Forty two villas refitted between seasons, with a hard opening date and an island that had nowhere to store anything.
The cargo came from three countries and eleven suppliers, so the first job was to stop it arriving as eleven shipments. Everything was consolidated at origin into four containers and one air consignment, cleared in Male, and held in our shed. From there it went out as eight weekly loads, each carrying what that week's trades needed.
The part that mattered was the sequence. Sanitary ware landed ahead of the tiling, furniture landed after the painting, and the plant room equipment went first because the barge that could carry it only ran twice a month. One item went by air at the client's cost because a supplier missed a sailing, and we told them the same day rather than at the end.
The resort opened on the date they had already sold. Total duty came within four per cent of the estimate we gave at booking.
