Factory Refurbs

petem said:
Yep - not to mention that the builder has the original CAD files and may even still employ the guys that made the boat in the first place. I can't think of a better way of taking up slack in your production line.
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Cad files on squaddie 59 or s/seeker portfino 39? you're having a laugh!

Pete, when there is a factory refurbed sq59 @250k and a normal decent used one (not factory refurbed) @£150, you're never going to temp the guy who is interested in the 150 boat because he doesn't have the extra 100. You're going to try to tempt the guy with 250k, who is looking at a much newer Sq58 not refurbed.

Even if you found someone with 250k, he doesn't want to burn 100k of it instantly it by buying the 250k boat then when he comes to sell it 4 years down the line it will be worth the glass's guide price with no uplift for the fact that 4 years ago it was factory refurb (but it aint now).

If you take old boats and add £100k to them, you are doing the very same thing with old boats that the manufacturers are doing with new, which is pricing them so high on this near flat demand curve that the demand is decimated. The flatness of the curve is such that you can only have a factory refurb premium on the sq59 of about £30k on a good day, but that's not economic
 
[QUOTE=jfm above



Even if you found someone with 250k, he doesn't want to burn 100k of it instantly it by buying the 250k boat then when he comes to sell it 4 years down the line it will be worth the glass's guide price with no uplift for the fact that 4 years ago it was factory refurb (but it aint now).

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Hang on a min you said this in post # 32

"He has the £2m and takes pleasure from buying his new boat exactly how he wants it and couldn't care less about dropping a million for a few years of fun. There is no barrel in the world seen through his lens" quote JFM

Maybe £250 K - sq 58 guy also " could not care less" about £0.1M :)
 
Portofino said:
Agree With above re Bruce K,s barrel analogy
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So would I, if I borrowed his specs for a minute. It's not wrong; it's in eye of beholder

Portofino said:
But on a smart o meter would the first guy be better off spending most of his £2M on a used bigger arguably better boat
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Some people just don't want secondhand stuff. They choose new stuff.

Imagine series of carrier bags each containing a million pounds. They are exactly like cream cakes. If I offer you a cup of tea and a cream cake you might well say "Ooh thanks John that's very nice" and you'll munch the cream cake and we'll chat about boats. Now if I've twisted your arm and you've eaten 10 of my cream cakes, and I offer you an 11th, you'll say "really john that's awfully kind but I just don't want another one, really, no, please, no, not another one"

The first cake is much more valuable to you than the 11th

And so it is with the carrier bags of money. If you have no money then a million quid is a hell of a lot. If you have 10million the 11th is "Well ok sure, whatever, just shove it over there and I'll come and look at it later but right now I'm busy on some internet forum"

Now with boats, it's always the last million that you're spending, not the first. The million you don't even care about. So the guy who just wants a new boat and burns an extra £1m depreciation sees no barrel; through someone else's lens maybe there is a barrel. The value of a million quid is always different to Mr A from what it is to Mr B, depending on how much they already have (and whether they're from Yorkshire, I suppose :encouragement:)

Thing is, for Princess et al, there are not enough people around with enough cream cakes or even digestive biscuits to buy their stuff, because of this flat demand curve.
 
Whitelighter said:
Got any pics of the interior
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Nothing particularly good. These were taken on the first day on the boat to show general condition rather than posed shots. The pics are mine but the video is not of my boat but another 34PC, pretty much in the same condition bar vinyls and canvas. Very dated colours but perfectly functional as a family boat

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petem said:
Ha ha you caught me on the CAD bit. No chance for Sq59 but some of the late 90's models were CAD. I know because I'm always trying to persuade Fairline to send me them!
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Well there's CAD and there's CAD. You have to be much later than 1990's to get what we'd now call CAD, ie 3D modelled. At a 3D level, there is no CAD on pre ~2005 ish stuff. Sure some bits are 2D CAD drawn and some longstanding models (s78) have been retrospectively partly scanned into 3D etc, so that awkward customer (ahem) mod requests can be designed in 3D and will fit, but they are not native 3D
 
It is simply that ,plenty of folks with enough £££ to keep our big 3 going .
The issue is they are not spending it on buying a big boat.( last carrier bags full of disposable ) .
They spending it on something( s) else .
Chartering ,for a boat fix - perhaps they want more out of holidays than a boat in the same pond every time they go can offer?
Perhaps unlike a ballon for ever inflating the market after 40 years or so is deflating /contracting .
This is across the whole MBo range .I don,t know why the number of folks who want to boat is in decline .
 
Portofino said:
It is simply that ,plenty of folks with enough £££ to keep our big 3 going .
The issue is they are not spending it on buying a big boat.( last carrier bags full of disposable ) .
They spending it on something( s) else .
Chartering ,for a boat fix - perhaps they want more out of holidays than a boat in the same pond every time they go can offer?
Perhaps unlike a ballon for ever inflating the market after 40 years or so is deflating /contracting .
This is across the whole MBo range .I don,t know why the number of folks who want to boat is in decline .
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Oh it's not. Plenty of boats out there, especially the 20 foot trailerable range, even more so fast fisher types. Boating has returned to pre 80's imo where boats were more modest. Before the Med Cruiser bubble. Hell, a new 16 foot fast fisher will cost pretty much what a 10 year old will. Such is the demand.
 
