Buy British campaign

[henryf]

Inspired by the "should the govt help boaters" thread.

As I posted in that thread Motorboat manufacture is one of the few areas where we can still genuinely hold our heads high knowing we turn out a world beating product. The big 4 companies Princess, Sunseeker, Fairline and Sealine are joined by numerous other smaller volume manufacturers. Because the home Market bar is set high everyone has to strive that bit harder and the result is a decent quality product.

Our weather is a bit unpredictable and we don't have the numerous lakes of the USA on which to float our recreational toys so offshore boats really are offshore boats. Boaters in the UK think nothing of being 10, 20 or 30 miles off land when making a longer passage so our Motorboats get tested and have to be up to the job.

The market is well established in the Uk so fools aren't suffered gladly. All this conspires to producing the very best.

Let us keep in mind the labour intensive nature of boat building. The big 4 companies alone employ a small army of skilled staff. Add in the smaller companies and support industry as a whole and suddenly this isn't some cottage industry. It is also an industry which exports and does so to the tune of many millions of pounds.

When I travel abroad to the States I see the American flag flying high. I see "made with pride in America" stickers everywhere. Why can't we do the same? Have a look at the boat show currently running and see what we produce here in the UK. Ignore British badged boats built thousands of miles away and given a cover story to detract from their origins, look at boats made in Britain. From small boats under £1,000 to boats costing many millions of pounds we made them as a nation.

We didn't have a small hand in the design, we didn't make the tricky bits and send them off to China for assembly. We made made them lock stock and bloody barrel! The crumbs of the worker's lunchtime Ginsters pasties still hide in corner of the bilges somewhere.

Yes, I know the engines may not have been made in Coventry and the electronics weren't necessarily assembled in Swindon but every hour of graft was a British hour of graft and some family in Plymouth, Poole, Oundle, Kidderminster or Norfolk put food on their table as a result.

Once we were industrial warriors with the toils of our hard work finding their way to all 4 corners of the world. That time is long gone, but in the motor boating world our products still bang heads with the best and come out on top.

Never mind about governments or politics let's vote with our feet and look for that Made with pride in Britain sticker.

At this point Jerusalem cranks up on the organ and we all join in a rousing chorus of "and did those feet in ancient times".

Keep smiling

Henry

 

[Whitelighter]

It's just a shame that none of the British builders cater for the more average end of the British Market.

I want a 30ft boat, because I'm not a millionaire. Oh well. Best I go shopping in the good old USA. Or France. Or Italy. Or Germany. But definitely not Britain as despite all of our boat building expertise Not one of 'our' builders caters for me.

 

[AllanJ]

All things being equal (and they usually aren't), I will usually buy considering;
to get the best value
from a local supplier
from someone who has given me good service in the past

Hence, I buy from a local ironmonger rather than B&Q when I can, from a local petrol station rather than from Tesco (until they put him out of business). In those, their was not much issue about value. For my boat, I think that there are probably greater differences. I doubt that I would 'buy british' for the sake of it. My cars are german, as are most of our domestic appliances. In all honesty, I cannot think of anything where Britishness would be my number 1 requirement.
The real question is therefore why none of our major purchases are British.
(other than our Sealine was from a local dealer , but I now learn that they are/will be owned by an American company.)

 

[volvopaul]

Henry f........ our next primeminister here here!!

Yes a very good point henry. also anothr reason why Uk boat owners who have them broad would rather fly the likes of me out to service there engines than rely on the labour there.

 

[AllanJ]

Henry f........ our next primeminister here here!!

Yes a very good point henry. also anothr reason why Uk boat owners who have them broad would rather fly the likes of me out to service there engines than rely on the labour there.

errrrrm Volvo? How British is that?

 

[GuyS.]

Well I've just completed on a purchase of a british boat, all be it one that is 38 years old. Does that count ?

 

[henryf]

I know I have looked at the 28/29 foot Sealine boats in the past. Currently their smallest boat is the SC35 which comes in at a list price of circa £180-190,000?

I am not familiar with that size of boat these days so can't suggest a British option if one exists. I will be at the boat show on Saturday / Sunday. If I remember and am sober enough I will keep an eye out for a British alternative to save you having to desert you British co-worker.

The other thing to do is to join the campaign rather than dismiss it as a load of **** because you can't find what you want. That way manufacturers who possibly feel it's not worth investing millions of pounds in smaller, harder to sell against imports craft might think about re-connecting with their boating roots knowing they have the loyalty and support.

