One requirement during my Master's in Yacht Design, was an internship period. This experience is decision that is chosen by the individual student and can be either a shipyard or a design studio. Based on my previous background with fiberglass construction and fabrication, I had chosen an opportunity that was offered to me by an owner of a production shipyard. This shipyard was a contractor for Riva and San Lorenzo, located in Massa, Tuscany in Italy. At the time that I was at the shipyard, there were the production yachts of the Riva 88' Diva, 90' Argo, 102' Corsaro Super, 110' Dolcevita, 130' Bellissima. The contracted San Lorenzo yacht that was being constructed during that time was the SL 120'. The shipyard was contracted for fiberglass construction, installation and pressure testing of structural diesel tanks, hull fairing, installation of interior arrangement partitions, and hull assembly. For delivery, the hulls would then be towed or loaded onto a barge at the port and shipped to La Spezia for outfitting of interiors and equipment. This was an incredibly unique and valuable experience for me to work with larger production yachts to learn new fabrication techniques and strategies that go into the design phase of these large craft. 

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My main duty at the company was to be a Junior Production Manager of the 110' Riva Dolcevita at its differing product stages. My mentor at the time, who was the lead Production Manager was Albert Busitil. The role included management of quality gates with the Riva Quality Representative, production planning and scheduling of the differing processes given the differing sub-contractor's availability, and supporting the sub-contractors with the production tasks given the construction drawings of the hull. Another duty of mine was to support a Lean Continuous Improvement Project to study the Vacuum Assisted Resin Infusion (VARI) process to reduce consumable costs while ensuring no added risk to the infusion and to compare the cost differences between hand layup and VARI procedures. The project included the evaluation of the physics behind the VARI process and experimentation to predict resin flow.