Is boating in a death spiral?

[doug748]

That is a really expensive boat.

The average house price in 1970 was around £4.5K. Today it is around £275K

So on that basis it's £500K plus for a fairly basic 31fter.

I don't think inflation calculators work very well with boats, or cars for that matter.

Yes, the modern equivalent boat to a Contessa 32 is a Contessa 32, which you can buy new and has been continuously in production since inception. They produce about one a year.

Strangely, they would be about 500k now fully loaded. I agree about inflation calculators though, they can be very dodgy.

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[Supertramp]

Perhaps the more striking relationship is between value over time.

A 50yr old boat is worth a fractional amount of the new cost whereas a 50yr old house will likely match the cost of a new build.

Houses deteriorate over time like boats and need updating (ok, not to the same extent) but the greater demand keeps the house prices up.

 

[Blueboatman]

Indeed
A tore out Co32 with an outboard ( perish the very thought) a couple of bean bags and a battery/masthead light and a bucket and single burner camping stove and a smartphone would make a very cheap world girdling/racing/cruising yacht and be probably as fast as an immaculately preserved 50yr old one or a new one, sails excepted?

 

[Frogmogman]

Indeed
A tore out Co32 with an outboard ( perish the very thought) a couple of bean bags and a battery/masthead light and a bucket and single burner camping stove and a smartphone would make a very cheap world girdling/racing/cruising yacht and be probably as fast as an immaculately preserved 50yr old one or a new one, sails excepted?

Why the outboard ?

 

[Blueboatman]

“Surprisingiy affordable” perhaps instead of re-engineering an inboard and its ancillaries?
And no prop drag
But.. insert everything we dislike about outboards.
The concept is Inexpensive viable 32ft yacht and affordable older boats usually will require decisions to be made about their older machinery. Hence my term ‘Tore out’

 

[stav]

What isn't in a death spiral? The world is becoming more and more polarised while we get swept up in little details and people are blinded by the 'new' when new is often better for the manufacturer. When we need to consider the circular economy more (as promoted by Ellen Macarthur). People need to have time to maintain there things and not be so dependent on others and the businesses need to be able to run more efficiently. Started boating at the age of 18 with a 26' on a swinging mooring, moved to a marina for a bit but when the kids came along moved to a muddy drying mooring. Haven't answered the question but perhaps it is only in a death throws for those of us on a budget. If you operate a good business (old folks home, supply the NHS, offer agency staffing) perhaps you have money to burn and can afford the modern and serves for it? Can we get rid of CE ratings now in the UK? Just a passing thought?

 

[John_Silver]

Uh, oh. One, well established, French yard down. Possibly tarrif related?

 

[Sea Change]

Uh, oh. One, well established, French yard down. Possibly tarrif related?

View attachment 203358

Possibly related to their use of 12mm ply as structural bulkheads?

 

[Frogmogman]

Uh, oh. One, well established, French yard down. Possibly tarrif related?

View attachment 203358

Going into receivership doesn’t necessarily mean curtains (except perhaps for the investors). They may well get bought by a group such as Grand Large or Beneteau.

Let’s face it, yacht builders going into receivership is hardly a new phenomenon

 

[Shaz77]

… also a lot of older boats are ether equivalent of 70’s to 90’s cars, destined for the scrap heap because no one wants them. We are a 1/4 of the way this century already. At a recent classic and vintage car show, everything from these years was crap. It is no different for boats. We just don’t realise it yet.

Fiberglass boats from the 70s were over engineered, built like brick __it houses and with minimum maintenance will go on for ever. Unlike cars they do not rust.

 

[Laser310]

Uh, oh. One, well established, French yard down. Possibly tarrif related?

View attachment 203358

I was on one at a boat show.

I was not at all impressed.

it seemed to be of very poor quality.

 

[Bouba]

While boating remains a popular niche hobby....building boats has got to be one of the most precarious business ventures you can get into. For it to work you have to do it at scale which leaves no room in the market for up and comers. And when it comes to recessions they are the canary in the mine

 

[potentillaCO32]

While boating remains a popular niche hobby....building boats has got to be one of the most precarious business ventures you can get into. For it to work you have to do it at scale which leaves no room in the market for up and comers. And when it comes to recessions they are the canary in the mine

Indeed, although more viable on the continent where a boat market still exists. There remain dozens and dozens of small french and german yacht manufacturers who don't bother to market here.
The biggest selling market segment at la rochelle show this year has been the 7 -8m day boat sector. Even yachting world has belatedly recognised how this sector has developed on the continent. They released a few videos of their tests at la rochelle recently.

It is obviously hard to make a viable business building boats but not impossible.... Unless you are based in the UK.

