So What Is Going On At Herbert Woods

[FlyingFortress]

So I know this is second hand information.

I was speaking to a family on a HW Connoisseur this afternoon.

As usual with the loudest exhaust running.

Nice family and.as you know the temperature at night is very low forecast -2 again tonight.

They said that the moment they switched off the engine last night the heater stopped.

They called out the engineer this morning when the engine didn't start due to a low battery and the engineer replaced one battery. When asked about the heating tonight he.said put the oven on.

They were a lot concerned if this was safe.

I did say there should be a CO detector on board and the oven should have a flame out cut off but did warn that if a boat was going out on hire with that poor level of maintenance then I would not be confident that any systems on board would work.

Some friends of mine who are boat owners themselves hired from HW last year and basically the batteries were shot and they could not start the heater without starting the engine and also the fridge didn't work until day 5 of.a.7 day hire when they insisted the whole battery bank was changed.

This was September so later on in the season but the one today is very early in the season.

Also the outside of the boat was very grubby just like a lot of them were last season.

What is going on?

Or do we have to put up with another season of trying to avoid being anywhere near HW boat as it will be running it's engine continuously.

[Mouldy]

It is quite noticeable that some of their boats are amongst the shabbiest on The Broads.  I’ve seen holidaymakers trying to secure their craft with ropes that are barely good enough to tie up a dinghy, too short, knotted and in real need of replacement.  Maintenance appears to largely be reactive, not proactive.

If I was still hiring, it’s certainly not where I’d be spending my money.  For what yards are charging now, I expect something that is properly maintained and fit for purpose.  Spending hours of a holiday that I’ve  paid a lot of money for, waiting for an engineer to resolve problems that should have been resolved on changeover is not good enough, imho.

[BrundallNavy]

It may have changed but I thought the Connoisseur‘s are not actually owned by HW this could have something to do with the lack of maintenance over the last few years. 

[andyg]

They are, I've been in the yard a few times this winter. They seem to spend a lot of time pressure washing the boats. That's not quite the same as polishing and compounding the boat. I've no idea what's inside the big sheds but I would of thought there's room in them to get at least 6 to 10 boats out at a time for a spruce up. I've always had good service when I've used them but the fleet isn't the best. 

[CeePee1952]

In their defence, we hired Sovereign Light last September for a week and to be honest we couldn't fault it or the staff.  Ok, so it's one of their "elite" range and one would expect a high standard.  We have hired Supreme Light this year for October (there's only the two of us this year) and Sovereign Light (for 4 of us) for September 2023.  I don't think we'll be disappointed.

Chris

[FlyingFortress]

21 minutes ago, BrundallNavy said:

It may have changed but I thought the Connoisseur‘s are not actually owned by HW this could have something to do with the lack of maintenance over the last few years. 

Didn't know that Doug.

Maybe that is why they have looked so bad for the last few years.

Does not explain the poor state of the Alphacraft my friends hired last year.

[FlyingFortress]

It's getting late now here in Norfolk and the temperature is dipping below freezing.

I do feel for that family out there on the HW boat.

IMHO this is unacceptable. 

They also have a very very old dog on board who I do fear for in these temperatures as I know my elderly dog sufferers when she is cold.

[oldgregg]

A lot of the connoisseur boats always were owned by investors, so that could still be the case.

I thought HW had acquired at least some of the boats, though. They had quite a sell-off to raise cash so that seemed to be what had happened.

Either way, their boats have looked shabby for years. I don’t know why anyone hires from them, but each to their own.

[Captain]

As far as I know all the Connoisseurs were acquired from Le Boat at the end of the 2013 season. It was publicly stated that they paid cc £1m . They subsequently sold 30 odd hire boats over the following years and 7 properties presumably to finance the acquisition.

Neil

[FlyingFortress]

As Mouldy said above.

Are these boats fit for purpose?

Is there some way of holding this company accountable on a purely safely issue?

They are branded and marketed as HW boats.

In the past I have always recommend to new visitors to The Broads to go with one of the big boys first as they have a huge range of boats suitable for all budgets.

I must say if anyone asked me now I would certainly say avoid HW at all costs.

[andyg]

7 hours ago, CeePee1952 said:

In their defence, we hired Sovereign Light last September for a week and to be honest we couldn't fault it or the staff.  Ok, so it's one of their "elite" range and one would expect a high standard.  We have hired Supreme Light this year for October (there's only the two of us this year) and Sovereign Light (for 4 of us) for September 2023.  I don't think we'll be disappointed.

