requires years of experience including 4,480 kilometres at sea. A Day Skipper course consists of five days' theory and five days' practical sailing and costs Dh7,100.
Bluesail also provides training for Dubai Creek's commercial boat drivers, plus corporate events, with team building exercises being popular.
"Dubai offers fantastic sailing potential. Sailors can get out on the water 365 days a year.The seas are safe - someone falling overboard is not going to be eaten and the water temperature means there is no danger of suffering from hypothermia." Boyle said that while Dubai's yachting clubs provided good training programmes for juniors and small boats, there was nobody teaching sailing on larger yachts to the level that Bluesail now offers.
Strength To Strength
"Anyone can buy the biggest boat on the market and take it out on the water without any training or certification whatsoever. These are dangerous things. You can get yourself into an awful lot of trouble and so we make sure we teach people to a standard where their boat, their crew, family and other water users will be safe," he said.
Bluesail has an exclusive agreement with leading UK boatbuilder Oyster Yachts to sell its craft in the UAE. The British firm is arguably the globe's most luxurious yacht manufacturer and the fourth largest in the world. It also has a similar deal with SeaQuest, a British-based boat builder that recently relocated its entire operation to Dubai.
Bluesail has reported strong interest from Dubai residents, but yacht sales have been hampered by a lack of available boat berths.
"They are so rare, it's impossible to find one. We could sell three or four boats a month if there was a place to park them. Extra mooring is becoming available slowly. By 2010 there will be around 40,000 extra berths in Dubai, currently there's probably less than 2,000. If there were 40,000 berths available today, boats would be flying out the door," said Boyle.
Bluesail will focus on expanding sales of boats and equipment along with developing a few other projects.
"One of the facinating things about the business is that it's constantly changing. We are creating our own market and are also meeting demand that we didn't realise was out there.
"Our vision for the next five years is to grow the business to offer a complete package - teaching, holidays and 'bareboat chartering'.
"This is where clients can turn up and hire a boat and sail it themselves, just like you would with a car, and this doesn't currently exist in Dubai," Boyle said.
© Emirates Today 2006
