Advice appreciated for business venture

I have what I think is a good idea for a small business venture, but I am almost completely lacking in experience in the area I wish to go into. I am fully prepared to take as long as necessary to learn everything I need to know to get this started (which is going to also have to include learning a new language!), so I could do with as much advice as possible.

As a dayworker on a 38m motor yacht in dry dock my main job was to take apart the valves on the bilge system in the engine room and give them a good cleaning and greasing, and replace the gaskets etc. Now, as I understand it this is a fairly straightforward and menial task that the boat's engineer(s) won't want to be spending time on during the often limited time that the boat is out of the water. I would guess that it is also not preferable for the engineer to spend time teaching an inexperienced dayworker what to do and having to keep an eye on them.

Therefore my idea is to offer a valve maintenance service at a popular European super-yacht yard. I know that units are available to rent and I have already worked out the costs involved related to this. I also know that there is no-one else currently offering this service.

But this is where I start to become a bit unstuck.... I know this is a very simple job, but right now I simply would not feel comfortable walking onboard any given yacht with a set of tools and proceeding to take things apart. So I have a few specific questions that I would really really appreciate anyone being able to provide answers to:

1) Can anyone confirm that annual valve maintenance is a mandatory requirement? If so, I would imagine this would apply to boats of a certain size or level of usage etc. so any details about this or links to relevant sites/documents would be appreciated.

2) Which systems other than the bilge pipes need their valves dealing with while the boat is out of the water? I recall working on what I think was an air-con system, but I’m not certain as I was pretty much just following instruction.

3) If you are an engineer who has used a service like this in any boat yard before I would like to know what exactly you would expect. For example, would you mark off which valves you want doing beforehand; would you drain/depressurise the pipes, or would you just expect to the likes of me to come in and be instantly familiar with the entire layout etc and get on with it?

Any advice on what sorts of course or qualifications I should be looking at would also be very useful. I am currently living in the UK (I’m English not American) near Poole, so anything UK/Europe specific would be particularly helpful.

Finally if anyone can offer me any kind of work experience (even on a voluntary basis if in the Poole / Bournemouth area on weekends) I would be extremely grateful.

Sam

Hi,
Yes I had considered that cost too, but thanks for advice all the same.