So What Is Going On At Herbert Woods

[OldBerkshireBoy]

4 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Don't let's forget that the diesel price charged for a hire boat has always included other consumables - such as gas and lub. oil.

Say again, would have thougt these were factored in to the cost of hiring for a week.

[Mouldy]

11 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Don't let's forget that the diesel price charged for a hire boat has always included other consumables - such as gas and lub. oil.

Bargain then.  Where Moonlight Shadow is moored, we pay a high price for diesel with no berth holders discount and the yard won’t sell us gas, as they require it for their fleet!

[Vaughan]

11 minutes ago, OldBerkshireBoy said:

Say again, would have thougt these were factored in to the cost of hiring for a week.

Traditionally Blakes and Hoseasons always set diesel prices to include consumables.  This is less relevant now of course, as we no longer have gas heating or gas fridges.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

7 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Bargain then.  Where Moonlight Shadow is moored, we pay a high price for diesel with no berth holders discount and the yard won’t sell us gas, as they require it for their fleet!

Time to move on then if they are being unhelpful to long standing customers such as MS.

[OldBerkshireBoy]

9 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Traditionally Blakes and Hoseasons always set diesel prices to include consumables.  This is less relevant now of course, as we no longer have gas heating or gas fridges.

If I hire a car for a week the oil use is incuded. Sounds as if customers were being ripped off back then.

[rightsaidfred]

37 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Don't let's forget that the diesel price charged for a hire boat has always included other consumables - such as gas and lub. oil.

Sorry but they are or should be maintance costs amortised into the annual running budget as an overhead, they are immeasurable against the amount of diesel used which will vary considerably between hires.

Fred

[Meantime]

1 hour ago, Vaughan said:

Don't let's forget that the diesel price charged for a hire boat has always included other consumables - such as gas and lub. oil.

Really? I think trading standards would have had something to say about that. The advertised price for a litre of fuel is just that, the price you pay for a full litre from a calibrated dispenser. Even before the recent fuel duty changes for Red diesel and before the EU insisted on derogation for Red Diesel finishing in 2008, there was a smaller amount of duty that needed to be paid on Red diesel and that would have meant selling diesel at the advertised price and paying the relevant duty. Adding in an allowance for an undefined amount of other items such as gas or lube oil would have made the duty calculation impossible.

[andyg]

1 hour ago, Meantime said:

Really? I think trading standards would have had something to say about that. The advertised price for a litre of fuel is just that, the price you pay for a full litre from a calibrated dispenser. Even before the recent fuel duty changes for Red diesel and before the EU insisted on derogation for Red Diesel finishing in 2008, there was a smaller amount of duty that needed to be paid on Red diesel and that would have meant selling diesel at the advertised price and paying the relevant duty. Adding in an allowance for an undefined amount of other items such as gas or lube oil would have made the duty calculation impossible.

Have to Wholeheartedly agree with this, gas and other consumables should be factored into the individual boat hire tariff. As for fuel being used as a loss leader, I struggle to understand how a small yard could afford to do this. Hire yards can and do basically charge what they want for fuel. It's a captive Market, if they can put 15p on a ltr what choice does the hirer have, very few will understand they can fill the boat up before they return it. I don't think richardsons or herbert wood make many private boat fuel sales and its not a major revenue stream for them. Now 250 + boats returning each week is. 10p mark up on each ltr used will soon mount up. It is what it is, remember boating isn't cheap lol

[YnysMon]

5 hours ago, Vaughan said:

I thank Floydraser for his kind remarks.  I am sure I don't deserve them!

I have been looking for a paper I once did about batteries, for Crown Blue Line, which I may post later for interest.  Meantime I have come across this, which was my annual report for the board, on breakdowns in 2003.  I had other jobs in CBL but my own base was at St Gilles, in the Camargue.  At that time the base had over 50 boats and we were also handling one way cruises from the base at Port Cassafières, in the Midi.

I hope it is of general interest to the subject of the thread and may answer some of FF's questions.

 

 

 

 

The item that caught my eye was bicycle tires. What!?

[webntweb]

9 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

The item that caught my eye was bicycle tires. What!?

