The first contact with Alan Goodchild had been an enquiry for work experience via Minney's father, who served in the Metropolitan Police on a Goodchild-built boat. Robert came up to Norfolk for three weeks work in the Burgh Castle, Gt Yarmouth yard.

He spent a week with each of three teams working on different projects to experience the diversity of work and the range of skills needed for building the commercial workboats that are the speciality of Goodchild.

Starting work What's Goodchild's approach to a raw trainee? "Throw them in at the deep-end to do practical tasks, with full responsibility for the job they do."

Minney started under the close supervision of Alan and Steve, the yard's marine electrician team, working on a lifeboat refit project. All the electrics had to be dismantled for the refit and Minney's task was to do that, documenting how it all came apart and label up the components - eight weeks later everything had to be efficiently replaced.

Goodchild's approach to skills and "how to do it" problems on the shop floor is the same for everyone in his firm. If a question is asked, the reply is "tell me how you think it should be done" and it gets talked through - it's very much a work it out for yourself theme.

"But everyone constantly offers help and hints, " says Minney. Goodchild Marine is a firm with little hierarchy, and Goodchild himself is on the job working with his teams - it's a can-do culture with clear job targets.

"Robert has excellent natural skills, " says Goodchild, "and most of the time he works out how on his own, he doesn't need a lot of supervision."

Goodchild's philosophy is to get good at the practical task first, and then open the book to understand the whys.

"Working with adults was daunting at first, but it's very easy to get on with the people here, just like your mates at school, " says Robert. "They are down to earth people, good for a laugh and a joke, all practical and willing to help when help is needed. The motivation and the reward is the sense of achievement on finishing a good job."

"It's not all pleasant, there are some jobs that are very dirty, that take a very long time, or where you have to work in an uncomfortably small space, " says Minney, 'but there are lots of different things to do and learn about which makes it all very interesting."

College

There is, of course, a college component to his apprenticeship where Robert meets up with the apprentices from other boatyards - an opportunity to share tales of the very different type of work and working cultures of other firms in the region.

The practical work at college concentrates on the craft woodworking skills necessary for high quality boat outfitting and in addition there is the key skills component; "but I'm already well qualified in all of that from my GCSEs".

Boatbuilding

Modern Apprenticeship The first year of Norfolk's new modern apprenticeship scheme has been a learning curve for everyone concerned.

ITE bring expertise from the south coast and both Anita Yeoman, head of ITE's Gt Yarmouth office, and its apprentice assessor, make frequent visits to the boatyards to monitor the onthe-job training.

A big review of year one brought the yards, ITE, Lowestoft College, the British Marine Federation and the LSC together with the Norfolk and Suffolk Boatbuilder's Association to discuss the scheme's successes and improvements that can be made.

To encourage the trainees, the Norfolk and Suffolk Boatbuilder's Association has established an annual competition for best apprentice; its first award goes to Robert Minney, with a trophy and a £200 tool voucher.

Andrew Wolstenholme, chairman of the N&SBA introduced the award:

"Training is vital, it's something all boatbuilders are preoccupied by, without training we have no future."

The level of work from all seven finalists was of a very high standard and the judges were hard pressed to pick the winner after their visits to each yard.

Judging was also an opportunity to learn from the different approaches to on-thejob training in the different firms - so that training methods can be refined and optimised.

National award

The competitors were also entered into the BMF's student of the year competition and Robert Minney of Goodchild Marine achieved 2nd place in the national award for 2002.