<B>Igor VAN NUWENBORG</B>

His company is often associated with Legend 22, a fibre glass boat. Igor, whose parents lived in ex-Belgian Congo, may look like a modern adventurer. But the secret of the success of the Grand River North West boatyard is perhaps its director’s determination to achieve the best.

It is ages since the entrance of Pointe-aux-Sables hosted a boatyard. Yet, when Igor van Nuwenborg, a descendant of a long-established Belgian family living in Zaire, took it over in 1993 with an associate, few still believed in boat construction. A cyclone had just struck Mauritius and the site looked devastated but that was not enough to put off Igor. He was in his early twenties, freshly graduated in naval architecture from the prestigious Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology (USA) and very determined. He has not changed since.

Meanwhile, his enterprise, Legend Marine Export Limited, has become a recognised name in fibreglass boat construction and repair. It not only met considerable success with its Legend 22, a fibreglass model, with 250 sales in 7 years. It also won in 2005 a distinction in New York, the quality summit award. “I have my own basic model from which I build what customers ask me for. These range from ordinary people to millionaires. The structure is made from a mould in solid fibreglass, installed in one piece, deck included.“ Igor pioneered this technology of one-piece fibreglass boats. And for the future, he is not short of projects and is looking forward to enlarging his staff.

Igor the conqueror was born in neighbouring Réunion. But he grew up in Mauritius where his parents moved two years later. “My father was an architect and my mother a draughtswoman. We lived in Rivière-Noire, by the sea, which I enjoyed, practising surfing among others sports. The ingredients were there for his future career, and, while frequently travelling abroad with his parents, Igor van Nuwenborg became a Mauritian strongly attached to the sea.

After his college years at the Lycée Labourdonnais, he went on to the Dominican Republic to study in a resort. He then moved to New York for the three-year course in naval architecture and design. Time proved he had made the right choice.

As it is, Igor acts at the same time as salesman, foreman, director and accountant for his company. He is thus constantly on the move, present for any delicate aspect of the work solving problems, giving advice to his staff or his “team“ as he prefers to call them. “Mauritian staff are very skilled. But one has to know how to manage them properly. I am beginning to reap the positive results of this way of working.”

Nevertheless, Igor has from time to time to leave the boatyard… to attend boat shows in Miami and elsewhere, to thoroughly examine models in close-up, to check on the latest developments in the field and meet other professionnals. A true patriot, he encourages a competitor who is succeeding abroad : “It is good for Mauritians to know how the sector is recognized in Europe.”

Naturally, his commitments have a drawback, as they limit his family life. Fortunately he has “an understanding wife”. But love for the sea and the sports is always present too. Géraldine has given birth to their child Bjorn, named after Igor’s two idols, the famous Swedish tennisman (Borg) and the no less distinguished Danish surfer (Dunkerbeck). Though striving hard to succeed, Igor has a “cool” philosophy, enjoying the sun, feeling the day as it comes, something that others resume as “carpe diem.”