The International Laser Class Association (ILCA) is pleased to announce that Element 6 Evolution Co Ltd (E6E) has been approved as a Builder of class-legal boats. With manufacturing based in Thailand, the company has successfully completed the detailed builder certification process and has received approval from both the ILCA and World Sailing technical departments to undertake production.
Expect to see the first ILCA class-legal boats by Element 6 Evolution in the market soon complete with World Sailing plaques — meaning these boats are legal for all class-sanctioned events including world and Olympic qualifiers. As with all ILCA approved builders, E6E boats are being manufactured from moulds made from ILCA master tooling and will be built in strict compliance with the class Build Manual standards and specifications and will be available for sale around the world.
About E6E
The three principals of the company Pom Green, John Higham and Pramote Indranoi worked together at Composite Marine International (CMI) in Thailand, a joint venture with Cobra for ten years, before selling their interests and later establishing Element 6 Evolution in 2015.
Pom Green – ‘At CMI amongst other boats we were building significant volumes of dinghies for RS, Nacra, AHPC and other brands using fairly traditional methods. Here, we have a state-of-the-art composites facility. We are building the Olympic Nacra 17, the Nacra 15 and 20, Goodall designs, foils for kiteboards, aerospace products and now the ILCA dinghy. For us, it is all about high quality.’
John Higham – ‘We have around 60 people in our team, 12 of them are engineers. We manufacture in a clean environment, with all areas having extraction and correct filtering, all laminate areas have temperature and humidity control to benefit the product as-well as the workforce. We use the latest technology where we can and are highly QA conscious, there is a lot of recording, documentation and many QC stages; all fabrics and cores are CNC machine cut for millimetre accuracy, automatically labelled, with overlaps lines marked, double weight checked etc. For us, it’s all about repeatability. Our ethos has always been to build the best quality and accuracy.’
The third partner Pramote Indranoi is an aerospace engineer, who focuses on running the technology for E6E. He added ‘Thailand now has a large composites production industry, and I am proud to say E6E is at the top of the ladder when it comes to precision, repeatability and quality. ‘
E6E has a consultant in manufacturing, events and sales, who knows the Laser-ILCA world very well. Chris Caldecoat, after 16 years as GM of Australian Laser builder PSA, brings considerable experience to E6E.
Caldecoat – ‘One of the key spin-offs of having a strong ILCA manufacturing presence here will mean a great deal of extra support for class events and the ability to run much larger events such as world titles, in Thailand and within the region.‘
Potential distributors should contact Chris Caldecoat at c.caldecoat@element6.asia