Oyster Yachts gone into administration

[Ian h]

That depends - there is not that much call for their skills and if a solution is found that keeps what is essentially the same company going I thnk many would happy to stay on / go back,

Do not forget that Fairline Boats are setting up in Hythe just the otherwise of Southampton Water. I am sure they will be willing to take on some staff.

 

[gertha]

Someone mentioned darkest Norfolk.
Please get your facts correct, Norfolk has more sky than any other county. So cannot be dark.
If the script is not purely light and a suggestion of dark dealings. Again the facts are misleading , all dealings are above board, just chose to keep it in the family.

'

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yeah but they were speculation. A bit like all this.

And perhaps like the original report on ybw.com which said that the company had gone into administration a couple of days before it did ... ?

 

[eddystone]

Pretty sure it will be the owners/buyers of the boats that will have the final say in who completes the boats. As i explained earlier the part complete boats will almost certainly be the property of the buyers so any administrator/receiver/liquidator would not have title to sell as they are not assets of the company.

There are all sorts of possible scenarios, one of which might be the buyers creating an entity to finish the boats and contracting to use the necessary facilities. However, my money would be on a single buyer acquiring the whole operation including the rights to the designs etc. and then negotiating new contracts for completion of the boats.

I suppose as work stopped pretty suddenly to avoid (whichever) company incurring further liabilities, it's possible the moulding process on one or more boats stopped before completion. In which case would not their buyers be in a bit of a conumdrum; the half finished hull would be their property but rather than wanting it completed they would want their money back as you can't stop lamination and then re-start it - the hull is only fit for scrap?

 

[JumbleDuck]

It mostly speaks volumes about peoples limited experience of GRP that has been stressed to destruction.
This was extensively discussed elsewhere. When top quality GRP fails under certain forms of stress, it often looks exactly like it was never wetted out.

I used to break bits of GRP for a living, and while what you say was absolutely right for the region of the fracture itself, I never saw large areas of laminate turn into a pile of sheets. Where did the resin go? In bending failure the resin generally fragments to pieces of a size governed by the relation between the tensile strength of the resin and the shear strength of the bond (I was measuring that shear strength) but when failure occurs the fragmented resin stays bonded to the glass.

Of course it may well just be a form of fracture I haven't seen.

 

[JumbleDuck]

That for a company that was valued at £15m the last time it was sold.

And at £75m the previous time it was sold, just a few years before. Though of course that's a drop in the ocean (ha) compared to Bain Capital's losses at Bavaria.

 

[Tranona]

I suppose as work stopped pretty suddenly to avoid (whichever) company incurring further liabilities, it's possible the moulding process on one or more boats stopped before completion. In which case would not their buyers be in a bit of a conumdrum; the half finished hull would be their property but rather than wanting it completed they would want their money back as you can't stop lamination and then re-start it - the hull is only fit for scrap?

Boats will be at various stages of completion so guess there may be one or two hulls part moulded. What happens with them will again depend on the nature of the purchase contract. However, as noted earlier, some hulls are moulded by outside contractors - not sure how many are done in house.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Someone mentioned darkest Norfolk.
Please get your facts correct, Norfolk has more sky than any other county. So cannot be dark.
If the script is not purely light and a suggestion of dark dealings. Again the facts are misleading , all dealings are above board, just chose to keep it in the family.

And of course "keeping it in the family" is a proud Norfolk tradition ...

 

[lpdsn]

And at £75m the previous time it was sold, just a few years before. Though of course that's a drop in the ocean (ha) compared to Bain Capital's losses at Bavaria.

I don't know whether the difference was because of a reduction in value or whether the first purchasers put a lot of debt on the company and sold that with the company for the £15m.

 

[anoccasionalyachtsman]

Bridgland moulded every Oyster from the 37,39 and 26 in the late 70s, through the 80s and 90s and I assumed that they'd done all the UK built boats. Last decades that might not be the case.

Bridgland Moulders Ltd is a very discreet private company with no internet presence, despite being incorporated in 1977.

