China Facility

MARLOW EXPLORER YACHTS

China Facility | Norsemen Shipyard, Ltd.

Located about 750 kilometers north of Hong Kong, near the beautiful and prosperous city of Xiamen, in mainland China we have built perhaps the finest yacht manufacturing facility in the world. Situated next door to a National Park, the surrounding land and water are beautiful and pristine. We are the first industry selected to participate in a "Green" environment and we have built our new factory keeping the environment in mind. We have developed extensive crushed granite beds under beautiful landscaping that collect all on site water, whether from rain, factory operations or washing of boats. This water is filtered through granite beds and directed to huge 100,000 gallon cisterns where it is stored and then reused for irrigating our gardens, landscaping and our orchards planted on the 30 acre oceanfront site.

We allow nothing to contaminate our grounds, the air or the water. We consider that we are stewards of this great earth we are blessed with and take our responsibility seriously.

We believe that we are the most modern yacht factory in Asia. We have selected the site due to several clear advantages. Among them are:

The news at Norsemen continues to be the rapid ascension of the company into the ranks of the finest boat builders on earth. We often hear amazement in the voices of various people; many of them experienced tradesmen in the marine field as they observe The Miracle of Chi Hu Valley. For those of you who have not visited us at our Fujian Province facility, Chi Hu is the once remote fishing village valley where we chose to set up camp for a most remarkable and rewarding experience.

Chi Hu, when we came had one small store, and a central live market where livestock, agricultural and seafood products were offered. I am told that I am the first “white man” or “Gwailo” to be seen by most of the villagers. Gwailo, loosely translated means “ghost man”. I’m not, because I just stubbed my toe and it hurt. Ghosts don’t do that do they?

In Chi Hu Village, the dirt roadway ended. The nearest hard road was eleven miles away over what only an optimist could call a road. I am fairly tolerant of discomfort and I call it eleven miles of mud hole hell. From Chi Hu to the oceanfront site where we would begin was another almost nine kilometers, with not a sign of a road. The closest thing to a road were several meandering ruts through woods and granite hills with an occasional mountain. The ruts were the pathways for the free roaming red cows and water buffalo that pulled a plow when caught and hid among the trees until they were.

We began by mixing concrete on site, welding beams from raw steel and built a beautiful factory overlooking the China Sea. My view at work is similar to a painting of idyllic beaches and a cove filled with ancient fishing vessels. Today nearly 300,000 square feet of manufacturing and support facility produce what we believe is one of the three best boats on earth. And we are closing in on arguably being the best, period.

We refused to let the ancient fishing village that lies alongside be torn down for progress, instead offering jobs to those who were interested. We built a road (after two years of nightmarish rides across hill and vale) that is a smooth concrete ribbon of eight kilometers connecting the fishing village and Chi Hu. Today, Chi Hu is bursting at the seams with new construction, now boasting many dozen shops and we have our own brand new traffic light everyone ignores. The valley now has almost six times the inhabitants, all fully employed and prosperous. Six hundred of them work directly for Marlow Norsemen in a model of vertical integration, from raw materials to finished goods. We have developed metal and fiberglass technologies that to date no other boat company on earth has mastered. Most have never considered them, content to follow. For us at Marlow Norsemen, that would be like following one of those old water buffalos every day; the view and aroma is not great.

In the town government, there are now more than two hundred factory applications to join our green environmental valley. Already more than forty are up and running producing everything from exquisite granite art to fine glassware. Nissan Corporation has purchased the land next to Marlow Norsemen and will soon begin building boats alongside us. Competition? Yep, tough competition, but I’m pretty sure we can pass muster. And if we can’t, well, that’s just the way it is supposed to work. No guarantees, just opportunities.

Marlow Yachts is a world leader in the exciting new technology of resin infusion. This technology literally infuses each fiber with precisely the right amount of resin while in the mold, with no room for human error in resin content. This is very important in that one drop of resin over the required amount to wet the fibers reduces the laminate strength. Our RIVAT© (Resin Infused Vacuum Assisted Transfer) process is simply the highest expression of this state of the art methodology. At the same time the exclusive closed molding process employed with RIVAT© eliminates ozone depleting chemicals dispersion from the process.

