Why have the Big 3 abandoned the "ordinary" man

[oldgit]

"There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse and se

Why do we have this obsession with we must make everything cheap ? there is no profit in cheap, profit is in quality and quality cost very little more than cheap.

The Germans learnt it.

Brian

But it is profitable to be cheap, all the major manufacturers profits will be generated from their basic products, a tiny tiny proportion from their low volume luxury "quality" stuff ?

 

[jrudge]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Lots of good arguments. At the end of the day the ones that know the numbers are the builders themselves and they have all moved upmarket. They all loose money, but Sealine who went smaller went bust first.

Message - dont invest in boat building.

The Prestige split brand model is probably closest to the best answer but you have to a BIG to contemplate such a thing.

Re the hand made argument above I could not agree more. We have an Aston DB9. The salesman will say in the same breath ... well sir is is hand made of course making it exceptional quality......me : the panel fit needs adjustment.... well of course sir you must appreciate it is hand made! They don't get the irony!

The bottom line here is these are very expensive depreciating toys that are also expensive to run. As such the market is limited and there is over supply ... hence manufacturers go bust.

Unless this underlying issue is resolved by either less sellers or more buyers then whatever the forum views are it won't really make much difference.

When do people buy new boats. Long ago my father was involved with BA peters. The boats sold in the main to either people retiring ( pension payout) or people who had sold businesses. They are aspirational lifetime symbols of achievement ( in many cases) and I would suggest many of those people will buy bigger boats. The aspirational element drives finish, which then drives cost,

I was at the boat show. I looked at ( I think) a 42 foot Sessa. It was bar the shouting £500k. Thats a lot a lot of money for a 40 odd foot boat and therein lies the core issue. The boats are too expensive .... but they are all losing money.

Who knows the answer - I don't .... but I would rather invest in an industry with at least some prospect of a return!

 

[greenace]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Seems there's a perception that high-quality, low volume, expensive boats are mutually exclusive with high volume, built-to-a-price, smaller boats. Among manufacturers in this country at least. If so, it seems our big three have missed a trick while the French have cleaned up.

Maybe I'm being spectacularly naive here but I can't see why they couldn't make smaller boats at the same time, in the same place they build the bigger boats. They wouldn't have to cheapen their precious brand by doing so - a bit of clever halo marketing plus a new name would help smooth over any customer 'roadbumps'. In fact, the affiliation might actually help - 'Designed by Sunseeker', for example (a bit like Seat did with their 'Engineered by Porsche' labelling in the late 90s). The modern manufacturing processes they have access to are much more efficient than those of 20 years ago, and way more cost effective. Reduced cost, modular, high-volume boat building would be comparatively easy.

There's definitely a market. Given the relative feasibility, it seems odd to ignore the 'ordinary' people saying 'I want to give you my money'. Profit on small boats is still a profit.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

There's definitely a market. Given the relative feasibility, it seems odd to ignore the 'ordinary' people saying 'I want to give you my money'.

Do these people exist, though? In the sailing world Bavaria have the art of mass production of boats down to a spectacularly fine art, and could easily knock out 21-footers or 26-footers at prices no small producer could come near. They don't, though, and on the basis that they are not stupid, I conclude that there just aren't purchasers around in that sector ... certainly not enough to make tooling up for production worthwhile. That leaves the market, such as it is, to a handful of cottage industry producers.

Maybe it's different in motorboat land, what with the limited life of marine diesels ... how well is the market for 26 footers (say) served by used boats?

 

[halcyon]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

But it is profitable to be cheap, all the major manufacturers profits will be generated from their basic products, a tiny tiny proportion from their low volume luxury "quality" stuff ?

What cheap car manufacture makes 8 billion euro pre tax profits ?

When the new Mini was a concept BMW had two design teams, 1 UK 1 German. The UK team designed a rear engined roomy small car with quirky styling, the Germans built a retro Mini around existing bits and fitted a bought in engine. Which went into production, the safe design but at a premium selling price on the back of BMW. In 2004 basic Mini around £12,000, Rover 25, roomier, more technologically up to date, far higher on the reliability rating but sold not as well for only £8,000. But not happy selling you a expensive car, BMW are providing Private Leasing, 2014 they supplied around 1,400,000 leases, known as maximising profit.

To-day you have Mini's made in Austria and Netherlands in large numbers that was designed in Germany and share a platform with the new BMW, but again on a very high price level.