Most hire companies in France offer bicycle hire with their craft, particularly on the Canal du Midi which has a very good towpath throughout. Bicycles are very handy for collecting the morning croissants and possibly the odd bottle of wine.

[andyg]

Wow this thread surely has kicked up lots of interesting points and opinions. For me, I've been holidaying on the broads since I was about 5 yes old. The one thing I do know for sure are standards by many operators have dropped I've absolutely no doubt about that. Long gone are the days of boats being properly washed down on turnaround, even things like fenders were cleaned back in the day, it's now very common to see a boat dragging half it's fenders in the water behind it and boats with missing fenders etc. Boats with filthy dirty hulls is common, most yards used to have a lad in a dinghy on a Saturday going round cleaning hulls and these are just the short cuts we can see. Some members here try so hard to defend yards and poor service. The example of the lads week is one in my opinion, there's no way a well maintained boat would of suffered such major malfunctions in such a short space of time, then there's the excuse of, it's been a bizzy season lol. Take yards like silverline or even bridgecraft every season is a busy season, even in bridgecraft case there boats looked better then many a newer boat at the end of last season. I would of thought the average age of there fleet is a good 30yrs old I'd guess. One particular yard in Wroxham operates from a facility that clearly isn't fit for their fleet size. Just to prove a point, take a look at David's photos of herbert woods boats. Spot how many fenders are missing off the boats in his pictures..Standards...

[Vaughan]

45 minutes ago, webntweb said:

Bicycles are very handy for collecting the morning croissants and possibly the odd bottle of wine.

And they play merry hell with the gelcoat on the cabin sides. They used to be the bane of my existence!

[grendel]

I have seen bridgecraft out in a dinghy cleaning the hull on turnaround, not 30 minutes after the boat came back, of course its much easier for a small yard with fewer boats to do this, especially if their start dates are staggered, they may only have 3 boats to do, less if they have a 2 week hire out. for the bigger yards it would need to be a full time position for someone, or even several someones.

[Vaughan]

57 minutes ago, andyg said:

Long gone are the days of boats being properly washed down on turnaround, even things like fenders were cleaned back in the day, it's now very common to see a boat dragging half it's fenders in the water behind it and boats with missing fenders etc.

Funnily enough, in all my time, I have never had a complaint about a dirty hull.

What does happen (and there is no doubt of this) is that if you hire a boat which turns out to be of tatty appearance, with fenders missing, and you see another hire boat go by on the river, with all the fenders in line and a nice clean waterline, then that will be the boat that you hire next year!

Yards who value their repeat customers will know this very well.

 

[Meantime]

4 minutes ago, grendel said:

of course its much easier for a small yard with fewer boats to do this,

Why? I've never understood this logic. There are only so many hours in a day. If it takes one lad / yard hand an hour to clean a hull, a yard such as Bridgecraft probably need 3 or 4 to clean all their fleet. If another yard is 10 times bigger, it just needs 10 x as many lads / yard hands. It's the same equation whether its mechanics or cleaners for the inside of the boat.

Personally I would say its easier for the larger yards as they have more staff available to redeploy to cover for illness / staff absence.

[petersjoy]

Talking about trial runs, a link for our newer members that may not have seen it.

Always love rereading it.

 

[Vaughan]

6 minutes ago, Meantime said:

Why? I've never understood this logic. There are only so many hours in a day. If it takes one lad / yard hand an hour to clean a hull, a yard such as Bridgecraft probably need 3 or 4 to clean all their fleet. If another yard is 10 times bigger, it just needs 10 x as many lads / yard hands. It's the same equation whether its mechanics or cleaners for the inside of the boat.

Well, if it took one yard lad an hour to clean one hull, I wouldn't want him back next week.

I am afraid the staff availability is a misconception as large yards are run by accountants.

And management accountants work for shareholders, not customers.  On small yards, the owner cleans the hulls.  Or maybe his son or daughter.

[Mouldy]

8 minutes ago, petersjoy said:

Talking about trial runs, a link for our newer members that may not have seen it.

Always love rereading it.

 

I have to say the the name of the forum member made me laugh as much as the thread.  There’s potential for two more - one starts with Seamen and the other with Master!  

