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Meanwhile on the other side of the fence!

Entries in this blog

How not to pay for a boat!

Well our non paying customer still didn't pay for their boat so in line with the contract we are now charging interest on the debt and storage fees amounting to nearly £2000.00 a week and it looks increasingly likely we will end up taking possession of the boat. I know that sounds a lot of money but with the loss of production this is causing that amount probably isn't even covering the costs. We still have to pay the wages of the people who should be working on it and we can't move it to start
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Not exactly the Enterprise!

We might be building Jean-Luc Picard's next ship!   We a bit of an exaggeration but we might be building a barge for the Safe Anchor Trust of which Patrick Stewart is the president.   We built two of the their previous boats so if that isn't enough to convince them then to give us the order, I will have to get my dad to ring is old school mate Patrick Stewart.
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Bits and bobs and more spares

We its been a busy week I have been sorting out new products forwww.canalboatbits.co.uk including something for dog lovers-     Now I aren't a dog lover and after a rather unpleasant walk (Or should I say wade?) along the towpath I could devise my own version made up of a sack complete with bricks and a larger sack with more bricks for the owner!   Anyway besides this saviour of the canine kind there are going to be some big changes, we now have access to a much larger range bits from an
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

0

What we will be building later this year.

This is a early drawing of the boat we will be building in the Autumn for our customer from Australia being that he his a wheel chair user the boat is going to incorporate some special features to make the boat fully accessible to him.   It's also looking very likely the boat will be fitted with air conditioning so I am doing a bit of research into some more marine designs than the systems used in the past.
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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BMF contracts are good things!

Well it looks like the BMF contract is a good thing for builders too!   In two weeks time we can start charging our customer that couldn't meet their payments interest and storage costs, now although this is not ideal for everyone at least it will start to offset what it is costing us.   The ultimate possibility is that we will end up taking possession of the boat not a nice thing to have to do but considering the money involved probably the best result for us and the customer at least they
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Another long range order!

Building Maffi's boat while he was in Saudi Arabia was an interesting experience but we can now surpass that by quite a few miles! We got an order today for a 14' x 49' boat for a customer living in Sydney Australia he is a wheelchair user and the boat is going to be built to give full chair access throughout.   The boat will eventually be going to France which now seems to be the favourite destination for larger boats. If you think the dimensions are strange this is due to the French not bein
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Escaping the desk!

For the first time this year I am free!   I have two boats to do the electrical 2nd fix on and I am really enjoying myself I had almost forgotten what it was like to do a proper job. Sitting behind a desk was beginning to finish me off!   We have finally got a system that seems to work really well on fitting out. The joiners are now fitters and do their bit plus first fix electrics and plumbing working from good drawings done on Visio. (Great bit of software! Compared to the complexity of Au
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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The pricing game more fun than snakes and ladders!

After resisting the urge to find go find a big stick and locate said customer mentioned yesterday to beat with it, I actually got a job done and it's the one I hate the most, price increases!   It's not that I don't like putting up prices you have to do that or go bust, but it's the forecasting the future bit that I don't like. Most builders have around a years order book secured on sensible deposits and fixed price contracts (Those that claim to have years of business on the books based on £1
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Not the thing to tell your builder on a Monday AM!

Just had a customer tell me they can't find the funds to make any further payments at the moment on a their half finished full fit so can we stop working on it until they find some more money!   If only it was so simple I can see this ending up with a part finished boat for sale because what they fail to understand is that we have quite a lot of money tied up in it that we haven't been paid for plus while it sits their waiting for them to find some money we can't start anything else so being
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

1

Can't people read these days!

We have had a lot of problems along with all the other companies here with the TGB'S pinching everything that's not nailed down, so we had to put one of those buzzer lock things on the door with an intercom on the wall. We added a big notice to the door at eye level asking people to buzz the intercom so you can see who it is on the CCTV and buzz them in.   Very simple in theory until you watch them on the CCTV trying to comprehend this. They try the door, they bang on it, they shout through it
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Well that's another week gone

It must be my age but time seems to be speeding up these days!   It's been one of those funny weeks I don't seem to have stopped but can't really say I have achieved anything either. Thinking about it I spend more and more time looking technical things up just to complete paperwork etc and I think this is where the time goes. I have some reading to do next week because we have just got our revised copy of the BMEA CoP for electrical installations which looks about as interesting as reading a
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Where have all the welders gone?

Well we are still searching for a welder. We aren't been greedy we only want one, but the last advert drew a blank with lots of no shows and the actually I can't weld but I can learn types.   It seems to be a dying trade those that are good are very well paid and obviously choosy about where they work and little or no new blood is coming into the game.   So with more adverts in the papers today we will have to see what we get this time!   If you know anybody suitable let me know it's not a
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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It's a small world now!