The death of our boatbuilding, in fact all our manufacturing is what's the cheapest we can make, the only reason is it is easy to sell the cheapest item, it is hard to to sell expensive because you have to have a good reason for the customer to buy. Now that is the art of marketing, or more critically takes time and hard work, we expect tomorrow for no work.

Brian

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Who knows the answer - I don't .... but I would rather invest in an industry with at least some prospect of a return!

Excellent post, J. IMHO the problem with the boat building industry is simple. Its' products are far far too expensive. As you say half a million quid for a run of the mill 40ft sportsboat is just stupid. Year on year new boat prices have outstripped inflation and it seems to me that the boating industry has not done what other manufacturing industries have done which is to find more cost efficient ways of making its products. In inflation adjusted terms, most manufactured products from consumer goods to cars to construction machines are cheaper than they used to be but not boats. 20yrs ago in 1996 I bought a new BMW 528i and I paid £26k for it. Funnily enough, BMW still make a 528i today and it costs £37k, less than half as much again.

Because I'm an anorak I still have old copies of MBY and MBM. In Jan '96, MBY tested a Fairline Sq55 and its list price was £400k. Today I'm guessing that if Fairline were still in business, the list price of a similar boat would be north of £1m ie 2 and a half times as much

For me therein lies the problem. If the boating industry could find a way of making its products cheaper, it might have a future but as it is, it is dying a slow and painful death

 

[halcyon]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Do these people exist, though? In the sailing world Bavaria have the art of mass production of boats down to a spectacularly fine art, and could easily knock out 21-footers or 26-footers at prices no small producer could come near. They don't, though, and on the basis that they are not stupid, I conclude that there just aren't purchasers around in that sector ... certainly not enough to make tooling up for production worthwhile. That leaves the market, such as it is, to a handful of cottage industry producers.

Maybe it's different in motorboat land, what with the limited life of marine diesels ... how well is the market for 26 footers (say) served by used boats?

Have we thought as a Nation we do not sell ourselves, for instance Poland see http://www.polska.pl/en/business-science/investments-projects/poland-yachting-powerhouse/

The markets out there, we had that market, we lost that market,

Someone mentioned Sealine going bust, that had 700 staff making 50 boats a year, Tom had around 200 at Sealine making 450/500 a year, Delphia Yachts have 450-550 (seasonal ) making 1200 motor yachts and 250 sailing yachts a year. But you do not read look how cheap we are, it's look at our quality.

Known as product engineering.

Brian

 

[greenace]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

the problem with the boat building industry is simple. Its' products are far far too expensive.

Absolutely right. I took a non-boating friend to Southampton and we went on board a Predator 57. She thought it was nice and asked the SS chap how much it was. When he said 'about one and a half million' she just laughed. She genuinely thought he was joking.

It was my turn to laugh when she asked him how it could possibly be so much - 'it's just plywood and plastic isn't it?' He didn't really have an answer ...

 

[oldgit]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

What cheap car manufacture makes 8 billion euro pre tax profits.

VAG claimed a profit of 13 billion euros in 2014.
They sold 370,000 VW Up and 750 Lamborgini Aventador between 2011 - 2014.

 

[halcyon]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

VAG claimed a profit of 13 billion euros in 2014.
They sold 370,000 VW Up and 750 Lamborgini Aventador between 2011 - 2014.

So VW, Audi, Porsche are basic cars ? VAG make around 10,000,000 vehicles, BMW make 2,000,000 million, lot of effort for the extra profit.

Brian

 

[JumbleDuck]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Year on year new boat prices have outstripped inflation and it seems to me that the boating industry has not done what other manufacturing industries have done which is to find more cost efficient ways of making its products.

That may well be true of the UK boat making industry, but it's not universally true. Bavaria sailing boats (dunno about their motor boats) cost a lot less in real terms than they did twenty years ago, and they do that by extremely efficient manufacturing. Order a 34 footer and they'll make it for you, from scratch, in one week. They have some videos showing the process online: when you see an entire deck moulding finished (all cutouts and bolt holes) by CNC in 45 minutes you realise just how far away the bloke-with-a-bucket side of the industry is.

 

[DougH]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

That may well be true of the UK boat making industry, but it's not universally true. Bavaria sailing boats (dunno about their motor boats) cost a lot less in real terms than they did twenty years ago, and they do that by extremely efficient manufacturing. Order a 34 footer and they'll make it for you, from scratch, in one week. They have some videos showing the process online: when you see an entire deck moulding finished (all cutouts and bolt holes) by CNC in 45 minutes you realise just how far away the bloke-with-a-bucket side of the industry is.