[Meantime]

6 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Well, if it took one yard lad an hour to clean one hull, I wouldn't want him back next week.

I am afraid the staff availability is a misconception as large yards are run by accountants.

And management accountants work for shareholders, not customers.  On small yards, the owner cleans the hulls.  Or maybe his son or daughter.

So we appear to be going full circle here. If I read you right you appear to be saying that large yards run by accountants are done so to extract maximum profit from the customer for the shareholders or owners, at the expense of the boats looking a bit more shabby. One has to wonder if the bean counters take or encourage the same approach when it comes to maintenance or making those ageing batteries last another year than they really should.

[Vaughan]

3 minutes ago, Meantime said:

So we appear to be going full circle here. If I read you right you appear to be saying that large yards run by accountants are done so to extract maximum profit from the customer for the shareholders or owners, at the expense of the boats looking a bit more shabby. One has to wonder if the bean counters take or encourage the same approach when it comes to maintenance or making those ageing batteries last another year than they really should.

I can't argue with that, I am afraid.  My experience of managing boatyards for corporate tour operators has been bitter and frustrating, to say the least.  You are under attack from 3 sides :

1/. From the customers who complain about the state of the boats.

2/. from the staff, who are demoralised because they end up having to do the work of 3 people each, owing to all the staff cuts that have been made,

3/. from the senior management, because the customers are complaining about the service!

I am glad to say that most yards on the Broads seem to take much more of a customer service approach.  Richardsons for instance is a family business which the two brothers grew up in. Although they have to be commercial they have obviously learned the importance of regular customers.

All the same, hull cleaning is not a priority for staff employment.

[grendel]

11 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Well, if it took one yard lad an hour to clean one hull, I wouldn't want him back next week.

I am afraid the staff availability is a misconception as large yards are run by accountants.

And management accountants work for shareholders, not customers.  On small yards, the owner cleans the hulls.  Or maybe his son or daughter.

with bridgecraft it looked as though anyone not doing another job just got on and did it, so it might be an engineer, if there were no other faults to fix, or one of the cleaners, or the boss. thats what teamwork is all about.

[grendel]

23 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

I have to say the the name of the forum member made me laugh as much as the thread.  There’s potential for two more - one starts with Seamen and the other with Master!  

but I wouldnt try it if I were you, the moderators would soon tell you off

[Meantime]

3 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

I can't argue with that, I am afraid.  My experience of managing boatyards for corporate tour operators has been bitter and frustrating, to say the least.  You are under attack from 3 sides :

1/. From the customers who complain about the state of the boats.

2/. from the staff, who are demoralised because they end up having to do the work of 3 people each, owing to all the staff cuts that have been made,

3/. from the senior management, because the customers are complaining about the service!

I am glad to say that most yards on the Broads seem to take much more of a customer service approach.  Richardsons for instance is a family business which the two brothers grew up in. Although they have to be commercial they have obviously learned the importance of regular customers.

All the same, hull cleaning is not a priority for staff employment.

Now I apologise in advance if this is seen as controversial but it's all in the public domain. Most of The Broads companies are run as Limited companies, it is perhaps significant that the one that has been the main subject of this thread is run as a Limited Liability Partnership, a company structure more normally used for professional services companies such as accountants  or solicitors.

[Mouldy]

7 minutes ago, grendel said:

but I wouldnt try it if I were you, the moderators would soon tell you off

Spoilsport!! 😁😉

[Oddfellow]

6 hours ago, rightsaidfred said:

I understand Boulters business model, that dosnt explain why from personal knowledge some years ago a large well known yard with bigger purchasing power than Boulters who were charging 85p a litre at the time charged their hire customers £1.31 ltr and their berth holders £1.15 ltr

Fred

Well, you clearly don't understand, Fred. 

You don't get cheaper fuel the more you buy because there are break points on taxes in the supply chain. If we bought more than X thousand litres of the stuff, it became MORE expensive. 

We has to have multiple deliveries to full our tanks at the right price. 

Not everything is as you believe it to be. You also need to consider the costs of equipment. A new weights and measures pump can cost many thousands of pounds. A 2000l tank will cost a couple of grand too. Everything is way over-simplified in the minds of people who only see the smallest aspect of a business.