longjohnsilver
Well-Known Member
I employed a firm to clean and polish my boat, a 48’ trawler yacht, not the hull, just the topsides. The following is an extract from their quote
“She will need a full valet before polishing. There’s also a few areas that will have to be hand polished but that’s not a problem just have to give it a bit more elbow grease!
2 days valet - complete boat wash of the whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas.
4 days cut and polish of whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas plus a wax coat for gleaming results. “
In light of the above, would you expect them to do the polishing before the full valet? And then after the polishing the only time it was cleaned was a quick wash down in the rain, including getting all the flybridge cushions saturated, and then a quick hand wax without using a machine buffer! And then leaving large sections of the canvas covers splattered with either polish or wax.
Unfortunately I wasn’t around to see the work being done, I’d actually left messages asking them to postpone the work till the spring! Again, unfortunately, it was claimed that my phone and text messages hadn’t been received, so the work went ahead without my knowledge.
What would you expect to be charged for this? The firm I used have previously done some good gelcoat work for me and my son, all be it, again leaving a mess behind, maybe that should have had the alarm bells ringing, but actually cleaning the boat you’d expect to get it back in a better condition than it was initially!! They obviously have done some polishing, not sure about the waxing bit, but equally have left large areas untouched. And I’d guess after speaking with my live aboard neighbour, they’ve spent a max of 3 days working.
To say I’m disappointed is an understatement, I could have done better with my electric polisher and buffer in not much more than a day. I’m in 2 minds as to what to do next, I initially said I wouldn’t be paying them anything until the job is completed to my satisfaction, but on reflection, I reckon I paid well under the odds for the previous gel coat work, so I offered to pay half what was quoted now, and discuss the balance when we meet, which can’t be for at least another month. But then I got the phone call from my partner saying she’d just spent 5 hours clearing up some of the mess they’d left behind, but more cleaning still needed. So I am not paying a anything at the moment. And I’ve told them not to go onto the boat again.
So what would you do? Pay nothing or a % of the original quote?
“She will need a full valet before polishing. There’s also a few areas that will have to be hand polished but that’s not a problem just have to give it a bit more elbow grease!
2 days valet - complete boat wash of the whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas.
4 days cut and polish of whole exterior coach house, flybridge, fore & aft deck areas plus a wax coat for gleaming results. “
In light of the above, would you expect them to do the polishing before the full valet? And then after the polishing the only time it was cleaned was a quick wash down in the rain, including getting all the flybridge cushions saturated, and then a quick hand wax without using a machine buffer! And then leaving large sections of the canvas covers splattered with either polish or wax.
Unfortunately I wasn’t around to see the work being done, I’d actually left messages asking them to postpone the work till the spring! Again, unfortunately, it was claimed that my phone and text messages hadn’t been received, so the work went ahead without my knowledge.
What would you expect to be charged for this? The firm I used have previously done some good gelcoat work for me and my son, all be it, again leaving a mess behind, maybe that should have had the alarm bells ringing, but actually cleaning the boat you’d expect to get it back in a better condition than it was initially!! They obviously have done some polishing, not sure about the waxing bit, but equally have left large areas untouched. And I’d guess after speaking with my live aboard neighbour, they’ve spent a max of 3 days working.
To say I’m disappointed is an understatement, I could have done better with my electric polisher and buffer in not much more than a day. I’m in 2 minds as to what to do next, I initially said I wouldn’t be paying them anything until the job is completed to my satisfaction, but on reflection, I reckon I paid well under the odds for the previous gel coat work, so I offered to pay half what was quoted now, and discuss the balance when we meet, which can’t be for at least another month. But then I got the phone call from my partner saying she’d just spent 5 hours clearing up some of the mess they’d left behind, but more cleaning still needed. So I am not paying a anything at the moment. And I’ve told them not to go onto the boat again.
So what would you do? Pay nothing or a % of the original quote?
