Obituary: Daragh O’Higgins a Founding Member of APSA
It is with great sadness that APSA has learned from his wife Kay, that one of our Founding Members, Daragh O’Higgins from Techworx, passed away on June 3rd, 2021.
“This burly man - always noticeable on account of his white hair, glasses, and grin – was a so technically-minded it took the rest of us some time to catch up! You could often see him charging down a gang plank, hands full of gadgets and laptops, wearing a big sun hat, and with a supersize phone glued to his ear. What a character: his sense of national Irish pride complete, even if his accent was often hard to understand, but ask a question and you were sure to get an accurate answer. His ethos was always to answer the phone and give good customer support, regardless of his illness later in his life.
Back in the day, Daragh followed in his father’s footsteps and trained in Ireland as an electrician with the BSB. This led to moving across many continents, following his passion of all things electrical and techy. Living life to the full, surrounded by lifelong friends, and his wife Kay never far behind. They spend 12 years in Mallorca, Spain by starting up an internet café which developed from his passion for computers. Then there was a position onboard Sensors as Engineer to sail across the Atlantic, followed by a properly mad New Year’s Eve 2000 in Turks and Caicos. Those were the ‘good old days’ of dial up internet and Hotmail email addresses. Skype was a brand new messenger program. Smart phones were not even on the radar, but Nokia mobile was the biggest trend setter at the time.
Mallorca offered a great life, building a business and being involved in the yacht life. However, Daragh had the foresight to see the 2008 credit crunch on the way, and suddenly chose to up sticks and move dogs, home, and Kay to Asia. He refused to live anywhere without the sun and beach at hand, so Thailand was an obvious destination.
Techworx started in Koh Samui in 2008, followed by a move to Phuket in 2010, offering bespoke home and yacht automation solutions to customers both in Phuket and across Southeast Asia. After a major health scare in 2017, Daragh spent his few last years ‘discovering’ crypto currency. Again, his knowledge grew fast (and many of us are still trying to catch up!) and Daragh continued to live his life to the full as far as Covd-19 restrictions would allow. He died on 3rd June, passing quickly and free of pain at the young age of 59 years. He will be truly missed.”
Kay is now at the helm of Techworx, and has a passion for all things interior design, backed up by her qualifications. Techworx lives on, albeit travelling in a slightly new direction. Kay is committed to maintaining Daragh’s high standards in absolutely everything: with her keen eye for all things design, she is pushing forward the concept of bespoke home and yacht solutions with interior design. Kay says that retro-fitting is easy to commission these days - from the comfort of a good chair!
APSA sends our condolences and support to Kay and the Techworx team in Phuket, and APSA looks forward to supporting Daragh’s legacy which helped grow the superyacht industry in Asia.