McConaghy’s expansion with China factory

by Rob Kothe on 17 Mar 2006 At the Auckland International Boat Show, one of the the major topics amongst the New Zealand boat builders was the move by the highly respected McConaghy Boats from Australia, to form a joint venture with the JinLi Composites group in China called McConaghy International.

JinLi was established by sailing enthusiast Francis Wu in the late 1980s and since then has grown from being one of the world's largest suppliers of high-tech sailboard equipment to a company creating a widely diversified range of sophisticated composite products, including motorised paragliders, award winning bicycles, snowboards, kite boards and more recently composite panels for high performance motor vehicles and race cars. World windsurfer champion and supermaxi sailor Anders Bringdal became a partner in JinLi two years ago.

McConaghy Boats of Sydney, Australia is a leading builder of advanced high tech composite racing yachts such as the successful Reichel Pugh designs Wild Oats XI, Wild Oats X, Alfa Romeo, Morning Glory, Pegasus 76 and Abracadabra 50. JinLi Composites manufactures the highest quality carbon / foam windsurfer boards, carbon snowboard bindings and super car carbon nomex panels along with carbon aircraft components for the US market.

The New Zealand Marine Export Group General Manager Kevin McPherson says, ‘This is a significant development on the world boat building scene. It is a potential way forward for many Kiwi boat building companies too.'

Mark Evans, the Master Boatbuilder at McConaghy Boats, will provide onsite supervision over the construction. Mark has been the foreman responsible for the successful build of all McConaghy yachts at its Mona Vale Sydney facility over the last eight years. His expertise ensured the successful seven month build of Reichel Pugh’s 30m canting ballast Wild Oats XI and 30m Alfa Romeo which took first and second place in the 2005 Sydney – Hobart Race. Evans is leaving for Hong Kong on Monday with six McConaghy boat builders.

Today Evans, a director of McConaghy’s explained, ‘We’ve had to address the issue of ever increasing factory costs in Sydney. While our most complex yachts will continue to be built in Sydney, this will enable a major production expansion. We have three times the floor area and our joint venture partners have 400 highly skilled people building and finishing composite components and access to this workforce will provide major advantages.’

Being on roughly the same time zone as the parent and support companies in the southern hemisphere is an obvious benefit for joint venture partners. Evans explained, ‘Advances in communications technology has helped significantly we are already using Skype (Voice over Internet) technology extensively and we will be able to use video conferencing for design and production meetings.’

McConaghy International is already tooling to build a European 42 foot production yacht and this week Team China announced that it is proposing to have it's new America’s Cup boat built by the group, although this has not yet been confirmed.

Now the Californian naval design team of Reichel Pugh has now announced it's Grand Prix 42 design will be built in limited production by the McConaghy’s International. The Reichel Pugh Grand Prix 42 will be constructed at McConaghy International’s new, purpose built 30m x 100m factory, located adjacent to the current JinLi factory, a one hour train trip from Hong Kong.

This is a significant development, with the most successful super maxi race boat builder of the last few years and the renowned American designers both believing the time is right for this major move.

In late 2005 after a year of development, the ORC announced the completion of three new Grand Prix offshore level class box rules sized 26, 33 and 42 feet in length. These classes follow in the huge success of the Transpac 52 box rule which was developed in California.

Jim Pugh comments, ‘Reichel Pugh has been a leader in developing high performance designs and promoting level class rules that encourage high performance. Reichel Pugh is incorporating the latest design advances from its ongoing research and development projects into this Grand Prix 42 design. The Reichel Pugh design studio is in the final stages of a comprehensive design study enabling McConaghy International to build a high tech GP42 that will be competitive for some seasons to come.

‘Our commitment is to develop the very fastest design and work with McConaghy International to achieve the goal of bringing to market the fastest Grand Prix 42 at a highly competitive price. Based on a five boat order the price of a Grand Prix 42 will be US $382,000.00 each complete with a carbon rig from King Composites of Argentina.

‘This price is excluding freight from Hong Kong for the yacht and freight from Argentina for the rig. The first boats will be available for delivery by the end of 2006.’

For more information contact Jim Pugh at jim@reichel-pugh.com
or Jon Morris at jmorris@mcconaghy-aus.com

www.reichel-pugh.com www.orc.org and www.mccongahy-aus.com