A booming industry facing a multitude of challenges.
The South African boating export industry is booming. Cape Town’s ships, boating and floating structure exports amounted to roughly 4.3 billion rands in 2024, with their dominant production of yachts increasing 217% since 2015. Though the figures are increasing it’s not all easy sailing for the industry.
Speaking at the African Boating Conference held in Cape Town the Ullman Sails International CEO Michael England, highlighted the challenges that the industry is facing. The most pressing issue raised is the cost of production. South African boat building companies must rely on costly imported materials. England believes that the industry needs to convince international component makers to establish themselves in South African hoping that it will reduce the cost of production and ease access to materials. England notes that the severe lack of skills in the South African industry acts as a barrier for them to enter the market. Ullman sails are willing to use local producers or enter the market; however, the lack of skills is creating a challenge for this to happen.
South Africa does not currently have a formal training process for the boat building industry. This is a vital requirement for the industry to grow. Nicole van de Wall from the Two Oceans Marine Manufacturing project office agrees with England on the need for training. van de Wall has observed a ‘huge rotation’ of staff in the South African boating industry with a large part of this labour force being unskilled. Nationally the ship and boat building sector employed 3 780 full time equivalent jobs by March 2024. With the industry demands increasing, the lack of skilled workers in the industry is a growing concern.
South Africa also needs to increase the buy in from locals to the leisure boating market. Africa does not have a history of leisure boating or a stable user base. This could help encourage local manufacturers become involved in the industry. Alderman Jame Vos, representing the city of Cape Town at the African Boating Conference, believes that growing local suppliers for components such as engines, electronics, and composites will further increase local jobs. Additionally, investors, boatbuilders, tertiary institutions and government agencies need to regularly align on how to meet these skill shortages and lack of local manufacturing processes.
The industry also needs to be aware of the risk of the global boating market following the recent arc of the automotive industry wherein China is striving to establish itself as a leading force in the boat manufacturing industry.