Why have southerly gone bust (again)?

[Twister_Ken]

I am also saddened by Southerly's demise but they still have the molds and keep rights to the keel........i'll bet if one rocked up with a hand full of cash they would find a (safe) way of building one. IIRC, when they went bust last year they still paid all their suppliers, i wonder if that will be so this time?

Strictly, no. The boat building company that's gone titzup (again) just built the boats. IP and the moulds are owned by another company within the group (my understanding). So moulds, IP, machinery, land, buildings, etc won't fall within the insolvency.

 

[bob234]

To be fair to north shore they didn't do an opal marine.

That was Peters. Opal marine was fine until bought by Peters, but it was Peters that left people out in the cold.

 

[dunedin]

This is Scuttbutt stop posting such sensible and logical posts and let those that lust after old or restricted designs that don't sell (is that the reason they mostly own 30yr old MABs?) dream on.

So true

 

[Stork_III]

They used to use Contessa 26's and 32's - I've spent a week or two in a Contessa 26 with 3 or 4 others on quite a few occasions. A Rustler would be luxury for them. Oddly enough Southerly's would have been great because of the shoal water capability. 6' draft would put quite a few places in the Baltic out of reach.

Is your memory true? BKYC had a fleet of 12 Contessa 28, followed by 12 HR29, 12 HR31, Two fleets of 10 Najad 331, 10 Comfortina 35, and finally 3 fleets of 10 HR342. They did and still do have various other boats but not as fleets.

 

[grumpy_o_g]

Is your memory true? BKYC had a fleet of 12 Contessa 28, followed by 12 HR29, 12 HR31, Two fleets of 10 Najad 331, 10 Comfortina 35, and finally 3 fleets of 10 HR342. They did and still do have various other boats but not as fleets.

The RAF fleet at BKYC was Contessa 26's and 32's and two beautiful 100 square metre wooden yachts that were the spoils of the Second World war, at least when I sailed there in the 70's and 80's. You could be right about the BKYC fleet though as I'm thinking of Service boats rather than ones owned by BKYC.

 

[[70521]]

I think these days people look very much more carefully at phoenix companies

We sure do.

 

[Grehan]

Well that's sad. And yet it's not unexpected.
We absolutely loved our Southerly 115 - a yacht that was I guess pricey compared to what else we might have considered but was well built, well designed and sailed as well as we ever wanted anything to. It was not, however, super sophisticated or super luxurious. Northshore's 'customer service' could be extremely rude and dismissive. Not always, but often enough to a residual bad feeling about the company.
But not the boat.

 

[Sybarite]

Strictly, no. The boat building company that's gone titzup (again) just built the boats. IP and the moulds are owned by another company within the group (my understanding). So moulds, IP, machinery, land, buildings, etc won't fall within the insolvency.

Had the same thing happened in France the authorities would look for evidence of parallel trading ie keeping the assets safe in one company whilst isolating the risks and potential losses to creditors in another. In such a case they would look at the substance over the form and extend the procedure to the asset owning company. They might also look for management negligence and override the limited liability concept if fraud or negligence were established.

 

[Tempus]

Had the same thing happened in France the authorities would look for evidence of parallel trading ie keeping the assets safe in one company whilst isolating the risks and potential losses to creditors in another. In such a case they would look at the substance over the form and extend the procedure to the asset owning company. They might also look for management negligence and override the limited liability concept if fraud or negligence were established.

The net result of all that being that France is still in recession, the rate of business start-ups are amongst the lowest in the developed world and unemployment is still climbing. I for one would prefer a few dodgy traders and a healthy economy. If the assets hadn't been protected the banks would have seized the land and lots of pretty new houses would now be being built in Itchenor. The suppliers wouldn't even have seen any of the money as the banks and HMRC take first cut.

 

[Twister_Ken]

the banks would have seized the land and lots of pretty new houses would now be being built in Itchenor.

I've heard that the land is not zoned for residential, and is unlikely to be in the foreseeable future. When the foreseeable future runs out I'm not sure.

Apart from that, Britain needs new homes rather more than it needs lift keel yachts!

 

[RIBW]

Why can't the British manufacture anything successfully - eg cars or boats - yet they seem to do ok once under foreign ownership

Easy - At the macro level, British education and society is dominated by arts graduates and accountants/bankers. At the micro level; as long as the BBC continues to broadcast that "engineers are being sent to repair xxxxxx" . British engineering and manufacturing will not change. How difficult is it for the BBC to distinguish between electricians, mechanics linesmen etc. etc.? The UK engineering institutions are ineffective and are rarely evident in the media. Professional sales training is absent from British engineering/manufacture in general and in the marine industry in particular.
Foreign ownership brings the management, training and discipline needed for success.
I'm a Chartered Engineer comprehensively trained in sales by an extremely large US company. Dealing with Brit marine companies would be painful if I hadn't learned to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen (after all many in the marine industry are in it for the lifestyle not because they are businessmen - which is very forgivable).
Rant over
Bob

 

[Tempus]

Apart from that, Britain needs new homes rather more than it needs lift keel yachts!

