Vaughan

I have been saying this, over and over, on several different threads, for the last two weeks and more but no-one seems to want to believe me. I have only been in this business for most of my blasted life, after all!!

What the website says is all very well. The date of your holiday, for which you had paid, is passed, and their conditions of hire are specific that you are entitled to a refund in this case, or you can choose to re - book for a later date. I am afraid that without any contact, that means they are hanging on to your money. I am sure this is probably a clerical error of some sort, but you should now make contact with them. Did you book through Hoseasons? In which case ring them, as they are the agent. Looking after their customers, is what they charge commission for!

What baiting? If you mean that I was led into telling the true story of what happened to me, the last time, maybe you didn't believe me. Or maybe you are baiting yourself. I fully appreciate your sentiment about the 7000+ but maybe that also, is not for this thread. I saw on TV this evening - I can't remember exactly where - that small businesses applying for the government's new relief loans are already being quoted at 20% interest by some banks. So the buzzards have already started circling. For the last three years before I finally closed down, I was paying 22% on my business loan. Now that was what I call baiting.

And before that post gets modded, my reply is DAFFODILS.

I didn't know whether to "laugh", "thank", or "like". Please consider that you have had all three!!

Oh, for God's sake, not again.

Again, Chris, your wisdom is exactly correct The only businesses that survived the last Broads slump, or came out clear of debt, were those with their own freehold premises. I am sorry if I am sounding rather grumpy right now and I apologise to ECIPA if I have singled him out. But maybe he singled me out too? I am pretty sure I must be the only member of this forum who has actually been put out of a Broads boatyard business by a drastic recession and who has found himself literally sitting on his suitcases in what used to be the customers' car park, waiting for a taxi to take him to the railway station. I swore then, that I would never let that happen to me again. Sure enough it did, more than 30 years later but that is another story! There are those who say it takes a lot of courage to start up your own business and make a go of it, and they are right. I can also tell you that it takes a great deal more courage, and objectivity, to recognise when the time has come to shut it down. That is what a lot of my friends on the yards may well be thinking right now and I feel for them. All I can tell you is that when that time comes, you find that there is just nothing else you can do. If the customers are staying away, for whatever reason, then the figures just don't add up any more.

I am very glad that, from your own very personal point of view, all is going to be well for you in future. By the way, I trust you have paid your river toll? Time will tell, and I fear sooner rather than later, what the Broads will be like , including for all of our members who are regular hirers, some for several generations of the same family. They are "stakeholders" in the Broads as well. Let's not forget that, when we do a cool armchair analysis of the accounts of hire yards who are themselves, family businesses. Some since before the War. And the one that refused you entry - since before the First War.

Perhaps this is also what the BA are trying to protect, since they provide none of these services themselves. They rely on the boatyards for it, and quite rightly. In future, they may have to provide these services and the cost will surely be reflected in your private river toll. Let us be careful what we wish for. The BA are trying to support the boatyards because they are a big part of the vital infrastructure that makes up the Norfolk Broads.

Do you think you are saying something new? This is exactly what happened on the Broads in the mid 60s and I remember it well. Big boatyards in Wroxham all decided to sell their hire fleets and were very glad when David Millbank of Jenners bought the boats, and left the yards themselves to diversify into other things, such as sea-going yachts, or holiday cottages. The point of my last post, in reply to you, was that cash flow is what puts a business into administration and not the value of its paper assets in the accounts. This is exactly what happened to Jenners, (and this is a fact) since it expanded too quickly and ran out of cash flow in the bank. By the way, their collapse also dropped the bottom clean out of the second hand boat market. I am sorry to "diss"a few business theories, but some of us on the Broads have seen this before and from my experience, we are about to see it happen all over again. Believe me, it will not be pleasant. Including for the private boat owners, who might find they can't get their toilets pumped out or their diesel filled or their engine serviced as there are even fewer boatyards still in business.

I agree with what you say about the accounts of a limited company. Funny though, that you don't mention the business bank loan, the marine mortgage on the new boats, or the seasonal overdraft. I can promise you that hire yards don't come into profit, in terms of cash flow, until sometime in September! And then they are looking at paying all the maintenance and repairs on the fleet, for the next 6 months. It is nowhere near as simple as it might seem in the accounts. I think if I were a director and shareholder of one of those big yards and had only arrived at a £500K profit after a normal season I would be concerned for the solvency of my business, anyway. You seem to have taken my general remarks personally which you have no need to : You also take exception to "fat cat" although I am sure you know what I was trying to say. As to its origin in this discussion ; it may well have come from that chap on "the other side" that we were directed to, for his opinions.

Lovely photos, thanks Liz. It reminds me of Gray's Elegy again : Save that from yonder ivy - mantled tower, the moping owl does, to the moon complain - of such, as wandering near her secret bower; molest her ancient solitary reign.

To those who understand business, perhaps. To those who think the yards are "fat cat shareholders", perhaps not.

Sure, but if I had said they invested capital as tax avoidance, that would surely have attracted comment on here, like wasps around a jam pot!

Incidentally, a yard will always factor in the cost of labour when building, as it is an investment of profit into capital, in the accounts. In other words : "ploughing it back in". The Crown Classiques that Crown Cruisers were building for France in the late 90s, were costed at over £200,000 each.

Hire yards are always trying to modernise their fleets by building new ones : it is all part of the business and is also why the vast majority of private cruisers on the Broads are ex hire boats. After all, I am sure you would not expect Hertz to hire you a 25 year old car? "Have you got a Cortina Mk 11 available next week, please"?

So who's going to buy the old one, with the Broads closed?

Or Hoseasons, if you booked through their agency.

And will the ferry across the river Styx to Hades, still be a "necessary journey" by then? Or will we, as Greek Mythology had it, be forced to linger as ghosts on this Earth? Now there's a thought, to start my day !

Very well said, Chris. Holiday bookings depend on disposable income and I doubt there will be any of that around this year, after the crisis. A lot of people even take out finance, just to pay for their "right" to an annual holiday. I don't suppose they will be doing that again for a while!

Of course people are "liking" his posts, when they are liking the explanations he is kindly giving, in answer to our questions. I also like the fact that he is putting us right on one or two of our misconceptions!

I think in that case you should undoubtedly contact the boatyard.

On that note, I am off to bed. No doubt tomorrow there will still be those who wish to continue this rather ridiculous "thrust and parry" which will, sure enough, change nothing. I have said it before : You can't see the wood for the trees.

Have we? We have been told that we should not travel un-necessarily, which I take to mean from our home to our boat. Note that I say "should" not "must" in the legal definition. I am not aware of any new law which says that a boat cannot navigate the Norfolk Broads. I don't think it is the BA, that has said we should stay at home. And I don't think it is the DVLA, that has said we should not travel in our cars. But they are not refunding anyone's car tax.

And on another of those, I suggested we get real about this. The boatyards would not have paid their tolls anyway! They would have just let it become an overdue account, and let the BA chase them for it! Knowing perfectly well that they would be paying their tolls again before the BA could ever get near a courtroom to pursue them. Or of course, if the yards do not survive, then the BA finds itself a long way down the list of creditors chasing a few pence in the pound. That's the real world, folks! This way, the BA have had the sense and yes indeed, the courtesy, to waive the situation for the moment and allow a bit of temporary relief. That way there will be no hard feelings, when we get back to normal. Common sense, I call it!