Boat in build pics (Squadron 78)

[z1ppy]

Yup, it will be good to have an album of it in build, and unrepeatable as you say. The twin gensets is a nice touch. Each one can supply the whole boat, so normally you just run one. Each one is 3.3litre diesel and makes 100amps, so the only time you need to fire up two is if you need >100amps, which will be possible but mostly not the case. Airco is say 40amps (it's 3 phase to avoid start-up spikes); at-anchor stabs maybe 15-25amps depending on conditions; 24volt drain (thru batt charger) 10amps say, and that leaves 25-35amps for the galley Also it's nice to be able to choose which side to run if you have awkward neighbours, and to share out the hours across 2 machines I suppose, and to have the backup if one breaks down

I'll update the thread with more pics but it will be a slow burn because the build is now till December 22nd and I'm not likely to get to the factory that often. Once a month maybe

Amazing., back in post 15 of this thread you said slow burn until December 22nd.

December 23th you take ownership! dont think i have managed any projects that run to that sort of accuracy and in my experience of the marine industry, chances are even slimmer!!

massive credit to all on every level!!!

 

[Pinnacle]

Understood - thank you

Ship name on the bell please?

I expect it will be "Match".

 

[Pinnacle]

Woohoo!! She officially became mine just now. The original contract I agreed back in April had a deposit on signing, stage payment in the summer and final payment 23/12, which just cleared into their account. Essex Boatyards have just confirmed to me that the boat is mine. Woo hoo!!

Congratulations x 2! Once for this great thread and once for Match. I can only guess how pleased you must be feeling at the moment. Looking forward to seeing you and your new "baby" at LIBS. Oh, and yes, I too will be asking about the chocks!

 

[Nick_H]

John, I know you wont have missed the possibility of waiting the few days till January to take delivery, so that the paperwork shows 2011 purchase instead of 2010, for when you come to sell it. Did you decide it wouldn't materially affect the value, or just didn't care!

Oh, and huge congratulations, she's a beast.

 

[longjohnsilver]

Yes you're right. We had a few trips this summer when we started off at about 6.5kts and after an hour or two of that, it did my head in and it was pedal to the metal for the rest of the trip. I sort of have it in my head that I'm going to cruise everywhere at d speeds when/if I retire but I'm going to have to work on recalibrating my brain because at the moment, I can't stand it for long.
Good point about the depreciation. You expect to see higher hours on a d or sd boat but anything over 70-100hrs a season on a planing boat will hit its value even if you explain to the buyer that you've cruised everywhere at 6kts. Good reason to hit those throttles

Ha, at your age Mike I'm surprised that you can even remember what you were doing more than an hour ago!!

 

[longjohnsilver]

Woohoo!! She officially became mine just now. The original contract I agreed back in April had a deposit on signing, stage payment in the summer and final payment 23/12, which just cleared into their account. Essex Boatyards have just confirmed to me that the boat is mine. Woo hoo!!

So it really is a Christmas present to yourself!! Are you going to wrap her up...................
Thanks for sharing jfm and have a great Christmas.

 

[jfm]

Congratulations
I know that it’s a kind of relief.
Don’t know what your arrangements with deposits/guarantees etc but IMO it makes sense to pay for her as quick as possible and have title even though (maybe) you don't actually take delivery yet.
Sorry – a bit presumptuous - I have no idea of your circumstances.

You are absolutely right Hurricane. Better to make the final payment and acquire ownership of the boat, and thereby cease to be an unsecured creditor of the dealer. Even if the boat is not able to be physically handed over (because in my case it is inside Excel)

Actually Essex Boatyards is one of the few (only?) dealerships of which I would become an unsecured creditor for the amounts involved here, because I know they're financially strong and honest. Bearing in mind the large credit risk I've taken against them they have been candid with me about their business position which is nice and constructive of them. Actually many dealerships are cash healthy just right now because many buyers have rushed to complete boat purchases before the VAT increase on 4th Jan 2011. But in general you are right - take ownership of the boat asap!

 

[wakeup]

You are absolutely right Hurricane. Better to make the final payment and acquire ownership of the boat, and thereby cease to be an unsecured creditor of the dealer. Even if the boat is not able to be physically handed over (because in my case it is inside Excel)

Actually Essex Boatyards is one of the few (only?) dealerships of which I would become an unsecured creditor for the amounts involved here, because I know they're financially strong and honest. Bearing in mind the large credit risk I've taken against them they have been candid with me about their business position which is nice and constructive of them. Actually many dealerships are cash healthy just right now because many buyers have rushed to complete boat purchases before the VAT increase on 4th Jan 2011. But in general you are right - take ownership of the boat asap!

