What Happened? (Opportunity lost)

[Guest]

Hi,

In my (limited) experience, it seems that a large percentage of boats of a certain age are UK built.

The general concensus seems to be that they are well built, reliable yachts.

If this was the case, why did they all fold? It's a bit like the dinosaurs, one minute there's thousands of the buggers, the next nothing but relics. I'm too young to remember the big bang, so what happened?

If the French / Germans can build high volume production yachts why can't we? Labour costs are roughly the same ( if not cheaper due to tax differences), and surely the skill base still exists.

I'm not rabidly patriotic, but it would be nice to buy a new, reasonably priced (not moody/oyster) british built yacht, when I trade up from my 36 year old Hurley22

Am I the only one?

I think it's a lost opportunity

Jim

 

[tcm]

Crap british design/manufacturing management I'm afraid, and having been thru uk university in mech eng twenty years ago, not surprising. No indication or teaching of imprtance of costs of anything at all. Result: nice expensive things all carefully engineered, then costed, then er mucked about with cos nobody buying them so somehow made not much out of minis, for example...and in rip the japs et al where the accountants and production and designers are all on the same side to make a 750cc motobike for under a grand or whatever. Only Amstrad did the same thing - set out with budget and function as vital requirement for end product.

 

[vyv_cox]

I have been told that every Westerly 36 they built was sold at a considerable loss. The construction method used was ambitious, strong and sound but was never costed correctly.

Not too much of a surprise though - as you say the same applied to BMC Minis. Apparently BMC never knew how much they cost to build!

 

[JeremyF]

The mistake way made in the 80's I'd say. Either they should have chased up market, with a product quality to match a cost base they had because of low volume, or they should have gone for production volume and automation.

Only Moody seems to have got it right in the implementation of option one.

By 1990 the die was cast, and the outcome inevitable.

Whats the state of the 3 big Swedish manufacturers. What are their books like, I wonder?

<font color=blue>Jeremy Flynn/forums/images/icons/crazy.gif
Dawn Chorus</font color=blue>

 

[jamesjermain]

Its a long story but basically:

a) The boats were not quite as goood as we like to believe
b) Our building methods and practices changed little from pre-war to post-GRP
c) Having got off to a good start in the 1960s identifying what the new breed of family sailor wanted we failed to move forward in the face of overseas competition
d) Our managers were largely ex-forces (mainly RN) with a golden handshake burning a hole in their pockets
e) The government worked against the industry.

Meanwhile

a) The French and to a lesser extend the German national and regional governments decided a boating industry would revitalise run down coastal towns so poured tax breaks into the business
b) The money was used to build new, efficient factories
c) A new breed of young designer arose who were innovative, lively and knew what people wanted.
d) Management, though in part rooted in old fishing boat traditions, brought in proper professional production engineers, quality control bods and, most importantly, marketing and advertising skills.
e) They then built boats which performed better, looked better, had more of what we wanted and cost less than home grown products.

The result

a) We dismissed the first imports as light and flimsy and would never last
b) Said that was their way of doing things but we did it better
c) Refused to learn the lessons and got left behind
d) Stuck our heads in the sand when the public stopped buying British
e) Failed to grab the last chance to modernise production and design
d) Moaned like hell when the banks refused to bail us out for the third or fourth time
e) Went bust

Of course wider economic factors must a not be ignored including exchange rates, punitive VAT for a while. There is also, in Britain compared to France, a much lower level of general interest in boating in the population as a whole.

Of course not all companies fell by the wayside and there are still three or four significant builders in the UK who have identified their markets, built to the right price in modern facilities and maintained quality and value.


JJ

 

[SimonD]

Not my specialist subject, but for boats read motorbikes, for France and Germany read Japan and there's a very similar story to tell.

The difference is, some will buy a twenty year old Triumph for nostalgia, not because it's faster, more reliable, more efficient etc than a Honda. I don't think anyone seriously compares them. We buy twenty year old Westerlys and claim they're actually better than modern boats. Seems odd.

 

[pkb]

As a manufacturing and engineering country Britain was being overtaken even before the end of the 19th century. We were the pioneers of the industrial revolution and the other guys were able to look and learn and do it better before they developed and build their own infrastructure and capacity.

After WW11 we were exhausted with clapped out infrastructrure and cushioned by our protected "imperial" markets and so made do for a time. Meanwhile the German and Japanese were left with a non existent infrastructure and started effectively from scratch with lots of new kit. I am sure I have read that they were helped by a considerable number of US and British industrialists and engineers.

It's interesting though that both of these economies are going through difficult times right now while we appear, on the face of it, to be at an advantage.

As for the Mini I am sure you're right on costs. Here we were with a world beating product which we had to produce with antiquated facilities and, more importantly, with antiquated labour practices and gross overmanning. I know something about this since I spent ten years in BL's pr department!

As for boats its a shame that we don't have an industry to speak of but that is all. Volume leisure boat manufacturing is hardly strategic for a G7 economy and I wonder to what extent it is really viable without direct or indirect State aid.

Peter

 

[AndrewB]

The Fastnet Factor?

Was it entirely a rerun of the management/government failures in the automobile industry?

Well, yes, you've offered an excellent analysis. But I think the problem does owe something to the influence of the 79 Fastnet disaster. Throughout the 1980's, the yachting public were conditioned into believing that only heavy, ultra-strong yachts in the Contessa-32 mould were really safe for sailing around England. Hence the development of the heavily over-engineered yachts of the period, the Rivals, Bowmans, Vancouvers, Victorias - not forgetting the ill-fated 'Yachting Monthly 38' (was more than one ever built?).

