Floating ideas become floating reality in Vava’u

Joe Caesar and business partner Alan Morey have spent over 10 years slowly growing a boat storage and repair facility in Tonga’s remote Vava’u. The population of around 20,000 residents in this tiny island group swells with tourists looking for the perfect pristine beach or sea-going voyagers seeking repairs or shelter. With 500-600 sailing boats coming through Vava’u each year, it is these adventurers that form a large proportion of Joe and Alan’s customer base, along with small local ferries or fishing boats in need of maintenance.

Joe and Alan had spent many years working in the Caribbean as shipwrights and boatbuilders before setting sail across the Pacific. Landing in Tonga they found no services available for yacht repairs, and so Vava’u Marine Services began. Initially just a small boat repair shop, the business was minimally funded by family and friends, with all profits being invested back into the business.

“We have a rolling priority list of projects to do; if the project can’t pay for itself it gets moved down the list, so some really important things just don’t get done.” Learning about BLP’s Business Support Grant was a pivotal moment for Vava’u Marine Services. If funding could be secured, a key piece of missing infrastructure could be purchased and installed.

That infrastructure is a floating dock at the end of the slipway. “It’s an essential piece of equipment for a yacht ‘haul out’ facility, but the cost was prohibitive at 15-20,000 Tongan Pa’anga”; add to this the costly logistical issue of getting a floating dock to Vava’u.

“At the moment we have a concrete slipway and a hydraulic trailer, so the boat has to come in close enough to be caught by a staff member in the water and manoeuvred into position on the trailer and pulled out that way. Everywhere else in the world you drive the boat on to the floating dock without needing to have a person in the water, which is much safer and easier for staff. With the frequent cyclones in Tonga, there is a huge need for boat storage on land – it’s much safer for boats to be out of the water during that season.”

Joe completed the Grant application himself, and BLP put him in touch with Erin Quirke, a BLP advisor from Quirke Pacific Consultants, based in the Cook Islands but also providing services to Tonga. Erin worked with Joe to provide supplementary information and the application was successful. “The BLP advisory service has been invaluable. There’s a big problem in the grant funding world where the process of connecting small businesses with grants available is overly complicated. This system is very end-user oriented and seems designed for the recipient of the grant.”

Vava’u Marine Services works closely with boatyards and marinas in New Zealand and was able to secure a second-hand floating dock from a marina in Opua, Bay of Islands. The Grant from BLP ensured the dock could be purchased, then broken down and relocated to Vava’u. “The new dock is now in our yard ready to be welded back together so we can put it in place. By mid-June, it should be in use.”

With most visitors arriving by water, the new floating dock will open up accessibility to the boatyard, and minimise safety issues. “For villagers coming in to have their boat looked at, they can now just pop in and show us.” It’s an exciting time for Joe and Alan; the new floating dock will be a gamechanger for the business.

Alongside Business Support Grants and advisory services, there are free online business assessment tools available on BLP’s website – https://businesslinkpacific.com/#business-toolkit. Using one of these tools will show what areas of your business could use improvement.