Double shot
Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard completes the simultaneous delivery of two superyacht refit and refinishing projects during 2020.
30 November 2020
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Gold Coast City Marina and Shipyard (GCCM), located in southeast Queensland, has reported the successful delivery of two large-scale on-water superyacht refinishing projects over 34 weeks.
The projects involved two high-profile superyachts, the 74-metre Dragonfly and the 63-metre SuRi, and continued on time and on budget even throughout the Covid pandemic lockdown.
GCCM CEO Trenton Gay said that the completion of these projects demonstrated the yard’s ever-evolving and expanding marine refit and repair capabilities.
“Worldwide, it is well known that repainting sizeable yachts presents numerous challenges for captains and crews with regard to sourcing shipyards with the right capabilities and being able to undertake mammoth paint projects in a timely and cost-effective manner,” Gay said.
“Painting large-scale yachts on water is arguably the silver bullet of the marine refit and repair industry because it alleviates the need to lift the vessels out of the water while also allowing crew to stay on board and other interiors or motor maintenance work to be progressed at the same time, representing wins all-round,” he said.
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“Both Dragonfly and SuRi required full repaints of their hulls and superstructures, so our GCCM project management team combined expertise with on-site marine trade businesses, GC Marine, Marine Scaffolding, Superyachts Solutions, Sweep Marine and Gold Coast City Council and rose to the challenge to devise two ingenious on-water solutions in GCCM’s dedicated superyacht work basin tailored to the needs and requirements of both yachts.
We are incredibly proud of both projects, which employed the talents of over 200 marine tradespeople and have exponentially expanded GCCM’s superyacht capabilities and exceeded the expectations of both captains and crews thanks to seamless delivery.
“We are now in talks with many superyacht captains and crews from all parts of the world who are keen to bring their vessels to our GCCM facilities for similar repaint projects and also capitalise on the attractive exchange rate of the Australian dollar.
“With the addition of our Murarrie superyacht refit facility, we are looking forward to welcoming yachts of up to 120 metres from all over the globe.”
GCCM can now cater for yachts up to 120 metres after partnering with a complementary marine service facility – the Pacific Marine Base (PMB) on the Brisbane River at Murarrie.
The projects for Dragonfly and SuRi used a series of purpose-built pontoons to allow GCCM’s project management team to create stable and secure platforms around both yachts.
For Dragonfly, traditional scaffolding was erected and the entire structure wrapped to fully encapsulate the vessel, allowing for a perfect paint finish and ensuring that no contaminants entered the waterway or surrounding air. While the paint job was underway, GCCM’s project management team coordinated an extensive engineering and internal refit of Dragonfly by scheduling on-site marine trades in and around the complex paint works.
SuRi’s work used a Layher cantilevered scaffolding system to cater to the shape of the yacht’s structure, whereby the scaffolding was constructed top down as opposed to base up with the vessel then fully encapsulated like Dragonfly.
Based on these two successful projects, Australian local and state government authorities have, for the first time, issued an Environmental Authority (EA) for GCCM to be able to undertake such projects on an ongoing basis.
GCCM was named Superyacht Industry Manufacturer and Refit Business of the Year at the 2020 Australian Marine Industry Awards.
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