Reporting Faults On Hire Boats

[deebee29]

Had the totally opposite reaction from Bridgecraft a few years ago.

I dropped a Pyrex measuring jug which we replaced with an almost identical one from Stalham.

On our return I told them what had happened and was thanked but they said these things happen and we shouldn’t have wasted our holiday looking for a replacement.

Said it many times but what a great company Bridgecraft are.

[TostockTimonier]

Many years ago the throttle cable came loose when I tried to slow down to join the Ant at the top of Paddy's Lane. We were on The Tamar Bridge from Bridgecraft and I had to use the bow thrusters to avoid an accident. We limped to Barton Staithe on tick over and called the boat yard, only took half an hour for his son to arrive and it didn't take him too long to fit the new bracket, it worked fine. When we returned the boat at the end of the holiday they apologised for the inconvenience caused, I was just thankful for the bow thrusters (so were the other two boats!)

[Davydine]

On 30/09/2017 at 17:23, 40something said:

I once went on board a hireboat to take a look for a concerned couple who had told us their boat smelled of diesel but the yard had told them 'its an old boat, what do you expect', well actually the boat reeked of diesel and the culprit was a weeping injector pipe, I reckon that leak had been present for a long time based on the state of the engine undertrays and the absorbent pads they contained, all for a £30 part and an hour or so of an engineers time, although looking round the boat was neglected in other areas too. This was in the 90's and the yard does not exist now.

Was it by any chance from a yard on the southern rivers? Sounds similar to a boat I hired once!

on another note, we hired "Broads Serenade" earlier this year, and unfortunately the oven wouldn't stay lit, I think the thermocouple had failed. It wasn't a problem for us as we didn't need it over a weekend, but we did report it when we got back and I did wonder if it got fxed before it went out on hire again.

[dnks34]

1 hour ago, deebee29 said:

Had the totally opposite reaction from Bridgecraft a few years ago.

I dropped a Pyrex measuring jug which we replaced with an almost identical one from Stalham.

On our return I told them what had happened and was thanked but they said these things happen and we shouldn’t have wasted our holiday looking for a replacement.

Said it many times but what a great company Bridgecraft are.

Theres customer service and theres good customer service!

[Broads01]

I completely agree Johnstone about Richardsons and their response to rectifying faults. I've not had to call them frequently because everything tends to work without issue but when I have, they attend promptly and positively. 

[Oddfellow]

Our biggest problem is people not reporting things whilst we can do something and often is so simple! Like the time that we took a kettle off for cleaning and forgot to put it back; the complaint came a week later on the boat's return when a phonecall the evening they took it would would have had us running across the Broads to deliver one. 

Then there's the damn great crack and scrape in the canopy where the customer smashed a bridge on the second night and failed to tell us until it was turn around day. 

If you have a fault, report it. Even if you don't want to be bothered by an engineer repairing it, the yard needs to know so it can plan fixing it when it comes back rather than it coming as a surprise on a busy day which could easily impact on the vessel being hired on time.