Windboats

[wombat nee blownup]

Windboats have gone into administration. I’ll have to buy a Haines instead now.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Norfolk Broads Network

[ChrisB]

It is their centenary year. .A company renowned for innovation with Aluminium and Seacrete and associations with some of the finest names like Oyster and Hardy. Such a shame.

[grendel]

From what the edp say they are trying to find someone to buy out the business and no redundacies have happened yet, so there is still some hope.

[grendel]

https://www.edp24.co.uk/business/historic-norfolk-boatbuilder-windboat-marine-looking-for-new-buyer-1-6631234

[JennyMorgan]

Regretfully Oyster has unhelpful history: https://www.sailingtoday.co.uk/news/oyster-825-polina-star-sank-due-to-unsound-lamination/

Whilst it almost certainly won't happen again the fact remains that it did.

[marshman]

I don't think there is much connection anymore Pete - Oyster are built now in an entirely different operation on the site off Tunstead Road? I might be wrong but the greater connection is that Len now owns all that land in Wroxham now.

I am afraid the closing of Hardy has long been fairly inevitable.

[Bernard]

Oyster and windboats parted company about 7 years ago, that's when they took over hardy's after Mark Funnels death. Len does own the land in wroxham now after windboats moved to the more practical site in North Walsham in 2018!

[Turnoar]

I’d be disappointed if the business wasn’t bought up quick by someone with optimism, passion and enough money to sustain the brand. The Hardy range have a solid appeal and their own slot in the marketplace, if anything the later designs less so and the future looks small in terms of buyers budgets, the 36 scaled down a bit more could be a move in the right direction. Fingers crossed for all the workforce, horrible time to be looking for another job so let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

[Stationerystill]

Very sad to hear this .My father ran Windboats for many years on behalf of Donald Hagenbach. He introduced aluminium and glass fibre to the company. Mr Hagenbach thought there was no future in glass fibre and my father thought there was no future in concrete so he resigned and started his own company. I remember when they built the new workshop nearest the road for the Oysters and how proud Trevor James was of it when he showed me round.I hope that maybe some one will buy it and save some of the jobs.

[marshman]

You could say the same thing about Brooms too - solid appeal and their own slot, but that side at Brooms has similarly been let go entirely and is worth pretty much zippo!  Sadly even before these last events, such virtues have long lost their appeal, except possibly to a declining and very small sector of the marketplace.

Good boats in their day but so were Westerlys and look how many times in differing guises they went down the pan and finally into oblivion

 

[JennyMorgan]

Never understood the appeal of Westerlies, sailing caravans. Now they are sought after, pre-owned classics that never sailed particularly well. I suppose the glut in second hand Westerlies, Brooms too, eventually became both brand's death knell. I was down at Brooms shortly after Martin died, there were forty plus pre-owned boats for sale on site at that time, hardly helpful. 

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, marshman said:

I am afraid the closing of Hardy has long been fairly inevitable.

I did look very seriously at buying one of the smaller Hardy boats for Broads use. Loved the boat but they were insistent on installing an engine that would have seriously over powered her for Broads use.  Then of course there was the issue of price, wow! Hardy's are good but that price, like the oversize engine, was a serious handicap. The head ruled the heart so i put the idea on hold and there it has stayed. In my case their inflexibility, more than anything, cost them a sale, perhaps others were similarly put off. I really have no great desire to belt along Oulton Dyke at thirty plus m.p.h., a concept that the salesman seemed incapable of accepting!

[Vaughan]

6 hours ago, Stationerystill said:

so he resigned and started his own company.

Where he made the famous "Bourne" hulls that so many Broads cruisers were built from.    

[ChrisB]

7 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Never understood the appeal of Westerlies, sailing caravans. Now they are sought after, pre-owned classics that never sailed particularly well. I suppose the glut in second hand Westerlies, Brooms too, eventually became both brand's death knell. I was down at Brooms shortly after Martin died, there were forty plus pre-owned boats for sale on site at that time, hardly helpful. 

I had two westerly yachts, a Centaur and a Berwick. Their appeal for me based in Poole firstly at Cobbs Quay in Holes Bay and then at Ridge Wharf on the River Frome just short of Wareham was their ability to dry out. 

They were extremely good family boats with very deep cockpits and very comfortable accommodation. We would cruise as a family as far as the Morbihan, with its extreme tidal flow as well as taking in the delights of the Aldeney and Portland races and St Aldhelm's Overfalls. Both my boats I had fitted with the most powerful engine options and re-prop'd as Motor Sailers knowing that I could motor into the teeth of a "Channel Summer Gale" when the family was below was very reassuring.

The other point is:- When family cruising you will end up spending more time in port than underway so that "caravan" accommodation becomes vitally important.

You have only to look at how many Westerlies are still seriously cruising to see how their quality has stood the test of time. 

It is fact that pressure to compromise on their traditional weight of hull lay-up was one of the deciding factors in closing the doors for good.

I was speaking to a surveyor only last year and he was saying that only now after all these years is he seeing hull stress around the twin keels and then only when the yacht has had a lifetime of taking the bottom twice a day on really hard sand.

