Gludy
Active member
I know I am new to all this but my experiences yesterday just reinforce my feeling that the service offered by parts of the marine trade is based upon the simple principle of extracting the maximum money for the lowest service they can get away with.
I arranged for my boat to be towed to the lift, lifted out, scrubbed and placed on a trailer. The timing of this was to be for 9 am when the trailer was to arrive.
Top make sure of this, I phoned both the Marina and the tranmsport company the afternoon before and both confirmed that everything was OK. The transport company kept their word, the Marine not only failed badly and damaged the boat.
I was phomed at 8.30 am by the Marine to ask if they should tow the boat around and quickly pointed out that this was the confirmed arrangement which had been invoiced and paid for already. The transport company then phoned me (they supplied a good service throughout by the way) and told me their driver had arrived at 8.40 am and was told that noone knew where my boat was! He watched two more boats being lifted out and still no sign of mine and time was marching on.
After a number of phone calls my boat was towed around and the driver left some 3 hours late to head for Swansea.
I was told it would arrive at 4.15pm and I was there to see it arrive dead on time but with a big long graze down the side with chunks of gelcoat removed form the port corner of the transom - right down to the matting and red and blue paint marks showing on the damage. The driver stated he had picked it up like this (I beleive him) and I had photo's taken.
It seems this damage was done with the tow around to the lift.
The marina failed in their contract with me on the timing (this caused me additional cost at the other end) and it would appear damaged the boat. I am persuing this matter today.
The Marina at Swansae, on the other hand could not have been more helpful and worked late to get my boat in the water and to her berth.
In investigating this incident so far, it has become clear that some Marina's are simple money extracting machines to what I suppose they see as a soft customer base. I know that the marina my boat was coming from has gone around and surveyed the length of every boat down to the centimetre. I watched a boat owner stripping some gear of his boat so as to reduce its length by 10 cms - he worked for hours and managed to reduce it by 8 cms still leaving his extra £100 p.a. charge there for the 2 cms that he had now to solve reducing.
Anyway, scarred or not the boat is now at home in the more down to earth world of Swansea and that is a relief - I have just got to set about getting the radar tower up and the damage repaired besides the 35 other jobs I have set myself.
Paul
I arranged for my boat to be towed to the lift, lifted out, scrubbed and placed on a trailer. The timing of this was to be for 9 am when the trailer was to arrive.
Top make sure of this, I phoned both the Marina and the tranmsport company the afternoon before and both confirmed that everything was OK. The transport company kept their word, the Marine not only failed badly and damaged the boat.
I was phomed at 8.30 am by the Marine to ask if they should tow the boat around and quickly pointed out that this was the confirmed arrangement which had been invoiced and paid for already. The transport company then phoned me (they supplied a good service throughout by the way) and told me their driver had arrived at 8.40 am and was told that noone knew where my boat was! He watched two more boats being lifted out and still no sign of mine and time was marching on.
After a number of phone calls my boat was towed around and the driver left some 3 hours late to head for Swansea.
I was told it would arrive at 4.15pm and I was there to see it arrive dead on time but with a big long graze down the side with chunks of gelcoat removed form the port corner of the transom - right down to the matting and red and blue paint marks showing on the damage. The driver stated he had picked it up like this (I beleive him) and I had photo's taken.
It seems this damage was done with the tow around to the lift.
The marina failed in their contract with me on the timing (this caused me additional cost at the other end) and it would appear damaged the boat. I am persuing this matter today.
The Marina at Swansae, on the other hand could not have been more helpful and worked late to get my boat in the water and to her berth.
In investigating this incident so far, it has become clear that some Marina's are simple money extracting machines to what I suppose they see as a soft customer base. I know that the marina my boat was coming from has gone around and surveyed the length of every boat down to the centimetre. I watched a boat owner stripping some gear of his boat so as to reduce its length by 10 cms - he worked for hours and managed to reduce it by 8 cms still leaving his extra £100 p.a. charge there for the 2 cms that he had now to solve reducing.
Anyway, scarred or not the boat is now at home in the more down to earth world of Swansea and that is a relief - I have just got to set about getting the radar tower up and the damage repaired besides the 35 other jobs I have set myself.
Paul
