Gulf Craft ups its berthing facilities

The new facilities will accommodate up to 10 yachts, ranging from 40-feet up to more than 100-feet in overall length.

Easy access to the creek and the open sea enables customers to test-drive Gulf Craft vessels and for the company to conduct sea-trials on newly-built yachts that are at pre-delivery stage.

Executive director Erwin Bamps says completion of the marina marks another phase in Gulf Craft's ongoing programme of development.

Extensions at the Umm al Qaiwain yard are adding 80 per cent to the design and construction facilities that already extend to 11,600 square metres of covered workshops on a total site area of 43,000 square metres.

A new 150-ton travel lift is now operational, creating fast and efficient transfer of vessels from the building stocks to the water via a newly-completed launching bay.

The company also recently opened a new manufacturing and marine service unit in the Maldives. This Indian Ocean facility caters to the many Gulf Craft owners whose vessels ply those waters and to the growing demand in the area for top-quality yachts and pleasure boats.

Gulf Craft employs more than 800 highly-trained professional and technical staff at its production facilties Umm Al Qaiwain and the neighbouring emirate of Ajman.

Gulf Craft is now set to make international headlines following a tour of the company's operations by a party of overseas journalists visiting the UAE to preview the build-up to next year's Dubai International Boat Show.

Although Gulf Craft is well-known for being the biggest single exhibitor at the Dubai show and having a prominent presence at leading boat shows in Europe, for many of the visitors this was their first exposure to the company's production facilities.

"They were impressed with the scale and the resources that they saw, and that such world-class capability exists here in the UAE," said Bamps.