Oyster Yachts gone into administration

Daydream believer said:
Was Ron Holland design the architects for this build?
Nothing seems to have been mentioned about where they stand in all this. They are, so I understand, well versed in super yacht design but was this poor construction? Was there a failing in design? Was there any brief for the designer to oversee any part of the structural works in the same way that an architect may be involved in the construction of a building?
There has been no comment about whether the moulder actually followed the design brief. It seems to have been suggested by Oyster that a claim has been made against the moulders, but have the moulders actually done anything wrong? That has not actually be substantiated yet- or has it?
If it has then will the owners ( or their insurers) of P Star now seek redress from them direct? do they have a claim? They have incurred loss as we know.
Is there a claim against the designer pending? Should there be?
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Already covered earlier. Designed by Rob Humphreys. Ron Holland has never worked with Oyster.

However Oyster's own blurb suggests lines of hull are Humphreys but other design work was done in house. I have never seen any mention of a claim against Humphreys, but of course that does not mean there is not one or that there has been and it is resolved. AFAIK he has designed boats for oysters subsequent to this one..
 
Daydream believer said:
Was Ron Holland design the architects for this build?
Nothing seems to have been mentioned about where they stand in all this. They are, so I understand, well versed in super yacht design but was this poor construction? Was there a failing in design? Was there any brief for the designer to oversee any part of the structural works in the same way that an architect may be involved in the construction of a building?
There has been no comment about whether the moulder actually followed the design brief. It seems to have been suggested by Oyster that a claim has been made against the moulders, but have the moulders actually done anything wrong? That has not actually be substantiated yet- or has it?
If it has then will the owners ( or their insurers) of P Star now seek redress from them direct? do they have a claim? They have incurred loss as we know.
Is there a claim against the designer pending? Should there be?
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I think you mean Rob Humphreys, as he is the named designer for the 825.
As I understand it, a lot of the actual engineering build spec was done in house by an Oyster employee. - Can't vouch for the veracity of this statement, but I read on another forum (SA maybe?) that the particular individual who was involved in he 825 subsequently moved to Nautor.
 
Tranona said:
Already covered earlier. Designed by Rob Humphreys. Ron Holland has never worked with Oyster.

However Oyster's own blurb suggests lines of hull are Humphreys but other design work was done in house. I have never seen any mention of a claim against Humphreys, but of course that does not mean there is not one or that there has been and it is resolved. AFAIK he has designed boats for oysters subsequent to this one..
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A careless mistake :ambivalence:
Thanks for putting me right. I have edited my post-!!!
Does seem a lot to put on to one person. One would have thought that for a construction of this value the backing of a design team may have been prudent. Even getting an outside audit of the design perhaps- & i do not mean just a Lloyds cert type approval which ( i assume) just scans the basic calcs for errors but does not correct specific errors within certain perameters.
& by that I am think of the building regulations & construction - Buildings are checked to see that they comply, Outside consultants run basic design checks where the inspector is not qualified & that is it. The rest is down to the architect. Presumably marine institutions are similar
I just find it odd that Oyster did not do such an in depth check- perhaps they did.
 
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AndrewfromFal said:
As I understand it, a lot of the actual engineering build spec was done in house by an Oyster employee. - Can't vouch for the veracity of this statement, but I read on another forum (SA maybe?) that the particular individual who was involved in he 825 subsequently moved to Nautor.
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The documentation on the "How it went down" website mentions Gary Scott-Jenner as the "original structural engineer". He is a director of Synolo Design Ltd, an Ipswich-based marine consultancy which has apparently worked on many Oyster projects including the 825. See https://synolodesign.com/about
 
I am a little reluctant to comment further, but I think there is a point worth making often missed in cases such as this. Clearly someone or a combination of people are at fault when a keel falls off - it could be the designers, it could be the subcontract builders, it could be the company, it may even be the owner, and you can bet more than likely a combination of more than one.

The real issue is that if you tdefend a case such as this the legal costs will run to a very very large number, and even with the strongest case, no guarantee of sucess, and even then, sucess can still leave you with a very large bill for costs, and a tarnished reputation. Cynical perhaps, but such is our legal system.

Unfortuantely therein lies the real problem. Many / most small companies cannout afford to take on a case such as this unless they have a substantial external backer, and of course why would any backer support them in doing so?

The only alternative is to reach an out of court settlement relatively early on in the proceedings which in a case such as this would seem unlikely given the amount of the underlying claim and the other parties perceived (and probably justified) chances of success.

In other words whatever the morality, commercially I suspect you will almost never see a case such as this taken to Court.

That is the commercial reality. Have arrived at that point, none of the rest really matters, as much "fun" as it might be to debate the whys and wherefores.
 