Good on Essex Boatyards. I can't imagine many dealers that would have been up front about their financial position at the deal closing stage.

 

[jfm]

John, I know you wont have missed the possibility of waiting the few days till January to take delivery, so that the paperwork shows 2011 purchase instead of 2010, for when you come to sell it. Did you decide it wouldn't materially affect the value, or just didn't care!

Oh, and huge congratulations, she's a beast.

Actually I have not studied that too hard Nick. My handover of the boat will be in February and I guess the warranty start date is then, but I'm not sure. It's a 2011 model year HIN, and it has L0 as the build month in the HIN so when i come to sell I'll be saying it's a 2011 boat for sure. I'm sure Essex Boatyards can give me a letter recording that the handover is in February 2011 if the warranty/handover papers don't explicitly say that

 

[Alistairr]

Ship name on the bell please?

Yes, then in jfm's case he'd be striking the MATCH!!

 

[jfm]

Good on Essex Boatyards.

They are fantastic Wakeup. I can say this with no axe to grind as I'm free to shop anywhere, but their straightforward and helpful dealings are just a pleasure. I'd commend them to anyone whether buying new or used. Their boat fix/mod facilities/skills are outstanding and everyone there has a can-do attitude. They pretty much never say no to any reasnable request. They also have the financial strength to take trade ins or at least give you a trade in underwrite. You don't need much warranty support with a big Fairline but when you do it is there and instant (they just post me the parts immediately, no messing around, or as in 2009 they put guys and parts on a plane within 4 days to fix the boat in Frnace). I wish them lots of success with their business.

 

[wakeup]

They are fantastic Wakeup. I can say this with no axe to grind as I'm free to shop anywhere, but their straightforward and helpful dealings are just a pleasure. I'd commend them to anyone whether buying new or used. Their boat fix/mod facilities/skills are outstanding and everyone there has a can-do attitude. They pretty much never say no to any reasnable request. They also have the financial strength to take trade ins or at least give you a trade in underwrite. You don't need much warranty support with a big Fairline but when you do it is there and instant (they just post me the parts immediately, no messing around, or as in 2009 they put guys and parts on a plane within 4 days to fix the boat in Frnace). I wish them lots of success with their business.

How do you interact with EBY and FL during the customisation phase? Do you have to communicate with EBY exclusively? Or do you work with FL direct? How do you get charged for customisation by EBY and who provides the actual warranty?

 

[mil1194]

In all fairness thou - I should think that something of this scale will be sold on the spec/condition in the future. I don't think (although I've never been a position to buy/sell something of this magnitude) that a buyer is going to quibble and suck through his teeth over the fact that it's a 2010 not a 2011 model - as they can be so different anyway!

 

[BlueSkyNick]

In response to Post No 1 of this thread ...

Excuse the geekiness of this post and hopefully the pics will get more glamorous later but here are some first pics of my new ride in build, taken today. The hull is nearly finished - it comes out of the mould in about two weeks. The close up shows where the port side fin stabiliser will go. They told me the lay up here was specified by Olesinski's office and is "5x7". Each "5" is CSM-woven-CSM-woven-CSM, then allowed to cure, 7 times. They told me the hull laminate is 100mm thick a metre all around the stabs, and they are just starting construction of some frames around this point (using foam formers)

It was a beautifully neat job, very carefully done, and the whole thing looked a bit bigger than I was expecting

There are lots of other mouldings done or nearly done, including the deck and internal moulds, and the hardware has started to arrive. Eg the two gensets were sitting on pallets and the flybridge aluminium spaceframe support structure arrived on a truck while I was there

If you've had enough "in build" pics please shout, otherwise I'll update this from time to time
]

The first picture was quite sufficient, thank you.

Congrats on taking ownership, it seems very quick - 8 months from start to finish. I hope she brings you much enjoyment.

Will look forward to stepping aboard at some stage.

 

[jfm]

Very many congratulations. I have followed this excellent thread with avid interest. It has been the very best thread on these forums for years and it has been great to 'share' your purchase. I hope you have some great times with her which are very much deserved. I dont think I will be able to make it to LIBS but maybe will catch you on the South Coast in the new year before she goes to the Med.
Compliments of the season
Derek

Thanks Derek. I'll try to fix an open house day on the solent early March, for you to have a poke around
Best wishes of the season to you too

 

[jfm]

How do you interact with EBY and FL during the customisation phase? Do you have to communicate with EBY exclusively? Or do you work with FL direct? How do you get charged for customisation by EBY and who provides the actual warranty?

