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Westport Yachts Reopens as COVID-19 Crisis Subsides

4 June 2020 • Written by Miranda Blazeby

US builder Westport Yachts has become the latest superyacht shipyard to resume production activities  as the coronavirus crisis subsides.

Washington State has now begun to lift stay at home orders, enabling Westport employees to return to work. Westport said it would be following precautions and social distancing measures as it resumes production work.

It comes after a number of shipyards around the world begin to reopen following the outbreak, including a number of Italian yards.

These include the Ferretti Group, which has resumed activity across its yards in Ancona, Mondolfo, Cattolica, Forlì, La Spezia and Sarnico.

Elsewhere, Tankoa Yachts has resumed all production activities at its Genoa based facility and estimates all in-build yachts to be delivered on schedule. Codecasa has also reopened all of its production sites and has adopted a number of measures to ensure the safety of working staff.

The reopening of these shipyards came after regulations were put in place in Italy to allow companies to return to work.

New Zealand yard Yachting Developments resumed its operations late last month after prime minister Jacinda Ardern declared the country’s COVID-19 outbreak “eliminated”.

The yard said it was “scaling” the return of its workforce and hopes to have the whole team back within two weeks.

In South Africa, sailing superyacht specialist Southern Wind has resumed production in Cape Town with half of its total workforce.

“We are aware the storm has not passed yet, but we see that the sky is beginning to clear,” said commercial director Andrea Micheli. “We maintain our attentiveness and are ready to adjust our sails as we navigate towards the Next Normal.”

Meanwhile SilverYachts reported “zero interruption” to its in-build 85 metre explorer Silver Loft II, which is under construction at the builder’s Western Australian facility.

It also reported little impact to its Chinese yard located in Jiangmen, where the 35 metre SpaceCat catamaran is currently under construction.

Construction continues at SilverYachts

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