Daydream believer said:
Surely it has cost the owners of Oyster a lot more to put the company into liquidation than than £10m to settle or dispute & continue trading & have a company , albeit tarnished, to sell at the end
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Maybe, but then perhaps there are other reasons. This is only my random speculation, but perhaps the scenario was more personal and emotional. When HTP bought Oyster in 2012, it was an odd acquisition for them. Firstly, it was very small - they usually buy substantial companies. Secondly, it was in the UK - they usually buy German companies. Thirdly, it was a boatbuilder - they usually buy automotive-related businesses. So what if Wim de Pundert, HTP's majority partner, was thinking of buying himself a nice boat, and thought that if he bought the boatbuilder he'd not only get a better deal but might make some money on the side? He then ordered an Oyster 825, which was ready in 2015. But by then alarm bells had started ringing over the apparent instability of the Polina Star's keel, and Mr de Pundert's new sister ship was called in for urgent rectification work to the keel structure - that probably got him wondering about whether he'd chosen wisely in buying Oyster (both the company and the boat). Then the keel fell off the Polina Star, and all hell was let loose, with multi-million pound claims hitting Oyster. As the months ticked by, it would perhaps have become obvious to Mr de Pundert that there may have been something very wrong with the design and construction of the 825, and that the chances of getting multi-millions back from the 80 year old owner of the moulders were fairly slim. But it's inevitable that Mr de Pundert realised something else. He surely must have thought "What if it had been my family on board my 825 and the keel fell off?". So, in late 2017, with Oyster's management still unable to negotiate a settlement with the Polina Star's owner, Mr de Pundert put his own 825 up for sale, and pulled the plug on the company. OK, owning Oyster maybe cost him a few million, but I can imagine that guys like him would simply walk away and put it down to experience; there's always another deal around the corner. As I said, this is only my personal speculation.
 
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Surely it has cost the owners of Oyster a lot more to put the company into liquidation than than £10m to settle or dispute & continue trading & have a company , albeit tarnished, to sell at the end
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I forget what they alledgedly paid for it, but it is mentioned somewhere in all the ramblings. Given that I am sure they will have had some income / interest / dividend / managment fees out of it since, I am not sure as matters stand they are all that far adrift in relative terms. Stuff another £10m in (and it could be a lot more, IF there are problems with other examples of the same production run) and you inevitably consider the time to recoup that. I suspect that is the equation, as well as the previous poster suggested, just having had enough. In a different world you can imagine if you are facing endless meetings with the Board, lawyers, etc etc., all of which are damage limiting if the numbers are small enough all you want is to get on with something more interesting - and more financially rewarding - I am afraid this is how decisions are often made. Remember when any business becomes and investment it is there essentially to make money, the passion, the life work, the determination that owner managers have is no longer a factor in the equation - it is about making money (at least pretty much all the time).
 
Does anyone know the nature of the claim between Oyster and Bridgeland?
Since the correspondence between Oyster and Alexander Ezhkov shows they inspected the build and drilled test holes after the maiden voyage, in what way are Oyster claiming the moulding was at fault?
But OTOH, the design work was independently checked at that time.

Also in the Oysterinfo page, there is a claim that the £5M which Oyster wrote down as a loss associated with this saga has 'disappeared' and not been paid out. It can't all be remedial work done to the other 825s, is most of it a writing off of the R&D and tooling of the 825? Or what?
 
I see that the holding note on the Oyster homepage has now changed to:“Oyster Marine Ltd and Oyster Marine Holdings Ltd is in Administration. Oyster Brokerage, Oyster Charter, Oyster Crew and Oyster Palma are continuing to offer reduced services”
 
Once again only part of the information has been published. This leads to typical speculation & misinformation on the forum
May I respectfully correct your entry & give a fuller more informative description of events

Please see this version of events

 
E39mad said:
The PS III owners website and the information produced here don't seem to fully correlate:

http://www.superyachtnews.com/business/owner-of-polina-star-iii-has-his-say
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Sure, the ex Oyster CEO is fishing for new employment with whoever will take over Oyster as he "personally feels sorry". Wheep wheep. As one sided the "Oysterstory.info may be (not according to me but according to superyachtnews, who are clearly and blatently are on the side of Oyster/Tydeman), in the end Oyster failed miserably. And I mean: truly miserably.
 
E39mad said:
The PS III owners website and the information produced here don't seem to fully correlate:

http://www.superyachtnews.com/business/owner-of-polina-star-iii-has-his-say
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Interesting - although equally one sided as just giving a platform for the (ex?) Oyster CEO.

