Wim Koersvelt’ s yacht building career goes back to 1970, when he worked in Florida for a number of composite manufacturers, who produced anything from small runabouts, weekend sailors, paddle boats and even bathtubs. This was a period of hands-on manual labour during which he learned every aspect of composite construction by actually doing the work. The step up to a real yacht building company came in December 1972, when he joined the Lazarra family’s Gulfstar Inc. in Largo Florida as the foreman of the fibreglass production department. At Gulfstar he worked under two persons who became his role models: First there was America’s fibreglass yacht construction pioneer Vince Lazarra, who offered insight in the yacht building business, in the management of people and not the least in the joy of being on the water in a sailing boat. Secondly there was Gulfstar’s senior lofts man Armin Hess, who “taught me the zen of yacht building”.