The panel stiffness of a laminate is dependent on the cube of its thickness hence a sandwich laminate will have much greater panel stiffness and therefore less flexing than a single skin laminate. This prolongs the life of the laminate, preventing stress cracks with far better resistance to water penetration of the laminate by any method including the nemesis, osmosis. Experience and testing show that the retention of strength of a laminate will decrease dramatically with increased panel flexing. The more one allows a panel to flex the faster its properties will decline. This applies especially to the very brittle Ortho-Polyester. Most builders today use Ortho-Polyester in combination with E-glass woven roving and chopped strand mat. From an engineering point of view this combination represents a relatively low quality and low cost laminate. Some yards using this method are yards with a high quality image and a good reputation.

At Marlow Yachts, we have used from the beginning, unidirectional stitched fibers such as Kevlar and other specifically engineered fabrics in combination with SAN foam sandwich construction. Through the years we have developed our laminating systems and today the minimum requirement for any part of a hull laminate is Iso-Polyester. There is no Ortho resin allowed. Our standard boats have vacuum-bagged Modified Epoxy laminate using Corecel foam as sandwich material and a hybrid roving Kevlar/glass unidirectional as basic fibers in the laminate. There is no question that a sensible high tech laminate will be stronger, lighter and last longer thus increasing the life and second hand value of a yacht making it a good investment in safety, comfort and reliability for the owner.

At Marlow Yachts Ltd, we continue to advance the state of the art with advanced boat building techniques like our proprietary RIVAT© infusion system. RIVAT is the acronym for “Resin Infused Vacuum Assisted Transfer”. Though we are not yet fully infusing our products we continue to advance the state of the art. It is our opinion, well supported, that we are the leaders within the yacht building industry in new technology, implemented after long R&D programs designed to prove or disprove their merit.

Our systems are not simply geared to improvements in the mechanical side of yacht building, but encompass the esoteric along with the mundane. Our goals are not only to build the very best available, but to bring the products to market at a value relationship that causes the industry to continue shaking their head, asking “how?”

The infusion process is well known in aerospace applications and had found its way across the manufacturing spectrum to diverse products ranging from FRP bus and coach bodies built by companies like Toyota, high performance aircraft components, racing car frames and onward to the incredibly light and strong windmill blades being produced by the thousands to ease our dependency on foreign oil. To compare common open molding with polyesters and generic fabrics to this cutting edge technology is akin to comparing the Wright Brothers first airplane to the 747 by Boeing.

In the infusion process we have developed, we begin by cutting the reinforcement fabrics layers out in patterns geometrically shaped to fit our hull. These are then numbered and labeled so that we can place them exactly where they should go in the hull, deck or bulkhead and floor molds.

The resin remains in drums awaiting the proper time to be connected to a labyrinth of piping that is designed to carry the resin to a grid of flow transfer media. Essentially a highway for the resin to travel to the exact spot in the exact quantity.

All the fabrics are placed in their designated spots and covered with a heavy duty plastic film covering the flow media described above.

The enormous vacuum pumps are then started, removing 100% of the air from beneath the bag. Sensitive leak detection devices are used to check the entire perimeter and seams for even a minute vacuum leak.

When all is well a valve is opened and the resin swiftly begins to flow to the hull, deck or whatever part is being laminated. The piping is transparent so the flow is clearly visible. In less than one hour, an entire 38’ hull can be infused to a standard that is physically impossible in any other form of laminating. The perfect amount of resin has permeated every fiber but no thick pools of brittle excess can be seen in the laminate. The tremendous pressure exerted by the high volume vacuum pumps has squeezed the laminate to form an extremely hard laminate absolutely free of voids or excess. Even under laboratory conditions, no hand laminators can approach the strength obtained or the precise resin to fiber content that produces the finest laminate available. It is well outside our ability to understand how companies today are still rolling low quality resins in open cavity molds using generic bulking fabrics like woven roving to thicken the laminate.