 

[DoubleEnder]

I’m always surprised and impressed by the range of small businesses building small and mid sized boat designs in some other European countries. Both sailing and power boats. I wonder what is so different, economically or otherwise in these markets? We have only a very few niche low volume builders in the U.K. Is it that the European companies can sell all across the EU? Until 2020 that was also the case for UK builders, but it didn’t seem to help much. Do the European companies get subsidies? I think the very large French builders might, or used to. But what about a yard in Italy with a dozen employees and a local supply chain? Whatever, it’s good to see.

As for the death spiral, yeah I think it’s circling the plughole in some segments. Sailing boats up to about 30 feet seem to be very very hard to sell, and I think it got worse rapidly in the last 18 months or so. Boats that might have sold for £15k a couple of years ago seem to be unsellable now. There is an increase in youtube videos from boat breakers (good). My guess is that the people who might have bought these are now too old, and that U.K. economic uncertainty, rising cost of living, and the desperate search for somewhere secure and affordable to live has put everyone else off. Also, by definition, these boats are cramped, dark damp slow and not much fun. There are a few designs that have remained desirable. Not many. We say that GRP boats last for ever, but apparently they don’t.

A broker I know tells me that ‘small’ boats are hardly selling at all. For him this means <50 feet. ‘Big’ boats are selling but slowly. He doesn’t go much above 7 figures, but I think the 8 and 9 figure sales are strong.
Changes in recreational sailing probably just reflect, in a small way, broader demographic, economic and cultural changes in society. Maybe the last 75 years were an aberration……

 

[Bouba]

I think in the UK…yachts have been replaced by landyachts in the popular psyche…an amazing amount of people aspire to a motorhome. The realisation that you don’t need to learn any new skills…can go to more places more easily…can park it at home…and is not quite so weather dependent. This may just be one of those fashions that eventually will return to boating

 

[potentillaCO32]

When my company was importing yachts up to 2007, we looked closely at the london boat show figures to see it was still worth exhibiting each year, (helped by one or two of the original east coast members on here ). They provided us with the audited figures and it showed a declining trend during the last years of earls court, a blip for the first year at excel , and then continued decline for the life of the excel show down to around 90k when they pulled the plug from a hiatus of nearly 200k visitors at the earls court peak.
All this correlated with the gradual closing of uk yachtmakers, and sports boat makers, a list as long as your arm.
Brexit has of course made it more complex to bring boats in but we are clearly clost to the bottom of a down curve.

Having said that, the marinas are still full (most boats not moving much) though.

 

[Frogmogman]

Indeed, although more viable on the continent where a boat market still exists. There remain dozens and dozens of small french and german yacht manufacturers who don't bother to market here.
The biggest selling market segment at la rochelle show this year has been the 7 -8m day boat sector. Even yachting world has belatedly recognised how this sector has developed on the continent. They released a few videos of their tests at la rochelle recently.

It is obviously hard to make a viable business building boats but not impossible.... Unless you are based in the UK.

To succeed you need to be occupying a niche that is not in an area well covered by the big manufacturers. In France Pogo and RM have been successful at this (tho RM is now part of the Grand Large group).

I do wonder what effect Beneteau’s brilliant range of Seascape First models will have on Pogo, as they have pretty much parked their tanks on Pogo’s lawn.

 

[potentillaCO32]

To succeed you need to be occupying a niche that is not in an area well covered by the big manufacturers. In France Pogo and RM have been successful at this (tho RM is now part of the Grand Large group).

I do wonder what effect Beneteau’s brilliant range of Seascape First models will have on Pogo, as they have pretty much parked their tanks on Pogo’s lawn.

It isn't just those marques, that some brits know about, just looking at september's voile magazine and in their new boat section are mojito 32, saffier 46 (dutch), nevo 9.5, archipel 36, ogham 54 and proper 100 mile tests of the bente 28, fountaine pajot 41 and others. It is the same every month.
Just about to cycle down to la trinite bar 56 for a beer and no doubt will see boats coming and going in a way that you just don't see in the uk.

 

[Frogmogman]

It isn't just those marques, that some brits know about, just looking at september's voile magazine and in their new boat section are mojito 32, saffier 46 (dutch), nevo 9.5, archipel 36, ogham 54 and proper 100 mile tests of the bente 28, fountaine pajot 41 and others. It is the same every month.
Just about to cycle down to la trinite bar 56 for a beer and no doubt will see boats coming and going in a way that you just don't see in the uk.

Indeed. And not forgetting Tofinou, Black Pepper () , and (in the spirit of Shipman, naming your boat after a serial killer) Rose West.

 

[oldgit]

Recently the only boats to have requested a mooring at our motorboat club have been without exception, small peche promenades from various EU countries, with the odd similar small US sourced craft in the mix.
Curiously virtually all have very quickly got rid of those somewhat cramped boats and bought examples of classic flybridge boats built in the 1980/1990s by the big three UK builders the Fairline Corniche 31 being favorite and more recently a Princess 35.
Covid pricing now just a bad smell, a well priced half decent motorboat should sell in the £40-£50K fairly fast and up to 100K.