Chris

We hired both dazzling light and Prince of light last year. I wouldn't hesitate to book either boat again. I had no issues with the service I received. Like sovereign light both are from there elite range. Some of there boats do look rather shabby you can't defend that and one other forum member had a whole host of issues with a boat hired with them last year. I'd use Richardson's fleet to make a comparison and I'd argue that cosmetically Richardson's win that one hands down. Lot of Richardson's older boats have either benefitted from total or partial refits, IE new galleys, showers etc etc and it shows i cant say herbert woods boats have. That said I wouldn't go as far as to warn people to avoid herbert woods that's a bit to strong. Flats batteries and heating not running problems are as old as my grandad false teeth this time of the year it happens year in year out. It won't only be HB experiencing these problems. The boats are coming out of winter storage and little niggles will pop up especially in a cold snap like were having. I do worry that an engineer told them to leave the oven running 🤔 not good in my opinion. 

[Roy]

Such a shame this yard used to be at the front of broads hire in the day Herbert woods owned it. 

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, FlyingFortress said:

I did say there should be a CO detector on board and the oven should have a flame out cut off but did warn that if a boat was going out on hire with that poor level of maintenance then I would not be confident that any systems on board would work.

 

7 hours ago, FlyingFortress said:

Are these boats fit for purpose?

Is there some way of holding this company accountable on a purely safely issue?

I suggest this forum should not indulge in armchair speculation. To suggest that a yard has boats with malfunctional or non existent safety equipment borders on the libellous.

 

[andyg]

25 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

 

I suggest this forum should not indulge in armchair speculation. To suggest that a yard has boats with malfunctional or non existent safety equipment borders on the libellous.

 

Absolutely spot on....

[rightsaidfred]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

 

I suggest this forum should not indulge in armchair speculation. To suggest that a yard has boats with malfunctional or non existent safety equipment borders on the libellous.

 

Totally agree and would suggest that any genuine safety concerns should  be reported to the BA licensing department for investigation or failing that the DOT.

Fred

[andyg]

Another point that I feel is relevant to this thread is lack of infrastructure!!  Now I'm pretty confident in saying most of HW boats and most definitely the old CC boats are equipped with shore power. Why aren't all public moorings equipped with hook up points ?? Ranworth has a completely inadequate number of hook up posts it's a joke. If there's 20 mornings why isn't there 20 plugs ?? Pubs !! Again another potential revenue stream ?? Most yards have them now and could charge an overnight hook up fee. It's ridiculous that boats are equipped with the technology but it can't be used. We're the family in question aware they had this option?? It would solve so many problems in one go. Short sightedness on BA part me thinks. 

[Vaughan]

9 hours ago, oldgregg said:

A lot of the connoisseur boats always were owned by investors, so that could still be the case.

It is not quite the case with Connoisseur, as their original fleet in the 70s was owned and built by Porter and Haylett but operated by other yards on a sort of agency basis.  Much the same as Nicholls now do on the French canals.  They own and build the boats but don't operate them.

Bill Moore offered me a Connoisseur deal when I had a yard in Womack but I am glad to say I turned it down as I couldn't "make the figures add up".  Other operators who took the boats found the same problem and some of them went bust as a result.  In the end, Porters had to recall all the boats and set up their own operation in France.

Blakes and Hoseasons had previously had a rule that all boats must be owned by the member yard, so Connoisseur were the first (officially) of the "sponsored" boats.  Normally a sponsorship deal is 60:40 - that is 60% of hire income to the operator and 40% to the owner, with the operator covering operating costs.  If the owner tried to take more of a cut than 40%, the deal was no good.  The advantage to the operator was that he could have a brand new boat in his fleet without having to pay the finance on its building cost.  Often the boat would only be hired for 5 years before it was sold, and the owner would then sponsor the building of a new one.  This is how Sunsail used to work, in conjunction with Benetteau.

I think I can certainly say that these Connoisseur boats were owned by P&H until they stopped operating them in Norfolk.  If they are now privately owned I very much doubt that the owner is still Le Boat.

[Vaughan]

10 hours ago, FlyingFortress said:

and the oven should have a flame out cut off

By the way, I know for certain these boats have cookers with flame failure as I had them installed myself when I was technical manager for Le Boat.   

[rightsaidfred]

15 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

By the way, I know for certain these boats have cookers with flame failure as I had them installed myself when I was technical manager for Le Boat.   