Shame SuperyachtNews didn’t ask him why Oyster folded so suddenly then, as this still seems very odd. It does appear that the Oyster and PS representatives met at Boot - and having compared cards, the Oyster side folded their hand.

A one-off liability of say £5m to settle the PS issue shouldn’t be enough for an investor to walk away having sunk £15m in equity. There must be more to it than is currently being said by the Oyster CEO. (And the pvb hypothesis is as good as any, but just that till Oyster or KPMG clarify)
 
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E39mad said:
The PS III owners website and the information produced here don't seem to fully correlate:

http://www.superyachtnews.com/business/owner-of-polina-star-iii-has-his-say
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The only real comment made by Tydeman is "moulding defects which caused the stub keel structure to fail and the loss of the vessel".

If the keel stub was correctly built and engineered to take the load, it would not have failed. Bridgeland were experienced moulders and should have been able to follow the design specification from Oyster. If Bridgeland did mould to specification, then they were not at fault. Remember the next hull needed extra reinforcing to the keel stub, so it looks more likely it was a specification fault (and the new style of hull matrix being used).

So was it poor moulding or poor engineering or both? Or is Tydeman trying to push the blame elsewhere?
 
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Concerto said:
The only real comment made by Tydeman is "moulding defects which caused the stub keel structure to fail and the loss of the vessel".

If the keel stub was correctly built and engineered to take the load, it would not have failed. Bridgeland were experienced moulders and should have been able to follow the design specification from Oyster. If Bridgeland did mould to specification, then they were not at fault. Remember the next hull needed extra reinforcing to the keel stub, so it looks more likely it was a specification fault (and the new style of hull matrix being used).

So was it poor moulding or poor engineering or both? Or is Tydeman trying to push the blame elsewhere?
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This is what is unclear.
We are told that the structural design was independently checked while the warranty work was done, the only recommendation was slightly bigger backing plates under the keel bolts.
We are told also that test drillings were made to check the laminate, so it was buit 'to design'. With approximately a 2.5 safety factor from the worst case horizontal knockdown stresses.

I can understand manufacturing tolerances eating into that factor of 2.5, and the design modelling not being accurate in the last decimal place.
But the damned thing failed without ever apparently seeing even a half of the design loading.
So how did it get to be weaker by a factor of around 5? Not 5%. Five. Without that being picked up by any/all of the experts who looked at it?

It makes me have some understanding of people reacting 'it must have hit something, probably the ground', as that is normally how structures like this get broken. But that seems to be ruled out.

Could the wrong materials have been used?
But for the properties to be out by a factor of 5 without being picked up is something I find hard to understand.
 
lw395 said:
This is what is unclear.
We are told that the structural design was independently checked while the warranty work was done, the only recommendation was slightly bigger backing plates under the keel bolts.
We are told also that test drillings were made to check the laminate, so it was buit 'to design'. With approximately a 2.5 safety factor from the worst case horizontal knockdown stresses.

I can understand manufacturing tolerances eating into that factor of 2.5, and the design modelling not being accurate in the last decimal place.
But the damned thing failed without ever apparently seeing even a half of the design loading.
So how did it get to be weaker by a factor of around 5? Not 5%. Five. Without that being picked up by any/all of the experts who looked at it?

It makes me have some understanding of people reacting 'it must have hit something, probably the ground', as that is normally how structures like this get broken. But that seems to be ruled out.

Could the wrong materials have been used?
But for the properties to be out by a factor of 5 without being picked up is something I find hard to understand.
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There seems to be some confusion about whether the gap between the ballast keel and stub found in Antigua is necessarily anything to do with the subsequent failure, other than indicating that something was flexing. The Oyster solution seems to be adding large plates under the keel bolt nuts, presumably to reduce the movement between the keel and the stub.

The failure point, however is in a totally different place, that is the stub which was part of the hull moulding detached taking part of the hull skin with it. On one side the complete skin and the other just the outer lamination. The W&M report and photos clearly shows the failure point at the junction between the internal webs in the stub and the grid. They make the point that the grid is still intact. The claim against the moulders seems to revolve around the way the webs were attached to the grid, which suggests (if the claims that the structural analysis was correct) that it was not made to specification. Lots of "ifs" there, which I guess is why it is still in dispute.

Think it is important to note that this method of construction is very different from that used in most production boats where the ballast keel is bolted through the hull skin and the internal grid. Very few boats use moulded GRP stubs and I am not sure how they are built to transfer loads from the ballast keel to the hull structure. Would seem to me sensible to bolt the keel through the hollow stub to the internal grid structure so the stub just becomes a spacer rather than a structural part of the hull. Would be interesting to see the details of other stub keel designs.
 
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