Much of our laminating process is done by very sophisticated vacuum bagging. Even ordinary vacuum bagging is far superior to hand laminating in an open mold. Hand laminating with generic resins and fibers is truly yesterday’s newspaper so to speak. Vacuum bagging, even at the lowest levels of technology is far superior to any common laminating with polyester and woven roving. Vacuum infusion is yet another quantum leap in laminate quality. Many companies state they vacuum bag their yachts however under inspection one finds they often do small parts only, if at all. Only about 6 companies worldwide have learned and practiced the infusion vacuum process.

Other advantages of this closed molding is that the workers are much happier and work more efficiently, as they are not required to wear bulky safety gear that restricts their ability to move freely or breath naturally. In infusion, simple rubber gloves are all that is necessary for protection. There are virtually no harmful fumes or chemicals released into the atmosphere and worker health is vastly improved. It does not require an M.I.T. Summa Cum Laude certificate to understand that a comfortable happy worker does a better job. The workers are happy to be part of a high technology portion of the factory production instead of relegated to mopping, rolling or spraying resin and fibers with dangerous chemicals filling the air.

So why doesn’t everyone do it? Well, we ask the same questions we did six years ago when we led the cored hull, modified epoxy resin, vacuum bagged revolution. Why the heck doesn’t everyone do this? The reasons seem to be about the same now as then. “Its good enough”, “It costs too much” and “we don’t know how”. Perhaps, but we like the view from the front and we will continue an active R&D program to learn everything we can about advance Fiberglass Reinforced Plastics technology.

We will continue to read, build, subject samples to extreme hardship and learn in this exciting new field.

In February 2006, we introduced our newest offerings with this exciting technology. The 72E LR and the new Prowler 375 Open.

We are very proud to report that we have achieved some very significant milestones at Marlow Yachts. The factory is a beautifully landscaped example of what humans can accomplish if they are sincere about doing the right thing. It is comprised of well planned and constructed buildings with logical flow plans for efficient manufacturing located on one of the most beautiful beaches anywhere. Our basin allows us to launch directly into the sea and do extensive sea trials, typically consisting of a 100 mile voyage as the initial sea trial, followed by another 300 mile trip to further check our work and the yacht’s performance.

The award of the prestigious ISO 9001 standard was received with great satisfaction and is proudly displayed in our factory. ISO stands for International Standards Organization and 9001 is the level at which we qualified.

ISO 9001 is the most comprehensive of the ISO standards. It requires companies to design, implement and maintain quality control processes throughout their business activities. We have passed these tests with flying colors, having zero reductions in the points total for failure to comply with any criteria.

The ISO 9001 standard provides a focus on system processes as opposed to elemental areas. The twenty elements of ISO 9001 have been restructured into four major areas or clauses to provide an even more logical sequencing of the requirements, while allowing the guiding documents and record keeping to be more precise and easier to use.

ISO 14001 accreditation means a company has proven to an independent auditing company that it consistently delivers compliance to its stated environmental manufacturing standards, it has established a system of continuous monitoring and improvement of the activities related to that standard and that it has developed effective process management systems.

The ISO 14001 family of environmental management standards is published by the International Organization for Standardization, which also oversees and publishes the ISO 9001 quality management standards. While both families consist of standards and guidelines relating to a company’s process management systems they are independent of one another.

Meeting ISO 14001 standards means that we constantly monitor our progress toward meeting our stated environmental goals, that we have processes in place to identify shortfalls and that we have additional processes in place to mitigate any adverse effects from any shortfalls.

Lofty standards? You bet! We urge all companies world wide to take the first step in the long march to these goals.

The physical plant has expanded to accommodate the growth in sales and the increased ability to fabricate so many of our own components.

The gardens and landscaping are maturing, the fruit trees are bearing fruit and quality yachts continue to come down the production line with ever shorter production times and ever evolving innovations. There will be completion of several new 78E's this summer with one being delivered to Italy in late September.

July 2003

Current Photos of the Norsemen Production Facility

June 2003

New Photos of 78-02 and the Manufacturing Plant

	The grounds are starting look more like the park we want it to be. You can see the increase in the number of buildings as well as the landscaping project. In the far right background you can see the new mechanical projects building.
This photo shows the Marlow Explorer tooling for the superstructure in the first line.
	Our new factory is being completely built and furnished by our own employees. Here they are building the many desks for the offices and for a local cause. In the background, you can see the beautiful hull of the ME 78.
The Marlow Explorer 78 hulls in the production line.