The result was failure to be ready to cater for the next generation who had not been affected by that experience, and whose priority, based on experience of chartering in the Med, was value for money rather than safety in survival conditions - which of course in reality they would never meet.

 

[Oceanranger]

I have a Westerly which is approaching her 10th birthday. When she was being built, Westerlys suggested that as we would be unlikely to need 8 berths, they would build additional lockers to replace the navigator's berth. They charged £650 to build 5 additional lockers. A friend who has a company which fits out embassies and similar upmarket properties looked at the work they had done and said it should have been costed at around £3000 to be an economic proposition for Westerly. I have been on 4 similar boats and everyone has been different down below; it's no wonder that Westerly lost money on each boat. But our boat still looks pretty much the same as she did when she was first launched. I have a friend with a 3 year old Bavaria 38 which is already looking distinctly world-weary, and another acquaintance who had a Bavaria 34 for 2 years: the compression post collapsed and the bulkheads parted company from the hull. You get what you pay for, unless you can find a builder who may know how to build a boat to last but doesn't know how to cost it to make the company last as long.

 

[Guest]

I also think part of the demise of Westerly was the complicated range.

At one time

Griffon 26ft
Konsort 29ft
Fulmar 32 ft
Storm 33 ft

etc and no common componants etc in them.

Marine Projects early on recognised this and many bits on Moodys are the same as Princesses e.g cleats

Common modules between boats etc
from 1998 an article
http://www.bpic.co.uk/cases/marinepr.htm

A friend has just sold their 20 yr old Fulmar and it is built like a tank!!!! They will outlast the contintental genre of yachts.

Pete

 

[Guest]

For some reason(s) the British power boat builders remain very successful. Sunseeker, Fairline, Sealine and some others. Their products are in all the big foreign boat shows and they keep churning them out.
As for sailing yachts, there, rather like the British talent with racing cars (Formula 1 and other ratings), there is a success story in one-off specials: Green Marine and a number of others.The largest sailing yacht in the world is being built at Vosper, Southampton, for an American owner.

 

[halcyon]

Because in the old days the British buyer wanted a product cheaper than any French or German boat, but at a qaulity better than any Dutch or Sweedish yard,
result they all go bust.
Still the same to-day, look at the price of a BMW or Audi, then look at a British Rover and compare prices, we still want a BMW spec at a Skoda price, if Rover made the new Mini who would buy it ?.

Add to this the media, who remembers the comments about Hurley when they made internal headling mouldings and pre-made furniture kit for a boat that just droped in. Not a good word was said, yet now 30 years on we all buy German boats and the media thinks it's fine.

We have become a nation of the grass is allways greener on the other side of the fence.


Brian

 

[jimi]

This all reads to me like classic symptoms of a manufacturing led industry rather than a market focussed one. Perhaps the continentals actually sat down and produced a strategic plan looking at the market rather than just producing something they happened to like.

Lessons to be learnt but still the Brits don't learn.



Jim

 

[Guest]

A note to the few UK builders.

There IS a demand for cost effective british boats. Most boats sold in the UK seem to be Bav / Ben / Jen / Elan.

I imagine (but may of course be totally incorrect) that the majority of buyers would have been more than happy to consider a brit built boat.

=A lot of sales.

Export prospects are good. The reputation of UK boats (unlike cars) is excellent, there is a market overseas which holds our products in high regard.

=More sales

Build a market driven product, add the past reputation of our boats and the charter companies will fall over themselves to buy it.

=Loadsa money.

If I had the wonga, that's what I'd do

Jim

 

[billmacfarlane]

Well said. It's not just boating though. Substitute " boat " for "motor bike" and you've described the demise of the British motor cycle industry starting in the late 50's when the first Japanese bikes arrived. The same factors are prevalent in a lot more cases as well. Cars ?

 

[billmacfarlane]

If you want an HR you'll have to wait for about 18 months. Sounds like they've got healthy order books though they're not strictly a high volume company but they know they're market well enough to produce in the volumes required to keep healthy.

 

[Gunfleet]

It's not true. There was a hiatus, but now you can buy perfectly good NEW English Triumph motobikes

 

[30boat]

I can vouch for the Fulmar.Mine is certainly built like a tank and at 22 years of age is still perfect structurally apart from some minor niggles.Can't say the same for my 1972 Triumph Trident though.The thing falls to bits every time I ride it.Anyone interested in it?

 

[gunnarsilins]

JeremyF - Swedish industry

I am sure the 3 big (?) Swedish manufacturers are doing quite good. But to compare them with the like of Bav-Jen-Ben or similar cannot be done. In comparison they all are niched low volume yards.

When Sweden had its boating industry crisis during the eighties yards like HR, Malo and Najad and some others profiled themselves and aimed mainly for the German market. At that time Sweden have had its yachting boom and the market was crowded with relatively cheap Albins and Maxis. The average Swede already had his affordable yacht and people with a massive amount of money were relatively few.
I think these Swedish yards were able to survive because they built expensive yachts far a big export market and didn´t give a damn for the average Swede with an limited budget.
Could something similar have happened to the British industry? I don´t think the British boating industry ever had a big share of its production selling abroad?

 

[extravert]

Re: JeremyF - Swedish industry

The Danish company X-Yachts seems to be going from strength to strength, having come from nothing to a medium volume builder in the same time that Westerley went the other way. They produce above average quality boats at and above average price without being in the top end but unaffordable-to-most segment. Their labour prices are high and for a long time have had an unhelpful exchange rate, but they seem to have been able to build up significant export markets, especially in Scandinavia/Benelux/Germany. This is vital to them as their home market is small. So if they could do that, why couldn't we? I expect it has a lot to do with design. If you compare a Westerley to an X-Yacht I'm sure most people would prefer the X-Yacht.