You must get out more JumbleDuck.

Get yourself along to Sunseeker's factories and see real state of the art manufacturing.

Your expression 'bloke-with-a-bucket' shows your age not knowledge of modern day boat building.

 

[doug748]

No go back to 1970, George Hurley offered two layout for the yacht, all internal parts were pre made a kit, dropped in and glassed, deck had a moulded headliner, fit deck boat finished. Boat designed and optimised for moving yachts down the line, maximise factory through put.......
Brian

Yes, a bit of drift here but,
I visited their plant several times, when it was in use by Marine Projects and later Princess Yachts. It certainly was not the leaky boathouse of popular forum imagination but a purpose built production unit on a small industrial estate. They were under capitalised but working with CNC 25 years ago.
The continental marques may well crack the small power boat market, they probably will as they have a large and loyal market on their doorstep and a clear commercial edge. However I feel it is very wrong to portray companies like Hurley as populated by hayseeds with fag ends behind their ears.

 

[jrudge]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Wow. Way to go. I can promise Fairline was not like that. Or sun seeker

 

[jrudge]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

I visited sun seeker about 2 years ago.


Man with a bucket maybe not but it is a million miles from Bavaria.

You must get out more JumbleDuck.

Get yourself along to Sunseeker's factories and see real state of the art manufacturing.

Your expression 'bloke-with-a-bucket' shows your age not knowledge of modern day boat building.

 

[halcyon]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

That may well be true of the UK boat making industry, but it's not universally true. Bavaria sailing boats (dunno about their motor boats) cost a lot less in real terms than they did twenty years ago, and they do that by extremely efficient manufacturing. Order a 34 footer and they'll make it for you, from scratch, in one week. They have some videos showing the process online: when you see an entire deck moulding finished (all cutouts and bolt holes) by CNC in 45 minutes you realise just how far away the bloke-with-a-bucket side of the industry is.

But that was how Hurley made yachts in 1970, equipment has come on, but the process is the same. Building the cruiser is no different to Sealine in the 80's, equipment changes we get new methods, but Sealine carpentry shop looked like in the video. Each boat was issued with a kit of parts, fitting looms, fitting deck last, all done at Sealine.

Brian

 

[paul salliss]

A big part of the problem is us lot, half a million for a 40 footer is a bit silly , but we expect it to be a house, ice makers , plush loo's , electric this and that, appliances as per the house at home, amazing internet based music stuff , sky dome's , amazing fabrics , veneers and upholstery, and the list goes on and on and on!!

My father always owned good 40/ 50 footers but he never had the level of luxury that we all now just plain " expect" I remember it as posh sea based camping and that was on a decent boat - an Aquastar!! Perhaps the answer is a return to basics , a decent British builder gives you a finished boat with basic spec, you can then go and use your local contractors to up grade as you go , a win for all concerned perhaps, and if you don't want to go that route pay the £0.5 mill and stop moaning, just a thought..........

 

[halcyon]

A big part of the problem is us lot, .

Probably the truth.

A bit of flesh on the bones, Dug out some old serial numbers for panels to Sealine 1988/89 which gives production as

215's 8/10 month
255's 10/11 month
285's 10 month
305's 10 month did hit 14 / month
365's 10 month

That was from 40% of the production they had when they closed, boats were full spec as standard, mains, mains charger,fridge, nav equip, electric winch, H&C pressure water etc, so the were not just a basic hull.

End of the day buyers want more boat, more bling, management wanta easy life and not work for the profit, that is for the UK.

Brian

 

[JumbleDuck]

Re: "There is Hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little worse an

Get yourself along to Sunseeker's factories and see real state of the art manufacturing.

Your expression 'bloke-with-a-bucket' shows your age not knowledge of modern day boat building.

I'm glad to hear it, but there are still a lot of blokes with buckets around. Fairline, for example. The blokes can do good work, but it takes a long time and it's very expensive.

 

[paul salliss]

Agreed, you can't have it all, I once bought a boat and got charged over £1k for some poxy scatter cushions , more fool me I Hear you say. Its all a bit silly , go into a new a Princess these days and the finish is stunning, but all that finish cost big money, you can't have ya cake and eat it something has to give.
I bought a new Broom in 2014, all those that have been on board seem to agree that the finsish is top notch, but I did have to dig deep and I fully understand why some would perhaps not want all that, they may want a boat in a more basic form and finish it as they would a "new build" house themselves, why not offer that option , would be good for the supply chain contractors as well maybe