Got in this morning and had the first potential customers of the week arrive unannounced out of the blue at 8.30am nothing too unusual about that other than I prefer a slower start to the week.   They left after an hour later the phone rings and I spend the next hour talking to a prospective customer sat in his apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour on the other side of the world again out of the blue!   This is a very strange start to the week indeed! Next thing on the tick list is to make a
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Fun with video

Well I have finally finished doing the now version of the DVD we post out and I don't want to see another boat picture again ever!   I made the mistake of trying to be clever and use Windows Movie Maker to do this instead of using some of the old fashioned ways of doing it, this turned out to be a big mistake although Movie Maker is probably alright for doing your holiday video and snaps with it most certainly isn't the thing to be working on for a project with hundreds of pictures. The thing
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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How save money on the RCD. (Trade Secret!)

You are all probably aware that a piece of European legislation called the Recreational Craft Directive exists. The purpose of this directive is to set a minimum legal standard for the manufacture of craft within the EU. (A lot of rubbish about safety and costrution standards in it.)   Unfortunately this costs the boat builder quite a lot of money to comply with so wouldn't it be jolly for them if there was a way they could avoid spending their profits on something that is just a bit of offici
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Good news and bad news at the swindlers

Looks like all the main suppliers in the marine world decided to publish their 2007 price list this week.   And it looks like it's going to be a strange year on the bad news side anything made out of nonferrous metals is going up with a bang thats brass ware, props, calorifiers and cable etc.   But on the good side there have been lots of reductions on a lot of other items pumps, toilets, light fittings etc. So it looks like a few suppliers are going head to head to capture the market and pr
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

0

Life in the rabbit hutch.

My office is closing in on me!   Or at least it feels like it maybe if I wasn't sat on top of the fan heater it might feel better but it's freezing everywhere else because they have all the doors open while they ballast 4 broad beams and that is going to take all day.   To make matters worse since I got a new lap top I am still having to bring the old one in everyday and inevitably end up using it for some seldom used thing that is always on the old one but not migrated on to the new one. (I
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Maffi must be popular!

Having gone completely numb looking at Sterling products and trying to resolve ways of avoiding anymore cases of fitters getting carbon monoxide poisoning from boat exhaust fumes, (Never a dull moment is there?) I decided to sort out the guest book on the Maffi's Boat Build Site because it was rapidly becoming the main on-line advert for Viagra and the importation of Russian wives by mail!   I hadn't paid much attention to it lately but the site as had over 9,400 visitors in just under a ye
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

0

Sold a Boat and Sterling Products

Well one of our visitors from Saturday came back this morning with a deposit for a broad beam boat so that's a nice start to the week. They did offer to put it down on Saturday but I told them to take the weekend to think it over properly before paying it. I know that doesn't sound to be exactly the best sales policy but I would much rather take a deposit when a customer is 100% certain than take it one day and refund it the next.   Project for to day (That probably means week!) is introducin
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

0

What a weekend!

I normally try and avoid the seven day weeks now but this weekend was a very strange one! We had one visitor booked in for Saturday and altogether we had five arrive!   So I didn't even manage to get a cup of tea all day every time one lot left another lot arrived.   They all seemed very interested too including a possible sale for another big broad beam. (Will know for certain if the deposit arrives on Monday!)   This is all very strange for this time of year when tradition says it all st
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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Be Green and get ripped off big time!

I am still wading through the suppliers of green energy products and I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that suppliers of the solar products especially really do see this as a license to print money! The vast variation in prices at the retail level gives me a good indication of the profits being made and they must be some of the highest I have seen in this game.   So why not go green, save the planet and make someone very rich along the way!
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

0

Return Of An Old Product

Due to renewed interest we have managed to obtain a new supply of this essential product in the construction and maintenance of modern steel narrowboats-     I would suggest that every narrowboat owner should follow the age old tradition of narrow boating and Waxoyl the full interior of their boats to prevent or control any rusting.   This product is endorsed by many famous narrowboat owners and is a tried and tested solution to internal rusting of modern narrowboats.   Available in 5lt
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

1

Hang them?

Muktar Ibrahim, Manfo Asiedu, Hussein Osman, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Adel Yahya deny conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions.   If they are proved guilty in my view they should reinstate capital punishment and hang them publicly along with any others accused of acts of terrorism.   Instead we will probably let them serve 18 months and let them out with a new identity funded by the state.
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

2

One of those days!

I should have stayed in bed I new I really should have!   It started at 1pm yesterday when we stopped receiving email so it was back into IT mode to find out what was wrong but it quickly became apparent that it wasn't our problem so it was time to talk to the company that handles the account that all the individual mail accounts are forwarded through. From the lack of telephone response and general speed that their help site was running at I would guess that we weren't the only one Europe wid
Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

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