All at sea

Davy Bartholomew is a project manager for Belfast-based specialist contractor Mivan. A joiner by trade, Bartholomew manages – among other things – the process of outfitting cruise ships. He told Construction Manager about this demanding but unusual and rewarding area of work.

How would you get started on a job?

We get on board, literally, at a very early stage – a year in advance – and this means we actually develop not only what the client wants but how we can do it. We also get to see the vessel. So we will suggest how to do things and whether it’s actually feasible. There’s no point talking about doing some fantastic things if in

the end if it’s just not feasible. At the end of the day it all comes down to timescales.

So then we would talk to the designers, who can either be working directly for us or directly for the client. If this is the case we would then get involved with the designer once the client agrees they would like to move forward with us.

We talk to the designer and try to pull together the concepts of what they are after.

What then?

Everything is manufactured to its near completion on the premises and where possible in our factory. We can inspect it, approve it and pack it. By doing this we see that it all works, but the client can also see it before it goes on the vessel.

Even at that stage changes can still be made or even cancelled if they know it’s not going to look right. The materials can then be shipped and installed in a very short space of time by us.

Sounds straightforward enough. So no room for error, then?

Planning is key, so when a client tells us when they want the refit, we work backwards from there. Refit dates are set in stone.

From there we plan the length it will to take to ship, manufacture and buy the goods in, because a lot of marine materials you can’t buy off the shelf, and they have to be non-combustible.

So have you been asked to do any totally bizarre concepts? Is there anything you won’t do?

Nothing we can’t do – we’re really only prevented by a time scale. We do a lot of themed interiors –everything from a Greek theme to a Disney theme.

Okay, now for the hard stuff: where does all this outfitting take place Isle of Wight? Clacton?

We do refits all over the world, in places including the Bahamas, America, Germany, Japan and Australia.

Sounds awful. How long do you get to go out there?

Normal time frame for an average refit is between two and three weeks. Anything longer involves major work.

So any disasters of Titanic proportions?

I can’t say we have. If a job isn’t done right a client may want to go somewhere else.

Must be something?

One of the biggest disasters was not of our making but we also got a lot of bad publicity. We had a substantial amount of work on the old QE2 and the company that was doing the cabins ran into difficulty and wasn’t going to finish on time. The clients were very upset with the contractor and brought on camera teams and created quite a bit of publicity in the news. The first thing the camera picked on was one of our guys, so we got a lot an awful lot of bad publicity from that. In the end we actually helped out and it was nothing to do us. We also got a written apology to say we weren’t in the wrong.

The beauty of the cruise ship market is that the clients tend to work with you. It’s no advantage to them to try get one over on you. In that case they don’t get the ship or they don’t get the ship that they want. So they do work with you. And if something doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter whose fault it is, they will try and work with you to make it work.

So everything really goes as smooth as a man walking the plank?

If your definition of smooth is sorting out all the problems you come up against, it’s a smooth contract. You will always have a problem; anybody who doesn’t have problems or pretends they don’t have problems is lying.

So you haven’t been hit with a little legal action for not completing in time?

No. If we got it wrong, that client wouldn’t work with us, and neither would other clients. That’s not a threat: it happens, and we have seen it happen to other people. It’s too small a market. People in America speak to people over here. And you don’t get away with it. It’s about reputation.

So what’s the best thing about your job?

Job satisfaction. It always has been. When you get involved from the very early stages, when you are talking with the client, they tell you what they would love to see and sometimes it looks quite fascinating, like it will never become a reality. But to actually see that develop all the way through, through all the pitfalls, problems and then see it finished. It’s fascinating and you actually get a real buzz from it.