Day One

It was a short but interesting first day at the Valiant Yacht manufacturer. I arrived in Gordonville, Texas at about 1:00 in the afternoon and then spent just a couple hours at the company with my mentor. Today I was scheduled to take a tour of the manufacturing site and meet the people that I would be working with for the next few days. It was interesting to me that they have different buildings in which different aspects of the “ship-building” process go on. For example there is a building where all the painting is done. There is another building where all the finishing touches are put on the yacht before it is commissioned. Commissioned in this sense refers to when they put the mast on the boat while it is in the water. This is the final step in the process I learned. I also got to see the machines that are used to lift the yachts out of the water. After the tour, I spent a little time speaking with Chris, the owner of the factory, to discuss the week. He said that unfortunately there is not a ship in the line right now to be constructed. He said that they do not build as many yachts as they used to, but there is still plenty of work that goes on all the time. Now, they primarily focus on building individual parts of boats such as cabinets etc. He said that I might get some hands on work with that this week. I’m excited to get to the real work tomorrow to see what its all about!