The turning point 25yrs ago - Time heals

It all began when I received a single page letter from the MPA in June 1998.The Port Master, then Capt M.H. decided that third party contractors were not allowed to conduct PPCDL courses. That simply meant, I had to wind up my Nautical School, Capt Francis Log Pte Ltd and if I were to continue teaching PPCDL, I had to do so strictly under an Authorised PPCDL Centre. I could not advertise my courses and could not use the name of my school publicly. All admin and payments had to be done thrrough an authorised PPCDL centre. A part of me died that day. I had built the largest PPCDL School in Singapore, averaging 1,500 to 2,000 students a year at it's peak. I had 9 boats, a classroom in town, 12 PPCDL Instructors and a permanent office with a full compliment of staff who depend on me. Rather than give up and close my operations, I decided to shift the admin office to my home, and teach under the umbrella of Raffles Marina at Tuas. It was no longer viable to operate at Ponggol Marina because of complications. I shall always be grateful to YP, then the GM of Raffles Marina who provided the berthing for my 9 boats and a classroom. All at a very low cost to help me survive the crisis. Unfortunaltely, things didn't get better. I faced many restrictions that maimed my spirit. I finally closed the business, sold the boats at a huge loss and let go my staff. The money I got from the sale wasn't enough to pay the finance company. At the same time, the Asian Financial crisis hit and I faced the hash reality that my cash flow was negative for the first time since starting work in 1978. By year 2000, I had exhausted all my funds and has to declare brancrupt. I experience the worst financial crisis for the next 7.5 years and finally got out of the hole in 2008. By mid 2009, I was financially free again after having paid all my debts to OCBC and Maybank. Life was begining to look up once again.