Winning team leader

Few individuals can claim to have made such an impact on their country's boatbuilding industry as Australian Bill Barry-Cotter. With his Riviera Group he has brought Australian series powerboat building onto the world stage and on the way has developed a company that probably ranks among the world's 20 or so largest boat production companies.

Since moving into a new purpose-built facility at Coomera near Brisbane, which opened in October last year, the Riviera Group is primed for further expansion. Within the next two years the production capability of the Riviera range (convertibles and motor cruisers) will climb to 10 per week, an enviable figure for any yacht builder.

Brought up on a farm before escaping to Sydney at an early age, Barry-Cotter explains how it all started. "An apprenticeship building wooden boats provided my first experience of the marine industry. With the apprenticeship over, things started to move quickly. In 1966 I started the Mariner Cruiser operation which, 12 years later, had become the largest yacht building operation in Australia. We had a business which was attractive to investors, so I sold out and took some time off".

By 1980 the urge to build yachts had returned and Barry-Cotter formed Riviera Marine. "This was initially a small operation with a staff of five building five boats a year," says Barry-Cotter. "The operation was moved up to Queensland's Gold Coast where we set up business in Labrador."

That first yard was just 12,000 ft2 (1,115m2), but it wasn't long before the business had expanded to overtake Mariner as Australia's single largest boatbuilder.

In a series of ground-breaking deals, Riviera licensed designs to Hatteras and also worked with Grand Banks. A crucial meeting with Irwin Jacobs of Genmar led to a tie-up between Riviera and Wellcraft.

Now the Genmar Group is using Riviera to produce a new Trojan 40 for US boatbuilder Carver. This new design will have a more European style, something which we are also introducing into the Riviera range.

"Exports are now everything in this business", says Barry-Cotter. "We export over 75 per cent of our production and expect that figure to increase. We have developed excellent international connections, particularly in America, but we were also the first people to sell Yamaha boats outside Japan. We see our business as a two-way trade, and the international relationships we have built up put us in a strong position."

To overcome the problem of skilled-labour shortage Riviera started its own apprenticeship scheme, bringing people in straight from school by offering a wide range of trade skills.

Riviera has recently spent A$25 million (US$13.9 million) on a brand new production facility. This is located in the new Gold Coast Marine Precinct on the Coomera River (see IBI December 2000). This innovative project was largely funded by private money, the local city council and the state government investing A$4 million (US$2.2 million) in dredging operations and basic infrastructure.

The new facility has allowed Riviera to design its production systems from the ground up, making this a world-class yacht building yard. The facilities will enable production to rise from 350 boats a year at present, to around 500, which Riviera believes will happen within two years.

Suunto profile published in IBI, November 2001.
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