New Year’s Resolution-Get a Boat

“Bali is better with a boat” says Robert from Nusa Dua Boatworks.

If you are an expat living here and you haven’t got out on the water yet then you are missing out on a great deal of healthy fun and good times. To stay on dry land all the time is to miss half the story. Bali is an island and the surrounding seas shape the island’s religions, the weather and what people do for work as well as leisure. If you are sailing offshore and gaze across the Bali panorama something clicks. Ah that’s right it is an island and a small one at that in a big ocean.

Many expats are dying to get into sailing or boating but don’t know where to start. Well the New Year is upon us and it is resolution time so why not get off the porch put that Bintang, you don’t really want anyway, back in the fridge and get out on the water. Book a tour or go and buy that boat you keep talking about. As Lord Nelson says, “Go straight at them Hardy.” It is not hard to do and it is a lot cheaper to do it in Bali than back home. Robert, Managing Director/CEO of Nusa Dua Boatworks sums up pretty well what is being said here and that is, “Bali is better with a boat.”

Nusa Dua Boatworks

According to the company’s website see www.nusaduaboatworks.com Rob is from western U.S.A. and has over 30 years of dinghy and offshore racing experience and has owned and messed around in large and small boats for just as long. Rob comes from a very practical hands-on construction family. On top of his practical experience he has obtained several University Degrees in Design and Construction Technologies and has also taught at the university level. He says, I have always had a passion for sailing and working around boats.” and has worked in boatyards and in the corporate world as well as owning his own design-build company in Southern California. When asked why did he set up a boat building company in Bali this man of few words said, “It’s obvious isn’t it?”

Rob and his second in command Les have a dream to set up a one stop shop for boaties in Bali. They have assembled a mighty team of up to 25 skilled locals that can build your boat whether it be a dinghy or a 46ft Waller Catamaran. If you want to refit your existing boat they can do that too. They try to do most of the work in house and pride themselves on giving each customer work of an international quality, on time and on budget with a genuine warranty on all work done.

Rob knows Indonesia as well having spent two years in remote Nusa Tengarra teaching local kids to build sampans and long boats out of fibreglass instead of traditional materials. It was all volunteer work for Rob having done it for the love and not for money. After that he got the bug and looked for something more substantial to put his roots down. In July 2009 he bought out Nusa Dua Marine from the well known UK boatie Martin Moore and rebranded the business Nusa Dua Boatworks.

They have been busy lately building catamarans, rigid fibreglass dive charter boats and even had time to build the Royal Bali Yacht Club fleet of Blazers and Optimists. They have a particular joy in offering strong seaworthy boats with single compartment subdivisions and deep V stepped hulls while the deck lay out can be made to your own specifications.

The Tropics are Hard on Boats

It makes sense to think local when planning to get into boating in Bali. The conditions here in the tropics require a slightly different approach in construction and design. The sun is a killer with twenty minutes at the wrong time of day out on deck and you are in the Rad point danger zone. Some skippers have air con installed which throws up a lot of design issues involving battery placement and how to recharge them as air cons use a lot of power.

The winds and the seas are not the same as those in higher latitudes. Many of the overseas yachts participating in the Sail Indonesia Rally 2012 were built to cope with the bigger winds and seas had to motor long distances. Those that fitted lighter sails and reduce their tonnage in anticipation of the lighter winds had a sailors dream run. While the other heavier boats had to often rely on the iron sail to get anywhere. Not a bad experience in itself but if you have got a yacht then you want to sail not listen to a diesel engine chugging away spoiling the mood.