Growing pearls

The 495 is a yacht that’s already grabbing attention. At the time of going to press, Oyster had sold 15 hulls. That represents a serious scaling up in operations from what was essentially a skeleton management team put in place when Hadida bought the company in 2018.

That team – including Deputy CEO Becky Bridgen, COO Peter Hamlyn and CCO Paul Adamson – has been instrumental in turning the company around with Hadida, and the success they’ve achieved is evident in the scale of the operation across the various Oyster sites as well as the number of employees it has taken on.

That number now reaches some 450 people on the production side, which swells to nearly 600 when other teams and non-shopfloor departments are included.

The Oyster operation spans sites on the UK’s east and south coasts, building a range of six bluewater performance cruising yachts between 50 and 90 feet (15 and 27 metres) in length.

The newest facility to come on stream is in a giant shed in Hythe on Southampton Water, in what was originally built for the production of flying boats in the 1930s and was most recently owned by motor boat builder Fairline.

It’s here that the new Oyster Yachts is taking shape, literally and figuratively, with the 495 being produced in the shed along with the 675. It’s also the testbed for new production processes and technologies being spearheaded by Peter Hamlyn.

Hamlyn joined Oyster at the start of 2021 but his background stretches back all the way to Princess Yachts, where he started as a shipwright in 1987. He rose through the ranks to senior management and shareholder, leaving five years ago to join Fairline as Operations Director.

He brings to Oyster a unique combination of craftsmanship, production process experience and management skill, and his impact has been significant already. “My remit was to grow volume, although not the sort of volume I was used to with Princess,” he begins.

“When I joined Oyster, we had six boats in production; now I’ve got 28. It was about bringing a team together and bringing in expertise,” he says.

But it was also about bringing in new technologies, which Hamlyn has done with the introduction of things such as a laser projection system that scans all the materials and fabrics and shows the fitters where everything should be to micron accuracy.

It is, as Hamlyn points out, a far more efficient method than using tape measures and laser levels. “They’ve used laser projection in automotive for years,” Hamlyn explains, “and we’ve had it adapted for us. I don’t know any other builders using it.”

That’s not the only change – the foam cores used in the hulls are typically flat sections that are pressed into place and forced to conform to the mould under vacuum, which puts huge stress on the core. So, Hamlyn found a Dutch company that could create a 3D core.

“We scanned the whole tool in 3D form and sent it to a company in the Netherlands, and they make a 3D core – the whole thing comes to us like a giant 3D jigsaw. It’s taken two to three weeks out of the build time.”

Such technologies don’t, however, mean an end to the quality for which Oyster was always known. “Richard was very keen on keeping that DNA of Oyster and keeping that traditional craftsmanship,” Hamlyn says, “which is what I love as well. It’s all about balancing that with technology.”

If efficiencies and production evolutions – coupled with the decision to ensure peace of mind quality by building the 495 to Lloyd’s and DNV-GL Classification – speak to a bright future for the brand’s yard operations, the business strategy speaks to a desire to grow awareness of Oyster on an international scale and gain market penetration.

“At this point, we’ve got the capacity we want. We’ll deliver 24 boats this year and next year it will be 36,” says Becky Bridgen.

“There are three areas of focus now. We’ve just done a tour of the Nordic countries with the new 495 as the brand is not well known there.

“The other area of focus is the Asia-Pacific region, and having the World Oyster Rally at Hamilton Island in Queensland in 2022 is fantastic.

“We have a local representative, Michael Bell, who is really well known in the sailing community, and he’ll also have a 595 at the 2022 Sydney International Boat Show.”

Oyster has a number of Australian owners already, although Bridgen says many keep their boats in the Mediterranean or Caribbean, so they don’t get seen so much in local waters.

“But we have 495, 595 and 675 models all in build for Australian owners at the moment,” adds Bridgen.

The Oyster pedigree makes it a great choice for Aussie cruising – dozens of Oysters have completed circumnavigations in the brand’s 50-year history, with the Oyster fleet sailing a combined distance in the region of 20 million miles.

“We’re proud of that heritage,” says Bridgen. “The strategy is to enhance what we’ve got but also look to the future and at what prospective owners will be looking for.”

It’s here that Paul Adamson steps in. An avid sailor since his youth, Adamson entered professional yachting in his late teens and ended up – after a circuitous path – working as a junior commissioner at Oyster. He was introduced to the owner of an Oyster 56, who asked him to skipper the boat, and he took the yacht around the UK and then off across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

Subsequently, he sailed around the world with former F1 team owner Eddie Jordan on his Oyster 885 Lush before meeting Hadida. Hadida offered Adamson the CCO role when he bought the company, and it’s a role that Adamson is perfectly suited to.

“Oyster has been such a massive part of my life,” Paul says genuinely. “I met my wife on an Oyster, sailed around the world on one, and now I’m part of the senior management team. If you cut me open, you’d find the Oyster logo imprinted on my heart!”

For Adamson, too, the strategy is about gently evolving. “We want to be on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge,” he offers.

“We’re looking at new technologies in the production and in the onboard systems, we’re looking at how we can increase the quality, increase the craftsmanship, but we always want to stay up to date from a technological point of view.”

An example of this is the digital switching system that was first fitted on the Oyster 595, which was launched in 2021 (see Ocean issue #99 for our full review).

“When you step on the 495, you’ll see it is the same screen, the same operating system, and it now runs through the entire Oyster range,” Adamson adds.

“We also listen to all the owner feedback because, of course, there’s one thing a design team can do, but there’s another thing when an owner who has had the boat for a number of months or years says, ‘It would be really great if you just did this or did that.’”

It brings us back neatly to that 495. “We did the Round the Island Race with the 495 in the UK in June, which is one of the biggest races in the world with well over 1,000 boats taking part,” Bridgen enthuses.

“We thought we’d put it through its paces. We came first in our class and second overall. It’s amazing and a spectacular endorsement of both the boat and our strategy – what we’re looking for as we take the business forward – because the 495 is the first new boat developed entirely under Richard’s ownership. It’s been four years in the making.”

With the first 495 now about to head to the Mediterranean on the next leg of its world tour, with this writer on board for the delivery, the wait and the effort will surely have been worth it.

Watch this space.

oysteryachts.com