Boat firm AP Marine celebrated the launch of its new facility on Addendum Lane on Saturday with a crowd of supporters at a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Michael Araujo, company president, said he was excited to have the facility ready after years of work.

He told those in attendance: “We started this venture just before Covid-19. That’s when we bought the property with big dreams of what it would turn into.

“Then we were in lockdown and I thought to myself, ‘Oh no … What have I done?’ But today I am excited that we have done it and we are here.”

Hundreds attended the ribbon cutting, hosted by Patrina “Power Girl” O’Connor-Paynter, including representatives from Yamaha and Valvoline visiting the island for the event.

Mr Araujo told The Royal Gazette that the new, hanger-like facility would allow the company to turn around projects faster and more efficiently.

“We built this facility because we wanted to provide better service for our customers,” he said. “That’s really what it boils down to.

“It’s going to help us be more efficient because we are out of the sunlight, out of the rain, so any project can go from start to finish without any delays.

“That’s the main purpose of this facility. We needed more space anyway because we are outgrowing our old facility.

“We put up that building 20 years ago, and it was purposely built and worked for us, but we grew out of that facility pretty quickly.”

He said the new structure includes state of the art compressor systems which will meet the demands of modern outboard motors.

“You can’t troubleshoot a motor if you can’t get the right water pressure,” Mr Araujo said.

“The other thing is we can get a boat backed in and these days, everything is computerised, so you want to be able to have your laptops out when you are working on it, and this is going to be much more efficient.”

Mr Araujo added that the company only received its occupancy certificate for the structure days before the ribbon cutting.

“It was a close call, but we are looking forward to welcoming customers,” he added.