Surely this is standard with all gas appliances and a BSS requirement on all boats fitted with gas cookers.

Fred

[FlyingFortress]

I stand admonished.

I have never run a hire fleet so have no knowledge what is an acceptable standard to send a boat on hire is .

FYI the boat in question did not have a facility for shore power hook up.

I also said the boat should have  flame out protection. I said should because I was amazed to see that my boat when I bought it as a 10 year old ex hire boat did not. It passed the first BSC without it.

It does now 🙂

[grendel]

11 hours ago, FlyingFortress said:

So I know this is second hand information.

all this speculation based on heresay evidence, this cannot be a good base to start condemning a yard for lack of maintenance, there could be any number of reasons only a single battery was fitted (eg he only had one on the van), we hired from HW as we do every year for lads week, and yes we had a few issues but it was october and end of season, we asked for replacement ropes because a couple were knotted, these were unavailable as they had used all their current on shelf stock, which is understandable, we did run out of gas at one point, (end of season and auto changeover on the gas bottles (replaced in a few hours, they bought 4 bottles and did both boats. there was a steering issue on one boat (the steel bracket holding the actuator broke off the hull (actually the bracket broke, once again quick response and their engineer got our boat going with a temporary fix, then came out again the next day with a part he had fabricated in the workshop overnight, A1 service, we did have a battery issue on one boat, they came out and replaced all of the batteries, yes things went wrong, but it was at the end of the season, and I expect all those issues reported were fixed during winter maintenance.

Their engineering team were brilliant in their responses and work, so from my experiences, I dont believe there is a problem. batteries failing at the beginning of the season, quite normal, ask any here that have run boatyards, just because a battery didnt have any reported issues at the end of last season, doesnt mean it will be fine this season, they expect a few issues at the start of a season.

[FlyingFortress]

Reading the above posts from satisfied customers it seems to me that all boats are fitted with heating 

But if you pay extra for an Elite Range boat you will get heating you can actually use.

Please don't think this is a dig at HW as I assume any business can have bad days but I did think the advice to leave the oven on unacceptable.

I also found it bad that a boat should leave the yard this early in the season with shot batteries.

But once again I am not qualified to comment as I have never run a hire fleet nor have had cause to hire from one 

 

[Mouldy]

1 hour ago, andyg said:

 Why aren't all public moorings equipped with hook up points ?? Ranworth has a completely inadequate number of hook up posts it's a joke. If there's 20 mornings why isn't there 20 plugs ?? Pubs !! Again another potential revenue stream ?? Most yards have them now and could charge an overnight hook up fee. It's ridiculous that boats are equipped with the technology but it can't be used. We're the family in question aware they had this option?? It would solve so many problems in one go. Short sightedness on BA part me thinks. 

I think that the answer to that would be money.  There are public moorings that are in remote locations and running power to them would be far too costly.  Not only that, but I believe many are leased, so would the BA invest heavily in sites they don’t own and where improvements they finance may be taken back by landowners in the future.

Obviously, in time, as more electric boats are introduced, this will need to change, but I can’t ever see sufficient electric posts to provide power to a hire fleet the size of the current (no pun intended) one, never mind the private craft, certainly not in my lifetime.

Over the years I’ve spoken to hirers who’ve told me that they’ve been instructed to run their engines when running the heating.  There is no excuse for this, it flies in the face of BA guidance about running engines at moorings during the hours of 20:00 and 08:00, causes nuisance to others moored nearby and is usually on boats with smokey old engines that churn out clouds of noxious gasses (also not great for the environment).  There is a cost to replacing spent batteries, but maintenance is one of the costs that should be factored into a hire boats running costs.  That is one of the reasons given by a former yard owner for increased hire costs, so replace them.  Simples.

[grendel]

How would you know the batteries are shot unless they are actively being used, to do a proper drop down test should take many hours, how many batteries on each boat, and how many boats? and how much time.

if the previous hirers dont report an issue, how are the yard supposed to know, then if the current hirer only cruises for an hour a day, between moorings, there are a lot of variables here. if an issue has been reported, then it will have been checked out on winter maintenance, when we take a boat back we give them a snagging list, then at least they know there are issues, they may not have time to sort them between hires, but they are on record.

[SwanR]

As regular hirers we do always report any issues at the end of our hire for the benefit of the next people coming on board. And if significant enough we call the yard while we’re out. Most hires have been very smooth. But we have had problems that needed attention from three different yards. All responded promptly and did whatever was needed to get our holiday back on track.