Westerly in their heyday...........................
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Concerto
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That is surprising Westerly named one of their Fulmar school boats Concerto considering it knew another Fulmar already had been named Concerto.
Daydream believer
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What a mess. Different models all over the place.If men were working on them there is no decent access, Just step ladders. If i was building those I would have a raised floor round each one so the operatives could just walk on & off at deck level.
If they were finished & waiting delivery then there was too much stock & they were badly stored, I doubt that they were finished,The one in the front certainly is not.. if one wanted to get a boat out. How do you get a trailer in there to move one? Reeks of an inefficient assembly process. Why are they stuck in a random manner like that? Why not have all the Centaurs together & Fulmars together etc so men working on them have the bits for each boat together rather than all over the place at each end of the factory.
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Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
At the bottom of that attachment in #21 ( sorry attachment did not copy)it says that one man is assigned a yacht to himself.
Does that not sound another inefficient way to build a boat? Would it not be better to have something like ( this is off the cuff example for now) a team to do the wiring looms, a team to do engines & pipe work & seacocks etc. A team to drop in the carcass & bulkheads. A team to put the deck on. A man to point the mastic. A man to do head linnings. A man for deck gear & so on. Then each team gets good at their job, can be timed to do it & bonused accordingly. Teams can be sized to suit the construction phases
Surely that is how one would go about building a construction line. One bloke doing bits & pieces from start to finish is never going to be economical. I found that out in my joinery works years ago.
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Iliade
Well-Known Member
The cap'n tried that new fangled system when he started building boats, but when the chap who fitted the Fastnet lamps fell sick there followed a three month delay in delivery ;0)
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
Went skint , did he?
burgundyben
Well-Known Member
I don't think there was that much joined up thinking. The Sea School started as a subsidiary of Westerley Yachts, but was sold to someone else. I recall most things seeming to be a muddle!
halcyon
Well-Known Member
You are negative, if you look all the boats are finished, boats were built differently and they had production constraints. They may not have had the flowline production of Sealine, they still managed to make over 2,400 Centaur's for instance, and were a major exporter.
Brian
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
Negative-- Not really. Just pointing out weaknesses. Is that wrong, or are whistleblowers banned on the forum?
If I am wrong explain why they are not still in business.
chrishscorp
Well-Known Member
SWMBO and I met up with 'Mr Concerto' last week before the storm came through and we were given a tour of Concerto we were then taken out of the marina through the lock and had a very pleasant drift down the River Medway in the spring sunshine. There was virtually no wind but even so you could feel she wanted to sail. We had the River Medway pretty much to our selves not what were used to on lake solent. We motored back in to the marina against the tide and Mr C had organised for us to have a good look round a Westerly Tempest this has certainly helped give us some pointers as to whether we go Fulmar or Tempest. We then adjourned ashore for some grub and a drink. Our thanks to Mr Concerto for organising this, much appreciated.
Baggywrinkle
Well-Known Member
Just noticed you are in Scotland ... the ketch wasn't named "Penny Lane" was it? - million to one shot as there must have been loads built ... it was one I saw a lot as a kid and always admired.
LittleSister
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I read that as meaning that one person has the responsibility for the fit out of each boat, not that they did everything by themselves alone. If so, perhaps that's part of the reason why LM had such a good reputation for quality of build.
Giving people control, discretion and responsibility is generally more motivating than the time targets and bonuses you mention.
As for being more efficient, as far as I am aware LM never went under, unlike a lot of the other boat manufacturers one could mention. I believe it was still under the original ownership as it gradually shifted from boat building to concentrate on manufacturing wind turbine blades (as it had decades earlier gradually shifted from furniture making to trailers, caravans, etc., then to boat building). After it had given up boat building altogether it was sold on to international financiers, and is now (or was recently) the biggest manufacturer of wind turbine blades in the world.
Baggywrinkle
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The question is, do they assign one man to each turbine blade?
Jcorstorphine
Well-Known Member
Our ketch was initially called Eric then Tolivar, it was built in 1979. We sold it in 1998 to a chap in Isle of Wight.
LittleSister
Well-Known Member
They would have to be very tall and/or have extremely long arms! The Danes are among the tallest people in the world, and perhaps that was an initial advantage to them.
They now have factories in China and elsewhere around the world, and I imagine that robots do a lot of the, er, legwork.
Daydream believer
Well-Known Member
Bit like Tyler boats then.
John Tyler told me that they made concrete portal frames for buildings. Then, because of their experience at making concrete moulds for the beams they went into building boats. They then went back to concrete buildings when boat building became uneconomic.
One can still see a little sailboat emblem on the ridge of some concrete framed farm buildings.
John Tyler told me that they made concrete portal frames for buildings. Then, because of their experience at making concrete moulds for the beams they went into building boats. They then went back to concrete buildings when boat building became uneconomic.
One can still see a little sailboat emblem on the ridge of some concrete framed farm buildings.
West Coast
Well-Known Member
There was a Penny Lane westerly ketch I knew in Scotland which was a Westerly Conway But come to think of it, the person who owned that boat had a succession of westerly’s named Penny Lane, so an earlier one could have been a Pentland
johnalison
Well-Known Member
This was HR twenty years ago. I don't suppose it is much different now. You can see that boats are lined up in a echelon in two rows with a central aisle for moving them. Friends with their 36.
Baggywrinkle
Well-Known Member
Probably the same guy, used to see it around the Clyde and I think it went through the Crinan or round the Mull and ventured further up the West Coast ... don't know why but I always thought it came from Campbeltown. I was in primary school at the time, but it looked like a bigger version of our friends Centaur - a proper little ship in those days.
You don't remember a big fugly green motor boat from Inverkip called "Minty" do you? ? ? ?
West Coast
Well-Known Member
That would figure, the boat I knew was owned by someone from Campbeltown (actually two brothers) who owned West Coast Motors, the bus company