This Friday the first small craft trendwatching conference will be held in Saaremaa.

The aim of the conferenc is to introduce both global and regional trends in small craft building and the new opportunities for developing Estonian boatbuilding sector. The speakers of the conference are experts and specialists from home and abroad and the topics covered will be intriqueing.

As held during the Kuressaare Maritime Festival, a nice get-together weekend in Saaremaa is waiting for all the local boatbuilders and their friends.

In June and August 2010 a 5+5 days open course in boat design  is taking place in Saaremaa island.

The course is given by Tero Halme, the professor of boat design from the Kymenlaakso University of Applied Sciences.

The Basics of Boat Design course is meant for all those who need to understand the basics of boat and small craft design. The primary target groups are boatyards managers and small craft builders and adjustors, but also mechanical and structural engineers who need to understand the fundamentals of boat design and others just looking for an expanded job-related knowledge.

The attendees will get a foundation of the principles that one has to take into account when constructing a boat. The successful completion of the unit gives 4 ECTS.

Additional information and registration form can be reached from the TUT Kuressaare College homepage.

If coming from mainland, hurry up, as there is a lot going on in Saaremaa during the summertime and you might not be able to get accommodation when leaving the bookings to the last minute!

Saaremaa small craft cluster was presented as a case example in an international innovation conference ”Social Networks and Creative Thinking in Work and Learning”.

The conference held in Kuressaare lasted for two days and included a study visit to Baltic Workboats shipyard (watch the video).

Estonian Qualifications Authority and Association of Estonian Boatyards started a series of common workshops to update the current professional qualifications standards system for small craft builders and engineers. Kuressaare Regional Training Centre and TUT Kuressaare College are closely involved in the process.

The aim of the project is to have a real-life attached basis for renewing the qualification exams and developing curriculums of boatbuilding, small craft engineering and retraining boatmasters. Also the new system has to be matched  to the European professional qualification levels.

In the first meetings held in 22th and 23th of March an overall conceptual approach was negotiated, in the 5th of April the work will continue. The whole project is estimated to run through the year 2010.

http://www.hiswarai.nl/nl/en/Pages/default.aspx

Estonian maritime portal www.mereblog.com writes: Association of Estonian Boatyards is participating in Helsinki Boatshow. The impression of the stand is good, though the there were no particular show-off atributes used. Three boats (Stormer, Vector and Runabout) were attractive themselves and real boatmen seemed to have eyes only for the three beauties.

The small modest promotion details attached to the boats were working and the stand built trust.

Amsterdam, Turku and Tallinn Boatshows are yet to come…

In September 2009 Kuressaare College of Tallinn University of Technology in co-operation with Estonian Maritime Academy opened a pilot course in Small Craft Building. Now the curriculum is confirmed by the Council of TUT, and hopefully in 2010 College can announce an admission for the official small craft engineering programme .

As the small craft building education on higher educational level has been missing in Baltic states, the curriculum fills the gap in the area.

Read more…

The competence centres, to be established outside Harju and Tartu County, will begin developing, in cooperation between entrepreneurs and researchers, internationally competitive innovations in sectors that typify their home regions.

Monika Hankov, director of the Enterprise Estonia entrepreneurship environment division, said the green-lighted ideas include some that deal with development of Estonia’s traditional fields of enterprise as well as newer activity directions. “Some of the more traditional sectors represented include /…/ the small shipbuilding project related to an old regional tradition that is undergoing a comeback /…/”

Read more…

The winners of the European Yacht of the Year Award have been unveiled at the boot Düsseldorf show.

Saare 41, a sailing yacht from Saare Paat, has been nominated for the European Yacht of the Year award luxury cruisers category together with several world-class cruisers.  All the nominees were tested during Autumn 2009 and the winners  were selected by an 11-strong jury of European yachting journalists and presented on day 1 of Boot Düsseldorf.

The yacht has got a lot of attention from international yachting maganiznes and is being presented at the Düsseldorf boatshow, which runs through January 31.