The earliest event I can find mentioning Bridgland Moulders Ltd is the news of Oyster being bought by HTP Investments.
http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/news/i...-marine-acquired-by-dutch-investors-1-1216144

The next event was a fire in their premises in October 2013.
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/video-update-fire-crews-leave-site-of-blaze-in-ashmanhaugh-1-2927021

The latest mention is slightly stranger. A boat movement from Dorset to their premises on 26 Jan 2018. It could be a boat in for a repair. Any one know if this was an Oyster?
http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/video-update-fire-crews-leave-site-of-blaze-in-ashmanhaugh-1-2927021

 

[Frogmogman]

And at £75m the previous time it was sold, just a few years before. Though of course that's a drop in the ocean (ha) compared to Bain Capital's losses at Bavaria.

Or indeed Candover's losses with Ferretti (£1,5 Billion)

 

[dunedin]

And perhaps like the original report on ybw.com which said that the company had gone into administration a couple of days before it did ... ?

:encouragement:

 

[Blue Sunray]

Someone mentioned darkest Norfolk.
Please get your facts correct, Norfolk has more sky than any other county. So cannot be dark.
If the script is not purely light and a suggestion of dark dealings. Again the facts are misleading , all dealings are above board, just chose to keep it in the family.

'

Balderdash, it also has one of the lowest levels of light pollution in England so can be very dark. Not sure how you figure out 'more sky', is the rest of the country underground?

And of course "keeping it in the family" is a proud Norfolk tradition ...

 

[SO40]

And of course "keeping it in the family" is a proud Norfolk tradition ...

Had to laugh when I read this one.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Had to laugh when I read this one.

A few years ago I was doing a tour, at one point of which I referred to "brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and all the variations on these you get in Norfolk" When we played Great Yarmouth my colleagues all assumed I'd drop that line, but I accepted the challenge and used it. After the show a woman approached me and said "I'm a social worker here and what you said about Norfolk families ... was exactly right. Particularly over there <pointing down Breydon>."

 

[lw395]

Balderdash, it also has one of the lowest levels of light pollution in England so can be very dark. Not sure how you figure out 'more sky', is the rest of the country underground?

I think the more sky in Norfolk is a reference to the lack of hills.
I trust we are all a bit more precise when navigating afloat, but everywhere East of the M25 is the same isn't it? Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex...

 

[ip485]

Current reports appear to be gravitating to my original speculation regarding the cause. It also goes through my mind that of course the warranty issues may be more widespread than has been reported. It also occurs that the current backers, while having considered a prepack, may not want to be associated with backing away from the warranty issues. The future may now be reliant on either someone else in the industry wishing to add Oyster to their stable, or someone wishing to enter this market.

 

[Angele]

It also occurs that the current backers, while having considered a prepack, may not want to be associated with back away from the warranty issues.

Just to clarify, unless something has changed in the last 24 hours, the only company in administration is the holding company. So far as I can tell it is just that. A holding company, nothing more. No one could pick up the trading business and ditch any warranty issues without Oyster Marine Limited first entering insolvency too. And that would have wider ramifications for all creditors and customers, not just those with warranty claims. Not to say it couldn't happen, but it cannot at the moment.

 

[ip485]

I think the holding company effectively controls all the subsidiaries in this instance one way or another.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

A few years ago I was doing a tour, at one point of which I referred to "brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents and all the variations on these you get in Norfolk" When we played Great Yarmouth my colleagues all assumed I'd drop that line, but I accepted the challenge and used it. After the show a woman approached me and said "I'm a social worker here and what you said about Norfolk families ... was exactly right. Particularly over there <pointing down Breydon>."

Well, whatever the relationship is, I bet Cantonese has a word for it!

Cantonese has words for relationships that we don't even consider to be relations! And when your wife comes from a village where half the population have her surname (the other half have another one!), you soon remember to ask "Do you mean "village" cousin or real cousin?" (everyone with her surname is regarded as a cousin, uncle or aunt depending on generation and gender). Oh, and surnames in China DEFINITELY indicate relationship; Calli's family (Yau) is not unusual in keeping records that trace the family tree 24 generations, something like 500 years. But they also have strict rules to prevent too many "Fenland" relationships; if two people with the same surname marry, they must leave the village (losing all property rights in the village, which (for sons!) are quite valuable), so although half the people in the village have the same surname, most aren't too closely related; most of the people Calli calls cousin are related at a level that we'd regard as being fine for marriage (remember, cousins are legal in the UK!).

It gets even MORE complicated when you realize that it was (and probably still is) the custom for a family with many children to give the excess to a family with none - so adoption is common, especially in the older generations. That is a complicating factor in Calli's family; not in her own generation, but in her parents' where it affected both her mother and her father!