Complicated question but I'll try to describe. I think there are 3 sets of procedures when buying a new Fairline:

1. Buy from dealer, all enquiries thru dealer, factory tour offered but no customisation and therefore no direct dealings with factory. This is the case for all up to maybe the Sq58/65
2. Buy from dealer but dealer is supplemented by someone from the factory's "yacht division". This person provides a link to the builders and engineers and therefore can have quite a significant role on the 78 Custom, if you custom spec it. This method is used for customers of 65 upwards, and mostly for the 78 becuase that is the most customisable
3. Buy from dealer and have contact with dealer and yacht division but sort of then bypass them all and have direct communication with the production line guys and with a nominated engineer who discusses/debates the customisation requests and actually designs the mods

option 3 is what I did, and while it's maybe not official policy I'd guess they are happy to work that way if the customer behaves himself. I exchanged many emails and dxf files/ sketches /photoshopped photos/etc directly with fairline engineering, a few hundred at least going in each direction and the other sales people were not even copied in. After a few months sales/dealer were made aware of all the mods that I and the engineers had agreed, and were asked to price it all up, which they did, quite reasonbly (thankfully!). Imho when you are discussing the fine detial of how to make something it is wonderful to be able to talk engineeringly direct to the engineers, and not have to go through someone. It's like that thing now at BMW dealerships - if there's a fault on your car you have to tell the customer facing non-mechnical "service advisers", then they tell the mechanics, then it all gets lost in the translation. Don't you hate that? That said, i am not saying EBY (dealer) and Fairline's yacht division are like BMW "service advisers"; they're not, and they are very used to dealing with customisation and working with the customer. The difference on my boat is that there was more customisation than any boat Fairline have built before, and some of it was heavy stuff like tanks and stabilisers and different hydraulics, not different finishes and curtains. The only way I can do this is to put it in engineering drawings and so it was natural for Fairline sales to just let me and their engineers get on with it, and clear up the mess afterwards. I suspect that Fairline sales and the dealer were happy to be out of it! There was no point burning up their time, which was better spent selling boats to other customers. By the way, the principal engineer who did the custom design work and received my hundreds of emails was a great guy called Mike Murie. Top bloke, Mr Can-do, who liked the challenges and had great imagination and an eye for engineering correct-nessl and style/aesthetics. And ability to communicate. Top bloke as i say. The guys on the build team who actually made the redesigned stuff were also a very nice and very skilled team (too many names to mention).

Maybe the point to take away is that within reason Fairline and EBY will work with you any way you ask. I chose how to become involved in the process, and if another customer chose something different then they'd agree to that too within reason. Overall it was nice, and i'll miss my 3 emails a day from Mike Murie with .dxf file attachments

I think the warranty is borne by both dealer and Fairline, not sure of the detials. Customer would make warranty claims to the dealer. But I don't worry about that - it is a very well made boat and James Barke at Essex knows I don't waste time on warranty fussyness, and if a part breaks in warranty I email him a photo/request and he sends me a new part and I nail it in. Really very easy, James is completely honest and fair on this imho, and this will not be a heavy warranty boat I expect

I've gone on a bit, sorry. Hope it answers your question!

 

[MYAG]

Woohoo!! She officially became mine just now. The original contract I agreed back in April had a deposit on signing, stage payment in the summer and final payment 23/12, which just cleared into their account. Essex Boatyards have just confirmed to me that the boat is mine. Woo hoo!!

Congratulations JFM, you can sleep easy now its all in your name...... but so are all the costs from now on too!

 

[MYAG]

Ah... hang on a minute...

EDIT (10 mins later). Yes!

Thanks for all the congratulations. Building a new boat like this (not that I actually built it, Fairline did) has been a lot of fun I must say. I might do it again in 3 years time

Joking aside on insurance, Pantaenius (whom I've been a customer of for about 8 years) quoted me £10.6k premium, while GJW quted £16k. No prizes for guessing which one I went for. And afaik there is no second-rateness or corner cutting with the Pantaenius product. Sometime we should make a thread where we can all compare insurance rates

The insurance thread is a good idea. Out of interest, does your insurance cover the boat whilst it is in Excel with 000's crawling over her or has Fairline maintained their policy on her too?

 

[jfm]

The insurance thread is a good idea. Out of interest, does your insurance cover the boat whilst it is in Excel with 000's crawling over her or has Fairline maintained their policy on her too?

I've asked Pantaenius to confirm they are covering it for the show period. Awaiting their reply. If not I'll ask Fairline to do something about it or pay an extra premium or whatever. Fairline promise to repair any nicks and scratches of course, which they must be able to do as they built the thing!

Yes let's do the "compare insurance prices" thread in new year

 

[Mr Googler]

I'm sure we can put together a top forum security team to ensure no damage. Just say the word guv