Who built DOLKS?

Every so often, a story comes along that reminds you what’s possible when yachties stop waiting for change and decide to build it themselves.
This is one of those stories…

Meet Carlos and João, two yachties from the same small beach town in Portugal. Different paths. Same hunger. Same dream.
Carlos grew up in Quarteira bodyboarding, working on sailing vessels at 17, carrying a quiet obsession with building something of his own. He dropped out of university after one month, stepped onto an 89-meter superyacht, barely speaking English, and was suddenly surrounded by Saffas and Aussies rattling off radio calls he couldn’t decipher. He nodded, got on with it, and figured the rest out on the fly. That’s yachting. You adapt, or you go home.

João’s story started with a promise. At 16, he lost his father to cancer, and standing at his bedside, he made a vow to make him proud and take care of his family. That promise took him from nautical school in Portugal to a shipyard in Malta, from merchant vessels to the polar ice of Antarctica, and eventually into superyachts as a certified officer at 25. The day his mother smiled again was the day he knew he’d kept his word.

Both had lived the same frustration from the inside. An industry built on connections most crew simply didn’t have. Opportunities locked behind closed doors. Information that only existed if you knew the right person.

So they built the solution themselves.

When it launched in Palma, they looked at each other and laughed in relief. After years of talking about it, their dream was finally real.
This is what happens when two people from a quiet fishing town refuse to accept that the system can’t be better.
The industry is changing. And it starts from the inside.

Read their full story below