Oyster Yachts gone into administration

[Resolution]

Not at all. But it does appear that Oyster may have been rather arrogant, and disrespectful to their customer(s), in how they appeared to treat the incident as user error, and try to brush it under the carpet. A degree more humility might have helped

Can you back up that comment? I don't recall any such statements from Oyster (but may have missed them).

 

[pvb]

Can you back up that comment? I don't recall any such statements from Oyster (but may have missed them).

Oyster initially claimed the yacht may have been grounded or hit an underwater object.

 

[Lozzer]

Oyster initially claimed the yacht may have been grounded or hit an underwater object.

The term "may have" not DID.

If you know the area where the PS III sunk you will also know that there have been other yachts hitting the bottom nearby. I have sailed the coast for 15 years and know of a few skippers getting it wrong. Upon recovery they were able to discount that theory.

By the way ai think the skipper and crew did an amazing job getting off safely. Not sure how long it would take to get our sail plan down in a hurry.

 

[ip485]

Unfortunatley I do think these days with the risk of heavy litigation there is hardly a company that will rush to fess up, if only because their corporate lawyers AND insurers will make the consequences quite clear. If you are involved in a RTA do you rush to accept liability - unfortunately I doubt many do.

I agree taking that approach AND muddy the waters by specualting the problem arose from misuse is taking another step, but whether that was the order and what they knew at the time I dont know.

 

[Blue Sunray]

Have you actually looked at the pictures in the reports, or the description of the events - as a large chunk of hull suddenly peeled off. Very lucky that in moderate conditions, no guests on board and an extremely professional crew.

:encouragement:

 

[SO40]

You are very wrong to belittle Oyster’s importance. 400 highly paid employees and a mostly UK purchase bill of about £28m annually is funding maybe a thousand jobs elsewhere. This makes them a very important part of the UK marine industry and not by any accepted standard are they small.

I quite agree with what you are saying, except I think it would be more apt to say "the pleasure boat industry" rather than the marine industry. Oyster has certainly made it´s mark there and to me it would be very weird if Oyster would no longer be part of the yachting scene.

 

[Time Out]

I quite agree with what you are saying, except I think it would be more apt to say "the pleasure boat industry" rather than the marine industry. Oyster has certainly made it´s mark there and to me it would be very weird if Oyster would no longer be part of the yachting scene.

The pleasure boat sector is a part of the marine industry and is given to the sector that runs pleasure boats ie the steamers the take paying passengers up and down the Thames.

Oyster are part of the sailboat boat sector which is part of the marine industry.

It’s certainly not pleasure boat.

 

[Bathdave]

More in the Times today

Oyster has provided for the costs of Polina and reinforcement on three other boats, but has only managed to recover £400k of its claim against the moulding subcontracto, and a further £6.8m claim remains and further delays in the arbitration process led to cash flow issues that the shareholder was unwilling to inject further funds

 

[ip485]

Much as I anticipated much earlier in the thread.

 

[pandroid]

More in the Times today

Oyster has provided for the costs of Polina and reinforcement on three other boats, but has only managed to recover £400k of its claim against the moulding subcontracto, and a further £6.8m claim remains and further delays in the arbitration process led to cash flow issues that the shareholder was unwilling to inject further funds

The moulding outfit is a (comparative) bucket shop. No one in their right mind could consider they would ever get their money back and I'm sure Oyster knew that. Golden rule - don't bother suing anyone if they don't have any money!

 

[Walther]

Oyster may have been rather arrogant, and disrespectful to their customer(s), in how they appeared to treat the incident as user error, and try to brush it under the carpet. A degree more humility might have helped

Absolutely right. While Oyster was certainly not required to rush forward with apologies or mea culpas before the facts became known, their initial attempt to blame the customer was ill-considered, counterproductive and quite unnecessary. A discrete silence while the matter was investigated would have been much more appropriate.

I'm not convinced Oyster has actually made a "huge contribution to British yachting", whatever that's meant to mean. Oyster is certainly a well-known brand, but it's always been a fairly small company.

Correct.

One does have to wonder slightly about the first line of the advert listing by Oyster Brokerage ....”Meagan is Hull number 3 of the incredibly successful 825 built by Oyster”. I wonder what the owner of the other hull numbers thought of that - one would think it wasn’t that incredibly successful to sink one of the first four.

One also wonders what facts it would take for them to consider the 825 a failure.

And people wonder why yacht brokers have such a miserable reputation!

But it was Oyster fitted to an Oyster, pre handover - so not an “aftermarket bodge” as you describe it in your post, but, to use your own term, an Oyster “bodge”.

Exactly. Much as Oyster and its fanboys might like to excuse that shoddiness, it is all Oyster's responsibility.

 

[SO40]

A Quote from "the Times" article: The yacht maker filed a £7.2 million claim against Bridgland Moulders, a subcontractor based in Norwich, which it accused of failing to carry out the moulding on the boat properly.

It seems to me someone has been asleep quite deeply here. How about proper management system and the proper QA to back it up?? Or did Oyster just say: Hey people of Bridgland Moulders, make me that mould I just drew on a napkin. Lemme know when we can collect it.
It all sounds very strange.....

