
Japanese

Definition of GH Style : Beginning of Manufacture
GH Craft company was born 1970, in a small working lodge located in east coast of Chigasaki city, Kanagawa by Gaku Kimura, and first sponsor, Hikaru Kimura. Acronym “GH” stands for the initial of two founder’s names. At the time of establishing company, we were aiming to create the yachts that run faster than the wind. In those days, we were designing and manufacturing various products such as racing boats and hydroplanes, using light weighted plywood structure.
Later, during 1973, our current vice president Shiro Noguchi joined the team, and we have successfully established the corporation. About the same time, we created the famous international race 505-class yacht and participated in the both national and international championships. Traveling around the world introduced us to new people, new yachts and new technologies. We gradually entered the world of advanced composites, and from race to race, from competition to competition we were switching material and replacing wooden construction to glass fiber, sandwich and the CFRP honeycomb panels structure following the cutting edge trends and requirements. We were lucky to start the company manufacturing small boats and yachts. By running the overall process from design, calculations and construction we faced the challenge of fully testing our products in run conditions being the crewmembers ourselves.

Sailing yacht doesn't yield any other source of power then wind and safety on the crew is solely depending on our own estimations and requirements. There are no other vehicles that can run faster on the surface of water that water ski could do if the wind velocity is higher than 6~7 meters per second. If we make mistake at the point of design, structure engineering or manufacture of our yacht, it will most likely break. Even if it doesn't break, it will loose the race for sure.
If you look the curriculum of mechanical engineering or shipbuilding more general, sailing yacht could be handmade as the extension line of easy carpentry. This practically means that if one has knowledge of hydrodynamics, construction, figure studies, and reasonable financial assets, with ability to provide materials and equipment, complete manufacture process can be done "in-house". On the other hand, if we would participate in automotive industry, we could play only a certain role as highly dedicated element engineers. When it comes to industry of ultra light planes and aircrafts, purchasing the engine is possible, but risk of failure and possible consequences comparing to the boat industry are substantially higher. However the main factor of decision was economical point of view that determined our business perspective and company strategy.
Again, why we like to use carbon fiber composite as a material? It is because we think that carbon fiber is one of the best materials available in the world for engineering purposes. A widespread use of carbon fibers proves that; from combat and civilian airplane components, over F1 racing car, wind turbine blades, to golf clubs, tennis rackets, fishing rods and many other items. At the moment no other material can beat the general advantages of the carbon-based composites in terms of strength, fatigue resistance, weight and price.
Meanwhile, 35 years have passed from our beginnings. We are working our way applying philosophies such as "We make everything by ourselves", "challenging various techniques", and "absorbing pioneer technologies aggressively". Because of this approach we are blessed with reliable, satisfied customers, and challenging tasks. Therefore we highly appreciate given chances to manufacture and design various vehicles and crafts so far. At this moment GH Craft staff consists of about 50 members, from which about half of them are engineers and designers. This is found to be necessary since GH Craft is dedicated to creating things that haven't been done so far creating completely original and utterly new products.

Copyright (c) 2005 GH Craft Ltd. All rights reserved.