Camarc man believes in being there

He explained, “In the early days of the 1980s I kept a bit of the budget aside for visits, to get an idea of how the boat was going to be used, and what the local building capability was.”

Relationships are important with yards as well as customers and he prefers to run projects almost as a joint ventures rather than simple commercial tenders. He said, “This business is about the ‘long haul’, it can take three to five years for a project to come off.”

The earliest significant design, he says, was a 12m pilot boat for Dundee in 1989. “It was innovative. It had a foam fender system, our double chine hull, and it was one of the first of its kind. The twist to the tale is that ‘Ladybird’, now a very old lady, is in semi-retirement near me in Campbeltown in Argyll.”

However, the big commercial break came in 1993 with a project for the Dutch pilots. ‘Voyager’ was an 18m aluminium boat. “Our double chine hulls come without that ‘hump’ of resistance that you can find at around 14 to 16 knots so it’s good for waterjets, although this was unusual propulsion at the time.” A resiliently mounted, vibration reducing wheelhouse, and honeycomb panelling superstructure added to the innovation.

This design grew into a series of ten 21m production craft and now a new generation of bigger, 22m Dutch pilot craft have been built by the US yard Kvichak, with further newbuilds in the Netherlands.

In the US, Mr Cameron’s ‘go-see’ attitude paid off with a particularly robust 22m self-righting boat for the Columbia River Bar pilots in Oregon. “You can be looking at something like 10m to 14m wave heights where the river meets the Pacific, said Mr Cameron. “This particular design opened up the US market, and there are now five sister ships in North America, with four variants as SAR craft in Turkey.”

It’s not all pilot boats. A 20m GRP patrol boat for Raidco Marine for a series of 24 for the French Gendarmerie Maritime has resulted in ongoing patrol boat orders and number 60 was delivered last month. Camarc also won the US Coastguard RBM (Response Boat Medium) design contract for self-righting, 42 knot boats used for search, rescue and interception duties, with over 100 of 180 now delivered.

Despite all this, Alastair Cameron does not describe himself as a ‘naval architect’. “I didn’t go the university route, I did an apprenticeship in Argyll and joined a drawing office. What I did do was spend my formative years in the boatyards and shipbuilders. We have an experienced team and now employ people straight from university, and very bright they are too, although it still takes them a couple of years to find their feet in such a broad industry.”

He added, though, that business couldn’t keep up its pace if it wasn’t for the web and this has helped him and his wife move back to Argyle as well as keep daily contact up with places as diverse as Australia, the Middle and Far East, Europe and North America. “Plus we’ve got a very capable team of ten in our Shoreham office”, he concluded.