A very fair point! And I'd not disagree, except to say that Britain also needs manufacturers and exporters too and you could make s apsimilar "do we really need another x" argument to dismiss most businesses providing work for people.

 

[Sailfree]

Easy - At the macro level, British education and society is dominated by arts graduates and accountants/bankers. At the micro level; as long as the BBC continues to broadcast that "engineers are being sent to repair xxxxxx" . British engineering and manufacturing will not change. How difficult is it for the BBC to distinguish between electricians, mechanics linesmen etc. etc.? The UK engineering institutions are ineffective and are rarely evident in the media. Professional sales training is absent from British engineering/manufacture in general and in the marine industry in particular.
Foreign ownership brings the management, training and discipline needed for success.
I'm a Chartered Engineer comprehensively trained in sales by an extremely large US company. Dealing with Brit marine companies would be painful if I hadn't learned to expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen (after all many in the marine industry are in it for the lifestyle not because they are businessmen - which is very forgivable).
Rant over
Bob

As a Chartered Civil & Structural Engineer I completely agree.

Len Deighton in his history book of WWII "Blood Sweat and Folly" is highly critical of the UK education system for the lack of technical expertise and poor engineering that resulted in Germany having vastly superior arms through most of WWII.

Unfortunately apart from a brief foray into a few Technical secondary schools in the 50's I feel that little has changed.

A recent article in the magazine "New Civil Engineer" stated that every Chinese politician is trained as an engineer first.

 

[maxi77]

As a Chartered Civil & Structural Engineer I completely agree.

Len Deighton in his history book of WWII "Blood Sweat and Folly" is highly critical of the UK education system for the lack of technical expertise and poor engineering that resulted in Germany having vastly superior arms through most of WWII.

Unfortunately apart from a brief foray into a few Technical secondary schools in the 50's I feel that little has changed.

A recent article in the magazine "New Civil Engineer" stated that every Chinese politician is trained as an engineer first.

On.the otherhand having worked for companies run by engineers I have seen salesmanship reduced to process even though the actual business was effectively run. In the UK the big problen is short termism rather than long term planning. Laterly I worked for an Italian company and they took a much longer term view on both plant and technology investment which really did pay off.

We do produce some very good engineers but many lose their inovative drive through the over structured hierarchy systems beloved of engineering management.

The Germans may have designed good kit but much of it took far too long to make and was not that reliable in practice. As a result they were overwhelmed by superior numbers time and time again

 

[RIBW]

On.the otherhand ........

Fearing thread drift, I'll be brief.
I don't see anything in your posting that is "on the other hand...". It seems you have experienced some of the poor sales and management I was describing.
Bob

 

[E39mad]

I fear the massive tooling expense of producing ever larger boats in a market for which they may have been inexperienced plus the additional costs of new factories have taken their toll. Also agree about demographics and current generations not having the disposable income or time for sailing.

Shame as is a great product.

 

[Sybarite]

On.the otherhand having worked for companies run by engineers I have seen salesmanship reduced to process even though the actual business was effectively run. In the UK the big problen is short termism rather than long term planning. Laterly I worked for an Italian company and they took a much longer term view on both plant and technology investment which really did pay off.

We do produce some very good engineers but many lose their inovative drive through the over structured hierarchy systems beloved of engineering management.

The Germans may have designed good kit but much of it took far too long to make and was not that reliable in practice. As a result they were overwhelmed by superior numbers time and time again

We had a German subsidiary which produced the most wonderful equipment for vehicles but were constantly in a loss position. It was very hard to convince them that they were producing a "Rolls Royce" when the market was asking for a "Ford".

Perhaps the problem with the UK boating industry?

 

[Oscarpop]

We had a German subsidiary which produced the most wonderful equipment for vehicles but were constantly in a loss position. It was very hard to convince them that they were producing a "Rolls Royce" when the market was asking for a "Ford".

Perhaps the problem with the UK boating industry?

I think that oyster are doing well and their boats are also top end.

 

[pvb]

I think that oyster are doing well...

Haven't a lot of people have lost a lot of money owning the Oyster business in the last few years? That doesn't necessarily equate with "doing well". The current Dutch owners bought it rather cheaply.

 

[Richard Shead]

Haven't a lot of people have lost a lot of money owning the Oyster business in the last few years? That doesn't necessarily equate with "doing well". The current Dutch owners bought it rather cheaply.

One of them didn't ...