Flying start for boat builder

Setting up in the boat-building business is not always plain sailing but Hawke's Bay competition rower Simon Lack has already attracted success in being named the Hawke's Bay regional winner of the inaugural National Flying Start Business Plan competition.
In the ANZ-backed scheme - to assist fledgling businesses - Mr Lack has picked up one of the 16 regional prizes valued at $3000.
"I would have liked the big prize ($60,000) but I'm pretty happy with that," he said.
The winning businesses each had to submit a business plan involving plans for growth and potential exporting, and Mr Lack's submission (one of 500 received) caught the judges' attention.
"We chose the winners of the first Flying Start Business Plan competition because they have a solid business plan in place, were geared for growth and had exporting merit which, with some help from ANZ, could achieve substantial and sustained exports," Fred Ohlsson, ANZ's Managing Director of Business Banking said.
Mr Lack set up business in a large, shared building on a property at Puketapu about 15 months ago.
"I'd been rowing for a while," he said of his successful rowing career as a member of the Hawke's Bay Rowing Club, "and wanted to design and build boats which are more practical".
His efforts have already led to the building and purchase of a coxed-four competition boat which had been rowed to a bronze medal at the Secondary School Rowing Championships last April. As a result, another order for a specially designed and built race boat had come in.
Mr Lack said he built to order, and offered a major point of difference in that he consulted the prospective owner and could adapt and modify to their individual specifications.
"And I keep the price competitive ... and 95 per cent of the product is made in New Zealand."
At present the focus was on the domestic market but Mr Lack said he had plans to eventually enter the export side.
Business.govt.nz manager Katie Wellington praised the quality of the entries submitted to the competition, which promoted the benefits of having a business plan and the resources available to small businesses on the first-stop government website.