If I were never going to enter a drying harbour a Contessa 32 would have been my choice but for Channel Port cruising inc The Channel Isles, a Westerly takes some beating, especially when you are, in effect single handed.

 

[ChrisB]

Going back 35 and more years I always had a affection for their little Motor Sailers from 18 to 21 feet. Lovely little boats for pottering about in Poole, Christchurch and Chichester Harbours and the Solent Rivers.

For years builders have gone bigger and bigger in their offering, maybe it is not the best business model.

 

[JennyMorgan]

Chris, I can quite see your logic. For three years I had a Fairy Atalanta that served me well in the roll that you have portrayed. A quirky beast but she suited us well. I believe that she is still afloat but I suspect that old Westerlies will be around long after she has passed on. There was a Contessa 28 at Bosham that in return for being 'boatman' to I was allowed to sail as and when, which wasn't very often but I have a long affection of my days out in the Channel aboard that boat, she was a joy for just the two of us.

[marshman]

Sailing caravans they may have been but as Chris said, roomy and practical boats - had a Pentland and sailed that around the Thames Estuary for years. As Chris said at least they sat upright, a key factor especially where the water often shallower than the  Broads! We actually bought the last shell out of that mould - Westerley put in the bulkheads, the engine and joined the two bits and we kitted out the inside using the brochure as our plan in my mates front garden - and very nice it was too!! Almost immediately after delivery that Westerley went bust and reemerged building stuff like the Konsort!!! Solid boats and you realised that by seeing the thickness of the hull when drilling holes in the bottom!!!!!

Good old days!!!

[Paul]

3 hours ago, ChrisB said:

For years builders have gone bigger and bigger in their offering, maybe it is not the best business model.

I always thought Hardy's move away from the smaller boats which had an avid following would prove their downfall, their offerings have got bigger and bigger and more and more expensive moving them into a highly competitive and already over populated market sector. 

But then again, I'm no boat builder ... 

Sad days none the less, is there likely to be a saviour out there, come on Jenny, you know you want to ... 

[ChrisB]

1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

Chris, I can quite see your logic. For three years I had a Fairy Atalanta that served me well in the roll that you have portrayed. A quirky beast but she suited us well. I believe that she is still afloat but I suspect that old Westerlies will be around long after she has passed on. There was a Contessa 28 at Bosham that in return for being 'boatman' to I was allowed to sail as and when, which wasn't very often but I have a long affection of my days out in the Channel aboard that boat, she was a joy for just the two of us.

Back about 74 Judith and I were loaned an Atalanta 26 in the South of France we sailed her out to the Iles d'hyeres and cruised the islands. We had a fabulous holiday before the boys came along.

Quirky to say the least, but many still sailing with a devoted following they certainly broke the mould and the autoclave when Fairey stopped. What a range from The Duckling to the Huntsman.

Many years later we repeated the trip out to Porquerolles, Île du Levant and Port-Cros on an Essex Smack loaned to us by the same person, sadly no longer with us. Unknown to me at the time was the Smack was built by Martham Boats.

 

[Bernard]

1 hour ago, Paul said:

I always thought Hardy's move away from the smaller boats which had an avid following would prove their downfall, their offerings have got bigger and bigger and more and more expensive moving them into a highly competitive and already over populated market sector. 

But then again, I'm no boat builder ... 

Sad days none the less, is there likely to be a saviour out there, come on Jenny, you know you want to ... 

They couldn't build the 42 fast enough a few years ago, for the size probably the best sea going boat out there, the RNLI had 2 of them for training which says something. What changed?

[Paul]

Austerity and eggs in one basket come to mind

 

[marshman]

Their boats  clearly did not conform to what people wanted and they were too slow in responding?

[JennyMorgan]

2 hours ago, marshman said:

Their boats  clearly did not conform to what people wanted and they were too slow in responding?

It's a very confused market that they were in. A walk around most coastal marinas will show that people can be perfectly content with sometimes quite hideous and decidedly vulgar boats, at least in my jaded opinion. Knowing what people want is no easy task, especially when far too many of those folk don't actually know what it is that they do want!  It's a lucky naval architect that gets it right! On top of that the second-hand market is absolutely awash with boats, indeed it is probably saturated. And then that thorny question, are there enough moorings available, especially at a reasonable price? 

[ChrisB]

I think some of the reasoning at Hardy for stopping the Bosun 20 and Hardy 26 was they took over the rights for Trusty Boats which they had been building. I looked at Trusty 23 and have to say it was a very nice, seaworthy craft.

I wonder if boats have just gone beyond Joe Public now? Boats are becoming serious money. A Trusty 23 will cost you over £100K on the water. A Cornish Shrimper, their smallest boat with a lid over £40K. A Drascombe Coaster over £30K. And a family cruiser £85K upwards. A lot of money to have tied up especially if it is purchased using the Bank's money.

[JennyMorgan]

3 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

I wonder if boats have just gone beyond Joe Public now?

I'm damn certain they have, and so have marina charges.