BBA graduate Luke Browne is a shining example of what the 40-week course can help you to achieve. Having worked across the world thanks to the training he gained with us, he is now planning to set up his own UK company, where he hopes to employ other BBA graduates.
Luke Browne was planning to go to university when he made a last-minute change of direction and navigated towards the BBA. It’s a decision he has never regretted, and one which has allowed him to work at boatyards across the globe.
Speaking from his current project refitting superyachts in Vancouver, Canada, Luke explained: “I had travelled abroad after leaving school with no A Levels and then came back to jobs as a site labourer and in a couple of factories. I was 20, I had no direction, and I wanted a fulfilling career.
“I had an offer to study at Durham when my mum handed me a flyer from the BBA. She wanted me to find my path and I didn’t know it at the time, but her father and his father before him had been shipwrights – I think she saw some similar traits in me.
“Using the small amount of money I had saved, loans from family and a small grant from the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, I enrolled, bought some tools and headed to Lyme.
“During the course I built a small Canadian canoe which took me six weeks. I then got to work on the other boats alongside my classmates. I can honestly say that being at the BBA was one of the best periods of my life. I soaked up everything I was taught, lived on site with a great bunch of people and generally felt part of something.” Luke was offered a job by Spirit Yachts and went there straight after the end of the course. He worked at Spirit for two years and then moved in to furniture making at Bridger and Buss, near Exeter, but he missed working on boats.
Luke then applied for a job advertised on the private Boat Building Academy Graduates’ network. He was offered the post. It took six months to get all the paperwork and work permits needed, but in July 2016 Luke went to work for E & S Yacht Maintenance in Tortola, British Virgin Islands where he was part of a small team of three providing woodwork, GRP, plumbing, electrics – the whole works – to private and charter boats, including 80ft catamarans.
Luke says it was a steep learning curve going into the marine industry: “The first year was very hard but one of the most important elements, the hand skills that I learned at the Academy, put me in good stead. The rest was down to patience, gaining experience and the connections you make along the way.”
He also spent some time at T Nielsens in Gloucester and refitted the Motor Yacht Alicia in Southampton.
Now working in Vancouver after being recommended by someone he met in the Caribbean, Luke has even employed five other BBA graduates to join his crew.
He said: “There is so much work for trained boat builders. Every place I have been has been literally crying out for them, so being able to bring people over from the BBA has been fantastic for them and us.”
Luke is now looking to take his impressive CV back to the UK, where he hopes to set up his own business in Plymouth, and hopefully employ more BBA graduates.
He concludes: “If you’re reading this and wondering if the BBA course is for you, take my advice and go for it. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.”