February 2003 • The photos below will show the progress we have made in our new facility with the buildings and the surrounding landscaping. The enthusiasm and great work ethic of the people involved has made this project move relatively quickly and smoothly towards completion while honing their skills for the ultimate purpose of the manufacturing plant. Craftsmen are building all the desks and workstations with the attention to detail that we will exhibit in the yachts built here. They are installing beautiful granite counters and floors in the office and reception areas. In essence, the future boat builders are creating a yacht-like manufacturing plant, dormitories, offices and reception/ VIP center. Before being accepted as a manufacturing team member every worker has been through a gauntlet of tests including full sized building projects under the watchful eyes of 25 masters we brought from other manufacturing locations. These masters are veterans of many years in yacht manufacturing and are at the top of their class in skill and work ethic.

	The construction of a granite wall around the plant and sea wall into the bay is well under way.

	Construction continues on the property while the building of yachts is well under way in the new buildings. On the right is an 80' yacht ready to be turned over.

	On the left, workers have cut and are arranging several huge teak logs for drying. On the right, a model for the hull is being prepared. A full sized mockup built with exquisite detail was built of all models to be built here. Only then were we satisfied the design was fully developed and the skills to build it were cataloged, on hand and ready.

July 2002 • The photos below will give you a glimpse of what we are involved in and hopefully pique your interest to follow Marlow Explorer Yachts as we continue to develop and produce a line of world class yachts.

This rendering of the Norsemen Shipbuilding, Ltd. production facility details what the completed facility will look like when all the building is completed. The protected harbor of the China Sea is a tremendous asset that very few shipbuilders world wide can boast of. This ambitious project will allow us to create production lines that are well thought out and planned for optimal efficiency.
	The VIP center is the reception center for visitors and houses several apartments for the factory principals and visiting yacht buyers. The construction is fully completed and the five acre property landscaping is underway. The interior floors are a beautiful granite from a local granite quarry and production facility.
The first of several large production buildings have been completed and are ready for the various interior work stations to be built. The large buildings in the photo to the right can accommodate as many as 10 sixty five foot yachts at one time. This building opens onto a spacious and beautiful work area overlooking the Yellow Sea, a crystal clear body of water. Since this photo was taken nearly 100,000 square feet of buildings have been erected to create the finest yacht production facility in Asia, if not the world.
	The lofting shop has completed it's first project lofting a motor yacht in the 80' range. We can develop up to four 65' projects at one time in these reinforced concrete buildings. Overhead cranes allow us to maneuver models as a complete unit. We are now developing a new yacht with looks ad quality to rain on a lot of picnics.
The engineers and support staff will have a very spacious and well lit workspace with a clear view of the production facilities. Granite floors contribute to a healthy and clean work environment. Note the construction overhead. We built these buildings to survive a 200 mph typhoon. Since these photos were taken our crews have wrapped the support pilings in either granite or fine wood veneers, while another crew hung sound absorbent ceiling and lighting to allow a terrific atmosphere for working.
	The parts receiving and distribution building is laid out for maximum efficiency and organization. Fully computerized handling of bills of materials, purchasing and related items are being installed now. Landscaping is under way to create a lovely working environment. * NOTE:Landscaping is now completed in June of 2003 and the parts department is full of perfectly organized and labeled top quality parts. All are cataloged on a proprietary parts distribution system that records in real time our costs on any yacht under construction.

It should be obvious that we are very serious about continuing the tradition started with the launch of hull # 1 on the Marlow Explorer series. No detail is too small, no task too large in pursuit of building the world's finest yachts.

The Main Entry to the Norsemen Factory
Norsemen Shipyard Limited

Our hand crafted three dimensional logo graces the wall of the VIP - Reception Center

These buildings are our on site apartments for our workers and our crew chiefs. They are new, spotless and very comfortable with learning and teaching aids available to all workers.

This photo shows our shipyard offices where our engineering departments and reception area are located

This view shows our beautiful and modern production buildings on the ocean.