henryf
Well-Known Member
In an adjoining thread covering Fairline’s demise people went down the well worn path of suggesting builders should go back to their roots and build smaller, cheaper boats. Quite rightly others pointed out that many of the base costs are the same for small cheap boats as they are for larger more expensive boats. Cars were mentioned and it was accepted that whilst someone like Rolls Royce could prosper based on satisfying the needs of a tiny proportion of the world’s wealthy leveraged on good design and British heritage mainstream car production gravitated towards lower production costs. That means factories outside the UK.
The number of boats built in the UK is tiny. Sunseeker build 150 boats a year, Princess under 250 and Fairline less than 50. On the world boating stage these are tiny numbers. The Beneteau group builds as many individual model ranges as Sunseeker build boats.
British boatbuilding isn’t trying to court the masses, they’re chasing a small percentage of the one percenters. Yes, they exhibit at the Southampton boat show where the great unwashed arrive by the coach load to buy paddle boards and over priced chicken nuggets but it’s almost a PR exercise to show the country what an amazing product they can build. A few owners enjoy wandering round and having a cup of tea in the calm of the hospitality area but the builders don’t expect to sell to everyone who walks through the door.
When you set your stall out to satisfy the needs of the wealthy you’re giving yourself a difficult task. Being British we strive for perfection even in unseen areas. I found it really interesting crawling round voids and engineering spaces at the recent Boot Dusseldorf show. Most of the boats I looked at were in stark contrast to the British boats. Clearly the foreign buyer isn’t bothered by batteries sitting loose in open trays rather than secure in gas tight vented boxes, easy clean flow coating to the bilge spaces sadly omitted on foreign boats even when those spaces were used for storage - in an attempt to utilise space left over from a less than perfect design.
British boat building has pushed its self hard by constantly using home grown competition as the benchmark. Seeing Princess at Dusseldorf you could be in no doubt that it’s worked. Every inch designed to maximise return in terms of space and volume for a given hull length. A refined timeless style that doesn’t need to rely on gimmick, very British and I think that has appeal on the world stage.
The problem Princess and other brands face is building the boats profitably. Trying to do the right thing in all those hidden areas comes at a cost. One option is to perfect your build process and that’s the direction being taken by the current owners of Princess. We’ll wait to see if it works. The other consideration is price. Do you try to compete with other, potentially lesser brands or do you just say that’s the price, take it or leave it. Hermes charge £30k for a handbag and there’s a waiting list.
Where Fairline went wrong was failure to invest in design. Whilst Princess created internal volume and huge windows Fairline remained in the 1990’s with small windows and cramped spaces. I’m specifically interested in the mid 50 foot market. It took until 2016 for Sunseeker to catch Princess up with the Manhattan 52 Mk2 and staggeringly it took Fairline until 2022 to catch up with the Squadron 58, 10 years behind Princess. So their failure isn’t a shock and I’m not sure what a potential buyer of Fairline gets, it isn’t a future proof design portfolio and that’s what you need. You’re only as good as your next boat.
On a world stage selling British boat building is commercially viable. The American market looks set to grow and we are very well received there. In Asia and the Middle East we also have strong footholds. Within Europe we can definitely hold our own. So yes, I do think, like Rolls Royce, it has an exciting future.
The number of boats built in the UK is tiny. Sunseeker build 150 boats a year, Princess under 250 and Fairline less than 50. On the world boating stage these are tiny numbers. The Beneteau group builds as many individual model ranges as Sunseeker build boats.
British boatbuilding isn’t trying to court the masses, they’re chasing a small percentage of the one percenters. Yes, they exhibit at the Southampton boat show where the great unwashed arrive by the coach load to buy paddle boards and over priced chicken nuggets but it’s almost a PR exercise to show the country what an amazing product they can build. A few owners enjoy wandering round and having a cup of tea in the calm of the hospitality area but the builders don’t expect to sell to everyone who walks through the door.
When you set your stall out to satisfy the needs of the wealthy you’re giving yourself a difficult task. Being British we strive for perfection even in unseen areas. I found it really interesting crawling round voids and engineering spaces at the recent Boot Dusseldorf show. Most of the boats I looked at were in stark contrast to the British boats. Clearly the foreign buyer isn’t bothered by batteries sitting loose in open trays rather than secure in gas tight vented boxes, easy clean flow coating to the bilge spaces sadly omitted on foreign boats even when those spaces were used for storage - in an attempt to utilise space left over from a less than perfect design.
British boat building has pushed its self hard by constantly using home grown competition as the benchmark. Seeing Princess at Dusseldorf you could be in no doubt that it’s worked. Every inch designed to maximise return in terms of space and volume for a given hull length. A refined timeless style that doesn’t need to rely on gimmick, very British and I think that has appeal on the world stage.
The problem Princess and other brands face is building the boats profitably. Trying to do the right thing in all those hidden areas comes at a cost. One option is to perfect your build process and that’s the direction being taken by the current owners of Princess. We’ll wait to see if it works. The other consideration is price. Do you try to compete with other, potentially lesser brands or do you just say that’s the price, take it or leave it. Hermes charge £30k for a handbag and there’s a waiting list.
Where Fairline went wrong was failure to invest in design. Whilst Princess created internal volume and huge windows Fairline remained in the 1990’s with small windows and cramped spaces. I’m specifically interested in the mid 50 foot market. It took until 2016 for Sunseeker to catch Princess up with the Manhattan 52 Mk2 and staggeringly it took Fairline until 2022 to catch up with the Squadron 58, 10 years behind Princess. So their failure isn’t a shock and I’m not sure what a potential buyer of Fairline gets, it isn’t a future proof design portfolio and that’s what you need. You’re only as good as your next boat.
On a world stage selling British boat building is commercially viable. The American market looks set to grow and we are very well received there. In Asia and the Middle East we also have strong footholds. Within Europe we can definitely hold our own. So yes, I do think, like Rolls Royce, it has an exciting future.
