Neil Marine, a pioneer in fiberglass boats

by Anjana Samarasinghe

After completing his school career, young Neil Fernando joined Harrison Lister Engineering where he had an excellent training on boat building and marine engineering. Later he joined Walker and Sons which manufactures fiberglass boats. By that time fiberglass boats were popular among fishing community.

When the company was sold to the local management, Fernando thought of starting his own boat yard in Sri Lanka.

In 1969, Neil Fernando established his own company Neil Fernando & Company (Pvt) Ltd. investing only Rs.10000. Today, Neil Marine is the largest boat manufacturer in South East Asia.

Chairman of the Neil Fernando & Company Neil Fernando said that at the beginning he had problems due to certain restrictions on importing raw material and machinery to Sri Lanka. He could import only a small amount of material due to the shortage of foreign exchange in the country.

At the beginning Bank of Ceylon provided necessary funds and they are still with him.

But in 1970, the company was able to enter into global markets. At present 60%-70% of the total production is for the export market. UK, Holland, Seashells and Maldives are some of their major buyers.

Neil Fernando & Company is investing on designing new models and takes part in international boat exhibitions.

The Company is always on par with the international boat building industry to gain latest technology to their manufacturing process.

They have connections with most of the boat yards in the world, to cope with the industry and to be more competitive in the market.

Today they manufacture wide range of vessels from single outboard engine motor boats to luxury sailing and motor yachts.

The company has equipment and technology to build any type of a vessel in Sri Lanka and they have their own architectures for designing models. Although they use 100% Sri Lankan technologies they get engineering facilities from UK, Holland and Italy Fernando said.

Neil Marine has contributed immensely to the development of the fishing industry in Sri Lanka by supplying the country with a variety of more than 25,000 boats. There is a good demand for these boats in Sri Lanka but sales have dropped since 3 years due to non-availability of subsidies for fishermen. But the recent tsunami kept the company busy on catering to the local market.

The local industry has faced bankruptcy due to competition and less demand. But the company has been able to perform well. They provide standardised products with after sales service Fernando said that there should be a waterfront near any boat yard for easy access to water. But transporting huge vessels from their Negombo boat yard to the waterfront has become a major problem.

They have made several requests to authorities to obtain land near the waterfront. The company has qualified to supply boats for the Indian Customs, Government and some Indian investors have invited them to setup a plant in India. "We are still wondering whether we do our productions in India or Sri Lanka'' Fernando said.

If the need arises for necessary resources which we cannot afford from Sri Lanka the company expects to move to another country to establish a plant.

In Sri Lanka the boat building sector has a future and there are many yards that commence as small units and expand into huge plants. Oil prices that rise daily have limited the production of the industry and there is a huge demand for skilled labours too. In future there would be more competition in the industry Fernando said.