Portofino said:
It is simply that ,plenty of folks with enough £££ to keep our big 3 going .
The issue is they are not spending it on buying a big boat.( last carrier bags full of disposable ) .
They spending it on something( s) else .
Chartering ,for a boat fix - perhaps they want more out of holidays than a boat in the same pond every time they go can offer?
Perhaps unlike a ballon for ever inflating the market after 40 years or so is deflating /contracting .
This is across the whole MBo range .I don,t know why the number of folks who want to boat is in decline .
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Yep I agree. Actually there are 2 things happening I think:
1. The demand curve is flattish. Even modest price rises result in a large reduction in units sold
2. Even if real prices of new big boats had remained constant, and AOTBE, there is a drift away from people buying boats as a pastime, exactly as you say portofino

That's a double whammy. But actually there is triple whammy: the cost of a boat is for many a cost to change and because used boat prices are soft due to oversupply, the trader-upperer is seeing his old boat fall in value and the new one increase in price, ie burnt at both ends. So the price rise that the punter feels is even bigger than the price rise the manufacturers are themselves imposing. Triple whammy therefore
 
One area of service, that our boat builders do not seem to offer is maintaining and refitting older privately owed boats,

had the chance to look around the Riviera factory in Australia this year (sorry no pictures long story) where they have a complete section to look after and maintain private owners crafts, for the lifetime of the boat.

speaking to Riviera owners this was key to them staying with the Riviera brand,I know that Broom boats offer this service, but not aware of others .
 
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jfm said:
Yep I agree. Actually there are 2 things happening I think:
1. The demand curve is flattish. Even modest price rises result in a large reduction in units sold
2. Even if real prices of new big boats had remained constant, and AOTBE, there is a drift away from people buying boats as a pastime, exactly as you say portofino

That's a double whammy. But actually there is triple whammy: the cost of a boat is for many a cost to change and because used boat prices are soft due to oversupply, the trader-upperer is seeing his old boat fall in value and the new one increase in price, ie burnt at both ends. So the price rise that the punter feels is even bigger than the price rise the manufacturers are themselves imposing. Triple whammy therefore
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Couldn't agree more, cost to change is effectively what I need to judge and save for during boat ownership and as depreciation curves become more extreme and dealers more nervous. It's hard to see a sweet spot anytime soon. Do you envisage the second hand market firming up in terms of price in 3 to 5 years when the effects of reduced volume kick in?
 
dj43 said:
One area of service, that our boat builders do not seem to offer is maintaining and refitting older privately owed boats,

had the chance to look around the Riviera factory in Australia this year (sorry no pictures long story) where they have a complete section to look after and maintain private owners crafts, for the lifetime of the boat.

speaking to Riviera owners this was key to them staying with the Riviera brand,I know that Broom boats offer this service, but not aware of others .
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Storebro and NorthWest offers the same service, I do not know if a boat serviced by the original builder commands a premium in the Scandinavian market.
 
Whitelighter said:
And curiously both recently bust and out of business (though the Storebro name is mothballed as part of the nimbus group I don't believe they are actually making anything)
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Well that was true but Storebro is actually back in buisness and, while working on new models, seems to do mainly refurb work. They are not a part of the Nimbus group as the Nimbus group was broken up after the insolvency procedings. The owner of NordWest now owns a company that seems to do a bit of work on NordWest boats. Anyway, I don't think that the refurb work was what brought down those companies.
 
MeaCulpa said:
Well that was true but Storebro is actually back in buisness and, while working on new models, seems to do mainly refurb work. They are not a part of the Nimbus group as the Nimbus group was broken up after the insolvency procedings. The owner of NordWest now owns a company that seems to do a bit of work on NordWest boats. Anyway, I don't think that the refurb work was what brought down those companies.
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No, im not suggesting doing the refurb work brought down the companies - just that it obviously didn't rescue them either
 
Whitelighter said:
No, im not suggesting doing the refurb work brought down the companies - just that it obviously didn't rescue them either
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Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you did. The refurb work and maintenance work did start before the recession thou and provided some additional income to the companies but the mess they/their owners put them in could only be resolved by a miracle . I do think that the big British builders could do some side buisness providing after sales services for their customers, not full refurbs but some refinishing of the wood works, paint jobs, electronics refits and such for owners intended on keeping the boat a long time or wanting the best/factory finish. Trying to do mayor work and motivate it in financial terms to the boat owner "you will recoup the money at sale" is probably a no go.
 
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I have been following this with interest as I think the current prices new for a UK built (Big 3 or maybe 2.5 now ) have been scarily escalating over the last 6/7 years and the number of buyers at anywhere near list price has dropped like a stone. The style and feel of visible materials of the boats has improved massively but the price has risen in huge jumps. However in the sailing world where they seem to price much keener and a new Bav / Jen / Ben is far better quality and fit out than its 8 - 10 year old version BUT pretty much the same price they were peddling 10 years ago, just inflation, not a massive jump, hence I see a 35 - 40 foot sailing boat as being a realistic purchase for a far wider audience.
 
jfm said:
But actually there is triple whammy: the cost of a boat is for many a cost to change and because used boat prices are soft due to oversupply, the trader-upperer is seeing his old boat fall in value and the new one increase in price, ie burnt at both ends. So the price rise that the punter feels is even bigger than the price rise the manufacturers are themselves imposing. Triple whammy therefore
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As always, you have totally nailed it. I am in this situation having had 15 boats in 17 years, it is now getting impossible as the price is change is 3 times what I used to pay to upgrade - and when the upgrade only part equates to a new Princess 43 plus £200K change there is something wrong somewhere.

As to taking the boat back to the factory, why would I when there is an excellent boatyard 100 feet away, let alone all the great ones like Osmotech on the Hamble
 
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