 

[lw395]

It's a aproblem with the legal system that such a claim takes so long to decide, the 'winning' party may not be around to benefit.
It does seem odd that there was not sufficient QA to prevent the problem, but then again plenty of multi-million poud buildings end up full of defects.
I really don't understand why Oyster pursued this method of construction. It was never going to be a big enough production run to recoup the investment in getting a new process right. It's not as if it's a racing boat where designing out a couple of barrels of resin would make a difference to the user. Neither are they trying to pop one out of the mould every couple of days.

 

[pvb]

It seems to me someone has been asleep quite deeply here. How about proper management system and the proper QA to back it up?? Or did Oyster just say: Hey people of Bridgland Moulders, make me that mould I just drew on a napkin. Lemme know when we can collect it.
It all sounds very strange.....

Indeed it does. But Oyster had been using Bridgland Moulders for around 30 years and maybe it had all got a bit cosy and lax. Bridgland Moulders work from a shed in a rural part of Norfolk, and I doubt whether the moulding conditions are under tight environmental control. The owner is 80 years old. The company is tiny, so there's no way Oyster would ever have got £7 million from them or their insurers, especially if negligence could be demonstrated in their work.

 

[maby]

Indeed it does. But Oyster had been using Bridgland Moulders for around 30 years and maybe it had all got a bit cosy and lax. Bridgland Moulders work from a shed in a rural part of Norfolk, and I doubt whether the moulding conditions are under tight environmental control. The owner is 80 years old. The company is tiny, so there's no way Oyster would ever have got £7 million from them or their insurers, especially if negligence could be demonstrated in their work.

I don't think the size of the company has any direct bearing on the level of insurance it carries - my wife and I have spent many years working on contracts to central government as a two-man-band - we were required to have quite a few millions of pounds of insurance cover.

 

[Scolly]

Absolutely right. While Oyster was certainly not required to rush forward with apologies or mea culpas before the facts became known, their initial attempt to blame the customer was ill-considered, counterproductive and quite unnecessary. A discrete silence while the matter was investigated would have been much more appropriate.

Correct.

One also wonders what facts it would take for them to consider the 825 a failure.

And people wonder why yacht brokers have such a miserable reputation!

Exactly. Much as Oyster and its fanboys might like to excuse that shoddiness, it is all Oyster's responsibility.

Pretty much from the beginning of this thread there has been an undercurrent of smirking at the demise of what was one of the UK's best yacht builders.
Built from nothing by a 'strong character' pretty much ruined by supposed 'clever' investors. Nasty speculations based only hearsay and jealously don't help anyone, especially the employee's sitting at home wondering what the hell hit them.
Apart from a few intelligent comments the rest of this thread has been an almost non-stop 'Told you so' type criticism of Oyster.

Very disappointed at the enjoyment some commentators are taking in this thread.

Am I a 'Fanboy' of Oyster, definitely not but getting enjoyment from someone else's misfortune disgusts me

 

[pvb]

I don't think the size of the company has any direct bearing on the level of insurance it carries - my wife and I have spent many years working on contracts to central government as a two-man-band - we were required to have quite a few millions of pounds of insurance cover.

Fair point. Out of interest, would your insurance pay out if you were negligent?

 

[pandroid]

Pretty much from the beginning of this thread there has been an undercurrent of smirking at the demise of what was one of the UK's best yacht builders.
Built from nothing by a 'strong character' pretty much ruined by supposed 'clever' investors. Nasty speculations based only hearsay and jealously don't help anyone, especially the employee's sitting at home wondering what the hell hit them.
Apart from a few intelligent comments the rest of this thread has been an almost non-stop 'Told you so' type criticism of Oyster.

Very disappointed at the enjoyment some commentators are taking in this thread.

Am I a 'Fanboy' of Oyster, definitely not but getting enjoyment from someone else's misfortune disgusts me

I don't think anyone is taking pleasure from Oyster going down. Its never fun to see any decent builder go down. It just goes to show how close to the line some of these builders operate. I seem to remember Westerly went down because someone didn't pay for one of their boats and I cant remember how many times Jeremy Rogers went bust - I still bought one of his boats though! No doubt Oyster will be back.

From the available documentation this doesn't seem a clear-cut problem with the moulders. It seems more like a poor design, exacerbated by some bodge-it-and-fit moulding, unfortunately in a particularly stressed area.

 

[lw395]

The Times article does not entirely ring true to me.
It implies that the whole Oyster business is not worth carrying on with, because of a £7M dispute.
Suggesting that the worth of the company is less than £7M?
That does not seem right with an £80M order book, and reasonable prospects of selling useful numbers of boats next year and beyond.

 

[npf1]

The Times article does not entirely ring true to me.
It implies that the whole Oyster business is not worth carrying on with, because of a £7M dispute.
Suggesting that the worth of the company is less than £7M?
That does not seem right with an £80M order book, and reasonable prospects of selling useful numbers of boats next year and beyond.

+1. Perhaps other losses related to Polina Star have come to light. I would imagine the consequential losses sought by PS's owner could be significant.