Mark Jardine, of Yachtsandyachting.com spoke to Steve Norbury of Seldén Mast, and Alex Newton-Southon of RS Sailing, about how they work together on the design and manufacture of a variety of components for the RS range of dinghies.
Mark Jardine: Seldén have made a considerable investment in manufacturing technology to help with the automation of processes. What is the biggest machine you’ve brought into the factory?
Steve Norbury: The biggest single investment so far is a CNC machine which is incredibly efficient at drilling, routering and shaping aluminium profiles. A lot of what we’re doing with RS is creating complete kits of parts and a lot of the rotomolded boats depend on aluminium extrusions and beams, so getting that process to be efficient and accurate means we can deliver a better product and stay on time with our deliveries.
Mark: RS Sailing are a creator of one-design boats, where you need every single boat to be identical. What it does it mean to you when a partner invests in this kind of technology, ensuring they are producing the same piece of kit time and time again?
Alex Newton-Southon: It’s incredibly important to make sure that RS are dealing with the right partners and Seldén Mast have been a fantastic partner for the entire 25-year history of the company. Having this investment with CNC machines and other items is hugely important as making sure that purchased products are replicated accurately time and time again is paramount. Seldén now provides us with a one-stop shop; we can get the masts, the hardware, other components and the foils all in one place. All of that is reliably delivered to our production facility so working with Seldén is fantastic.
Read the full Yachts and Yachting article here.
