Boat Building

Victor Boats principal Tim Tavior has has two focuses all his life (outside of family)- to sail boats fast and to build boats that sail fast.

Tim's career started in 1980s with Petticrow Boatyard and was there at the conception of the Dragon, Soling and Etchells for that boatyard. Tim then went on to found Devoti Sailing in 1992 with Luca Devoti as partner to build Finns.

Dinghy Build Projects from first principals - Finn, 470 & Snipe
The first production Finn won both the 1992 Europeans and worlds with different helms. Instant success led to supply of Finns to Olympic Games in Atlanta 1996, the boats were chosen as state of the art Finns, and the company were highly commended for the preciseness and equality of the fleet. The last 12 Finn World Championships won with my Finn. Also whilst at Devoti Sailing Tim lead the team that created, from first, principles a 470 and a Snipe. Within two years 8 of the top twenty ranked 470 sailors used the Devoti 470. Tim also lead the development of a Devoti Snipe and the last six UK championships have been won in a Devoti Snipe.

Keelboat Build Projects - Melges 24
When Devoti Sailing was awarded the European builders license for the International Melges 24 it was Tim's responsibility to manage the development of the specification and to establish production in the companies factory in Poland. The Melges 24 is a very high-tech keelboat with performance to match and very demanding owners. Tim applied all his knowledge and experience to specify and produce a boat that was instantly highly competitive.

Concept development and implementation
In partnership with Nigel Musto of Musto Performance Tim spotted the concept design of the Musto Performance Skiff by Joachim Harrprecht and turned it into a production one design class, before entering partnership with Ovington Marine.

Performance Optimisation
When Shirley Robertson and her team were looking to gain a performance edge in the Yngling she contacted Tim at Devoti Sailing to see if he could apply their success in the Finn, 470 and Star to yet another Olympic class. As the Yngling can only be built by licensed builders the route forward was for a standard bare Abbot hull to be delivered to Devoti and Tim led a team of specialists that were able to optimise the boat for peak performance. A few months later Shirley and her team won gold with a race to spare.