David Bird CEO Admiral Yachts

David Bird established Admiral Yachts in 1999 and has elevated Admiral Yachts to one of the leading manufacturers of luxury catamarans in the world.

Davids Bird?s relationship with the ocean began at the young age of 12 where he learned to sail on small dingys in his home town of Port Elizabeth. After completing school, he spent four years in the South African Navy as a diver where he was decorated.

David later worked as a commercial and oil rig diver as well as a commercial diamond diver. He has always been involved with boats and boat building. David?s business and recreational interests merged in 1985 when he established his own diamond mining company as well as a commercial boat building company.

At the time he was involved in the rescue of another diver who was trapped underneath a rock after an underwater landslide and was subsequently nominated for the State Presidents Medal of Bravery.

In 1995 at the age of 31 he became a Director of an ocean diamond mining company listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. Since then, David has served as Chairman on the Board of Directors of two companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and was in fact the youngest person to successfully engineer a reverse takeover in the history of the Exchange.

When David established Admiral Yachts, the moulds for the now famous Admiral 38 were purchased from a liquidated company, Aurora Yachts. Davids' hands-on approach to business has helped to transform Admiral Yachts into one of the world's leading manufacturers of luxury catamarans.

David is an avid ocean sailor and cruiser. In the 2000 Cape to Rio Yacht Race he was the outright winner is his class, and he won line honours in the Heineken Cape to Bahia in 2006.

He has 65,000 cruising miles on cats.