One of the problems facing boaters at the smaller end of the Market is often the running costs for a 30 footer aren't that much more than for a 35-40 footer. Mooring costs are similar, fuel costs similar etc but the accommodation offered on the slightly bigger boat is so much more. The larger boat will always be worth more than the smaller one so in effect you are just lending the larger boat the extra money until you come to sell it.

How much are you looking to spend on a new boat ?

Henry

 

[volvopaul]

errrrrm Volvo? How British is that?

The thread is centred around british labour and what were capeable of, im sure if we made an engine that was up to the job people would buy british, its a sorry state of affairs that we hardly make anything these days.

 

[oceanfroggie]

Buy the best value, where ever that may come from!

 

[rbcoomer]

It's just a shame that none of the British builders cater for the more average end of the British Market.

I want a 30ft boat, because I'm not a millionaire. Oh well. Best I go shopping in the good old USA. Or France. Or Italy. Or Germany. But definitely not Britain as despite all of our boat building expertise Not one of 'our' builders caters for me.

I suspect this is a chicken and egg scenario - Sunseeker used to make boats from about 20' upwards, Fletcher (and others) made boats from13'-30', but somewhere along the way they both withdrew from the mid-ranges. Princess also used to make smaller boats (perhaps they still do?) This must in part be due to demand - Fletcher now concentrate on sports boats 19' and under and Sunseeker much bigger stuff. Much of this is probably down to economics as in terms of labour and expensive bits, there probably isn't much difference between a 30' and a 40', but retail value will be significantly higher.

Americans are very into 'trailered' boats and have better roads, slipway facilities and big SUV's to tow them. Plus things like legal hydraulic brakes on trailers - which I believe are illegal in the UK/EU? This means that there is demand for mid-sized boats, whereas here we tend to stick most 20'+ stuff on a mooring/berth. At this point a few extra feet becomes less of a problem so why no go bigger still and suddenly you are into quite spacious territory - and more lucrative sales for the builders!

Fuel costs are also less significant to Americans...

 

[benjenbav]

Hmm, I just did a little stock take:

Boat: Aquastar: built in Guernsey with engines from Darlington

Cars: Range Rover, Freelander + Peugeot - 2 (mebbe all 3) built in Britain

Problem: they're all pretty good and I don't want to change them.

 

[Fire99]

I tend to buy for the best value but with a bit of bias towards local products. If the local item is not unreasonably more expensive than the best price from around the world, then I'll sacrifice a little saving and go with it.

The UK does have extremely high labour costs, not to mention some huge international companies that drive their prices down, both make it tough for a relatively modest UK based firm.

 

[halcyon]

I know I have looked at the 28/29 foot Sealine boats in the past. Currently their smallest boat is the SC35 which comes in at a list price of circa £180-190,000?

Going through some old paper work the other day I found a copy of Sealine's production for Jan 1995.

210, 240, 270 production was 14 boats, 310, 330, 360A, 360S, 410S was 15,
so 50% of production was below 30 foot. The problem was that first time buyers started with a 185 once, and worked up the range, then the sizes grew and 35 foot became common, killing the small boat. Plus the cost of building a 270 was not that much less than a 360, so low volume was not viable.

A passing point from the build list was that 9 boats were for Sealine Sales, and 16 export, so they are now back to the old days for direct sales.

Brian

 

[Fire99]

Plus the cost of building a 270 was not that much less than a 360, so low volume was not viable.

I think that's the main issue. Profit margins on little boats are relatively tight.

And as with cars, everything just gets a bit bigger and posher as time goes by.

 

[henryf]

We are talking about motorboats here. Not petrol, not cars, not replacement toilet protector carpets and not washing machines. Motorboats.

And that's my point, we as a nation do offer value for money and good quality when it comes to motorboats. We also offer bloody good after sales service as well depending who you buy from. When I looked to buy my boat there were some foreign companies selling in the UK with whom you had to fly off to far distant shores if you wanted to see a demonstrator or have a quick prod or a poke. Lord only knows what happens after they've got your money and a few teething problems start to show up. In spite of this one of the motorboat magazines still gave them boat of the year. The saloon was so small it couldn't even cater for the number of beds on board - but I digress.....

When it comes to motorboats I don't think you have anything to lose by buying British. Just keep it in mind. Oh, and as far as technical ownership is concerned I'm not too bothered where the parent company is based, I judge based on where the workers who actually build the thing live.

Who knows, we may yet live to see a JCB powered motorboat.

