FOR WORLD CLASS PLEASURE CRAFT,
CIRILO SALILICAN DEMANDS CARE & PRECISION FROM HIS WORKERS & HIMSELF

At Ces-Craft, Cirilo Salilican makes hulls for speedboats, sports cruisers and yachts, some of which are for export. His boat yard is in Rosario, Cavite, where at peak time, he has as many as 60 men at work.

He is a specialist in pleasure crafts. His boats have gone to Australia, Japan, Hongkong, The U.S. and Arab Emirates. At this writing, a 54-foot yacht commissioned by an Australian to sail on the Sydney harbor. Set for delivery is another yacht for a Japanese run drive resort in Mindoro.

Because of the precision needed, Cirilo does not produce hull en masse. Each hull is custombuilt for the client. Cirilo ask the purpose for the boat, on what kind of water it will run, how fast it should be. Sports boats must have powerful engines in order to counter the water resistance; hence, the hull must be slick, sturdy and exquisitely balanced.

When building for an overseas client, Cirilo consults and keeps in touch by long distance calls. Moreover, clients like to ring up and check how the boat is going. In addition, FAX messages are necessary to specify the hardware needed, all of which Cirilo orders from abroad.

Cirilo requires 18 months at least to make a yacht - and that is fast. He prefers to take his time. He averages about six boats a year, each one given all the time and attention it needs.

For instance, he pours care and loving attention on the wood hulls, which are usually made of red mahogany. To begin with, the lumber must be specially sawn. Then it is seasoned, preferably air-dried for an entire year. After it is cut and shaped with the exact curvature of the hull, it is then polished, glued together and once again allowed to season before four coatings of varnish are applied.

Going for Cirilo in his business are his natural genius, his passion for precision and fine work and his insistence on having his family learn and master the business.

NATURAL GENIUS

Cirilo was born and grew up in Baclaran in which the marketing office of Ces-Craft is now located. According to Cirilo, up until 1957, he could still fish just off Baclaran. That was his first livelihood, which he learned from his grandfather, a fisherman.

The waters of Baclaran also attracted a few sports boat which Cirilo watched with enormous fascination. By simply hanging around, looking, asking, touching and perhaps getting a ride in one of those boats, he acquired an early feel of what makes them go.

He attached himself to a boatmaker. When Cirilo got married and began to have children, he decided to go on his own. That was the beginning of Ces-Craft back in 1957.

Cirilo is a master of mathematical factors and ratios needed to plan and make a hull for speed. In this he is strictly a homegrown naval engineer and architect as well.

“With just one look, my father can tell it a hull is balanced or not. No need to measure, no need to calibrate. He just knows and he is always right about the balance. ” Says his daughter Corazon who supervises the production.

It is just by feel or oido that Cirilo learned naval architecture and engineering, he substantiates this intuitive knowledge with assiduous reading and study. He reads naval textbooks and pleasure craft journals. He is a thoroughly unself-conscious, self-made naval genius.

“In this business,” says Cirilo, “I am carpenter, architect, engineer, manager and designer. I am also a PR man, because clients must be kept happy both when their boats are being built and when they are in use.”

Cirilo is tall, lean, lithe, toasted by the sun and sea. Despite more than 30 years in the business and avowals that he is ready to retire, his eyes sparkle when he talks about boats skimming the sea.

His own boat, which he races, is a single-seater, 545-HP hydro - plane with an aero - marine engine that runs on aviation fuel. Of course, he made the hull himself.

SENSE OF PRECISION AND HARDWORK

Describing the perfect pleasure craft, Cirilo says that it must float, be beautiful, fast and sturdy. To achieve these four qualities, Cirilo is demanding of himself and his workers in all the steps of boat-building.

The entire process begins from planning and goes on to lofting, cutting, assembling, checking, planking, manual sanding, wood treatment and varnishing. At each step, Cirilo asks for care and precision. When something is amiss, he stops everything and begins again-and again.

He does not care if long hours of work had been done or if the cost would increase because of changes. As long as necessary, he would change, re-shape and re-do. He will not deliver less than perfect work.

Since Cirilo’s yard has no test tank, the first and only time he learns that the hull is perfectly balanced is when it is taken to the sea. Such is his sense of precision that every boat he makes hits the waterline in perfect balance. He even takes bets on that.

To make the wood hulls, he chooses carpenters who have experienced in furniture making. He values their fine eye, their fine hand, their devotion. Yet one more classification is most important to Cirilo and that is the passion for wood work. Given two carpenters who both do fine work, he would always choose the one who loves his work and who would not mind being corrected or giving extra time for polish and precision.

INSISTENCE OF FAMILY BUSINESS

From the beginning, Cirilo’s wife helped him in the business. She was the treasurer and retired only recently to give way to their daughter, Cynthia. Their other daughters also work in Ces-Craft: Corazon runs the production, Christina is in charge of marketing and Cecile is in hardware imports. Their only son Cesar learned the business from his father and is said to have the same natural genius as Cirilo. The Salilicans dominate the field of making pleasure crafts for export from the Philippines.