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 HOME GROWN ST HELENA BAY PROFESSIONALS ACHIEVE WORLD CLASS BOATBUILDING RESULTSSt Helena Bay 26 March 2007 http://www.mtu.co.za/ Given the production tempo of the Tallie Marine shipyard, the staff at Tallie Marine rigidly apply teamwork principles - in fact their livelihoods were created by teamwork and still depend on it today. The present day 100 person staff complement of Tallie Marine was founded on a small team consisting of Anton Tallie and an assistant supported by his wife Rinette. The assistant subsequently advanced to the position of hydraulic system specialist with Rinette now managing the company finances and son Antonie in charge of production. A number of other family members hold key positions in the Tallie Marine team. With fourth generation roots from the island of Malta and a family closely associated with building ships for the local fishing industry, Anton Tallie started his career in the industry with various boat repair and maintenance companies where he advanced from a modest high school qualification to a mostly self taught shipside hydraulic system expert and part time designer and producer of sturdy winches for cray-fishing vessels. In 1988, while engaged in the repair of wooden fishing vessels, he became aware of a large potential market for fishing vessels specifically designed to meet local requirements and seaworthiness conditions. With very limited financial resources, Anton Tallie subsequently visualised a vessel design from which he built and tested a small scale model in the St Helena Bay waters. After many trials and tribulations that included consultations with many knowledgeable vessel operators in the industry, his prototype design for a GRP vessel was verified and approved by Cape Town based naval architects. A short time later, Anton sold his first 15 meter seaworthy vessel from a rudimentary set of drawings - and the rest is history.  Tallie Marine's prospectus describe their boatyard as a one stop shop for vessels ranging from a 10 meter prawn trawler to a 30 meter stern trawler with various applications in between. These applications include bottom trawling, line and squid fishing, purse seining, long lining, prawn trawling as well as other diverse applications such as diamond gravel pumping and marine research. They describe the key attributes of their products as high quality GPR constructed vessels incorporating low drag designs with excellent sea keeping capabilities that do not require high horsepower engines for maintaining adequate operating speeds. The combined result of these design parameters result in economical and cost effective vessel operations.During discussions with management it soon became obvious that the major competitive advantages of the company are well proven vessel designs, their ability to change vessel configurations to suit customer needs, excellent experience and hands-on knowledge of vessel construction, in depth knowledge of the requirements of the fishing industry and exceptionally good internal and external communications. Other advantages include very low personnel turnover, innovative personnel incentive schemes and exceptional long term customer relationships. Most of the company's present business comes from existing or past client with repeat orders forming the bulk of their orders. Life in St Helena Bay is not all work and no play. Anton is an avid pilot who owns and flies a gyrocopter and he is in the process of building a one-seater aluminium skinned fixed wing aircraft in his workshop at the Tallie Marine shipyard. His son Antonie is a champion oval track racer and father and son are forever improving the performance characteristics of their two racing vehicles. Anton also likes to fish from his semi rigid fishing boat in the many coves around the picturesque St Helena Bay. In short - Tallie Marine has a widely recognised reputation for constructing exceptionally well designed fishing vessels that form the major portion of the 130 sea worthy vessels that the company have supplied to fishing and other industries in South and Sub Sahara Africa since 1988. It is noteworthy that most of these single engine vessels safely spend long periods at sea facing the notoriously difficult Southern Atlantic Ocean conditions off the coasts of Southern Africa. 
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