Henry

 

[Nautical]

All good points there Henry, wish it were all as we would like it to be for the future, truth is if we think that none of the British builders big and small have not looked at building or at least moulding the big bits out in China we are living in la la land, its all about maximising profit and if not then just keeping head above water and the first place any decent management is going to look at is manufacturing costs. Already there are moves a foot for several of the smaller builders to start moulding out in China and if I were head honcho at any of the big four I would be keeping an eye on these early birds and looking at what the quality ends up like at our LIBS and SIBS in the coming couple of seasons.

In case anyone thinks that these chinese yards are all tin sheds and bash it together operations, one needs to take a trip out East, huge investment and the very latest technology, glass and steel fronted buildings with immaculate work spaces. Not deriding any builders operations in particular here or EU but on first impressions it would look like the other way around, we were following our eastern chums rather than vise versa.

I was party to a three way conversation at Cannes between a finance guru, a builder and a chinese rep for a yard. Chinese banks are underwriting huge amounts of cheap % $'s for funding on Part exchanges with yard owned dealers in the US who have switched production to China, basically you send your production here and we will build you a state of the art shipyard and plenty of cheap money to out bid any PX valuation from your home grown competition if it shifts a Chinese built alternative. Its early days yet but be prepared to see more and more production move from the US/EU to China. They are not looking short term on this, if they run ten years at break even and it garners large volume production for China they see that as a great success.

The issue at the moment is that anything not standardised production gets difficult for a work force not familiar with semi custom or custom yacht building, let alone they have no yachting history, nevertheless if we think they will not overcome his in time then again we are been somewhat delusional.

 

[oldgit]

My chum imports all sorts of stuff from China and this is how it works for smaller items.
My chum spots something that is selling well over here that is made and imported from China,he buys an example and sends it out to his representative over there with the instruction to "alter it a bit " so no chance of whinge / lawyers etc and if poss,cos no development or R &D costs on his part, knock it out loads cheaper to under cut the original importer back here in blighty.
Probably the factories are next door to each other and maybe owned by the same guy.

So why not get your hulls moulded out there and then watch your hulls appear by magic weeks later under a badly spelled funny name for half the price,next door to you at the next SIBS.?
Once the technology gets out there out it will be back on our shores with a vengance soon enough,brings to mind when Frank Whittles little invention was "given" to our chums ,first to Washington and then Moscow.

 

[henryf]

I too have products manufactured in Asia for my CCTV business, CCTV42. So I know very well how things work in Taiwan, Korea and China. But a boat is slightly harder to fly over once finished. It also requires a very close link between design, production and aftersales. There are lots of design issues to solve if you are going to have a good finished product without lots of bits of filler.

The point of my post isn't to investigate the potential demise of the British boatbuilding industry, which for what it's worth I think is not suddenly going to rush off Eastwards. It's to celebrate what we've got here right now.

God I do feel for these companies. They either aren't going to any money because all the boats are too large, incidentally you haven't come back to me with your budget yet, or else we're moving everything over to China before it's even been thought about.

What part of "isn't it great that motorboat manufacturers still flourish in the Uk despite being labour intensive," am I failing to get across?

Henry

 

[Scubadoo]

My last two boats which were purchased from new were British (Fletcher / Sealine), but now as others have said there are no longer any sub 30ft boats available that are still British. At the time I looked at Amercian boats and your right, I thought the british boat (Sealine) was a better product compared to Amercians, although I had to pay a higher price for that.

The reason we don't flag the British flag at every corner like the Americans, we don't need to remind ourselves who we are or where to buy from.

 

[henryf]

Well I think we do need to remind ourselves of who we are and what we are capable of. For all the American's sins they still have immense pride in themselves. You might argue at times that pride is a little misplaced and we can all think of interviews featuring their citizens when we cringe in embarrassment at their lack of world knowledge but they are proud to buy American.

We on the other hand merely mumble about how the pot is half empty, how production will be going overseas soon so why bother and moan that everything is too big. I am still awaiting Whitelighter's budget in the hope that we can sort him out with something nice or at least see where the manufacturers have to get to in order to deal.

Who's flag do you fly on the back of your boat when you are under way? Who's emblem is on the front of your passport when you travel overseas? Be proud of Britain and celebrate one of it's best exports.

Incidentally just seen the photos of Broom's new 455. What a great change they have made to that interior. I'll have a good look over the weekend but from first impressions that looks a belter compared to previous pink carpet interiors ! Now get a Made with pride in Britain sticker on it !!!!!

Henry