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charles123

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Posts posted by charles123

  3. Harral Brokerage

    in Waterways News & Press

    Posted

    A turnover of £300k is more than adequate to support a healthy profitable business here. The number of boats now sold as I have said appears lower and I doubt the figures in the first place from waterways world as it is likely that Harall would have talked these up for the article and may have included the other marina brokerage sales that were there then. My guess is that he borrowed against this business a couple of years back to do what I don't know, repayments would have increased dramatically in recent times and these costs added to the running costs make a loss, in any event it looks like some external factor added to the demise, but all speculation of course. The winner is the landlord who on the face of it might be seen as the loser as money was owed, but this would be taken into his own accounts to offset his profits on which he would have paid out corporation tax. He has no realistic option but to carry on with the brokerage otherwise he has the depreciation to pay on his crane, and the costs of building its slipway and developing the site for the brokerage and no income from his linear moorings or the hardstanding if it ceased business. He picks up an established business for nothing, can either develop it as it has more potential that Harall could not see, or sell it on where it with become a string to another waterways business. There is of course the new marina at Park Farm about 2 miles away approx. 2 thirds complete. The staff should be ok, I would guess 2 in the office and a couple of part timers in the yard. The losers apart from the owner, are mostly the bank and VAT man

     

    Charles

  4. Harral Brokerage

    in Waterways News & Press

    Posted

    Quoting from the Waterways World article, Harral was selling approx 140 boats per year.

    Well, assuming the average priced boat is £40,000 and commission at 6%, Harral's annual turnover would have been £336,000.

     

    Allowing for the costs of renting an office and moorings and advertising space, I imagine there would be a fair sum left for earnings.

    So, how come it went bust?

     

    I don't know the figures but Harral attracted a high proportion of less saleable boats of lower value that probably filled the yard but did not turn over much and because of this perpetuated the situation. The craning in and out was not theirs either, though they would have had a cut of this income. The nicer boats went elsewhere (that's not to say they did not have a proportion of nice ones). I had heard that sales were more like 2 per week (or up to 2 per week) and as has already been pointed out probably at a lower average revenue. They should have had some revenue as well from charging for storage or on the water (this should have been substantial, if it was not then that would have been a key factor in the demise). A business like this is very vulnerable to fluctuating revenue, it has a substantial fixed cost base, mostly rental of quite a big plot, canal moorings, borrowings, wage costs and other overheads. The contraction from its other brokerage ventures I am guessing was because they did not need Harral as were perfectly capable of running their own brokerages. Most brokers have other strings to their bows, boat building/caravan storage/marinas/repairs etc and do well as a business because of that, Harral did not that I am aware of. Or where stand alone, are at one end of the spectrum internet based therefore low cost to operate and at the other end attracting the highest value boats giving much higher revenue per unit. Harral seemed to be stuck with the same unchanged and dated business plan an an uninspiring and dated web site. Thats my two penny worth anyway

     

    Charles

  6. alde compact 310

    in Boat Equipment

    Posted

    I have one of these. I am repeating myself when this came up some time ago but vastly superior to the diesel heaters. Low power draw, near silent, built in immersion so when on shore line heats the water for heating rads and washing. Very functional control unit. I have the heat exchanger from engine as well so when engine is hot turn on the Alde and it pumps round hot water and uses no gas. In particularly I like the feature that allows a rapid heat up to very hot water, ie not in the calorifier but the Alde itself, does this in very few minutes so you can use this feature to supplement the calorifier water if its not hot enough, use for a shower (when blended with cold) and first thing in the morning when again your tank is probably not very hot. Dors point about the control unit is valid, mines in the engine room which gets warmer when the engine running so can give a false impression of the temp in other rooms, however the control unit has thought of this and you can compensate for in the settings by adjusting it down so for example temp in engine room 25 degrees, everywhere else 20, so reset the unit to 20 degrees even though its sensing 25, will show 20 on the read out, water will be heated to 23, or whatever temp you need and set

     

    Dont know how economical it is but appears to be low on gas consumption (there are figures on their site)

     

    Charles

  10. 2LW 74 Deg thermostat

    in Gardner

    Posted

    Hi

     

    Just finished piping up 2LW to the coil in the hot water tank. The water is not really hot enough and so thought about replacing the 60 Deg thermostat with a 74 Deg one. Does any one run the hotter thermostat? Is there a down side to this change? Final question, is this thermostat generally available (what else does it fit)or is it a phone call to Gardner Enthusiast?

     

    Thanks for reading.

     

    Graham

     

    I have 17 hrs on my 2LW newly installed, and a similar problem. I have contacted Gardner Enthusiast by email attaching a photo of my thermostat housing to see whether the one they sell will fit, no reply as yet. The calorifier is in the bypass circuit, but the water does not get as hot as I would expect, and takes over one hr to get hot, (but not as hot as I would expect) the engine does not feel particularly hot either but others with similar engines would know better. The pipe to the keel tank does get warm suggesting hot water is getting sent that way as well as via the bypass circuit which I would not expect but the return back to the engine is cold. The engine is not worked particularly hard, more in the range of tickover to (I would estimate) half throttle, because thats all the speed I need out of it cruising or stationary charging

     

    Thanks

     

    Charles

  15. Crick show 2011 ~ Who's going to it

    in General Boating

    Posted · Edited by charles123

    Does sound rather bias churchwood. I personally put a lot of effort into this boat, and so your comments upset me. Can you elaborate on why? Certainly quite a strong opinion...

     

     

    Its a lovely boat and a credit to those involved in building her. Don't be put off by comments such as these

     

    Charles

  17. Indian Listeroids.

    in Lister

    Posted

    I see there are all kinds of them, made by diferent works. Are there any known retailors in Europe? Or do you cut the middle hand and buy them directly from India? Lots of links, please! :)

    [/quote

     

    Tony Renshaw (vintage diesels) is the only one I have come across as an Indian import of engines and them "marinise" for use, and I am not sure if that is a lister in any event. I doubt there is demand in the UK for such an engine to have a distributor. Nothing to stop you buying one from the Indians direct of course, if you dont mind all the bother, I doubt if money will be saved when its all done, but if its a vintage engine you are after there are a number of makes in UK to choose from

     

    Charles

  18. Gardner 2LW, starter engaging problem

    in Boat Building & Maintenance

    Posted

    Oh..a Transit starter. Well thats a different order of grief then. Transits have a wide variety of starter types but none of them are powerful enough for your application. For modern starter set ups on Gardners, and the Kromhout variants, we use a Perkins starter motor which is 3.0kw, and just powerful enough. You are not the first to put a Transit starter on and have problems. Some types are as low as 1.4 KW which is way too underpowered and we have heard that even the more powerful types don't last too long. You may also have a pitch angle mis-match too as some ring gears and starters are 14 degrees and others are 20 degrees. I am yet to fit a modern starter motor to a Gardner and get the satisfying clunk and whirr of the old CAV types.

     

    starter motor

     

    P2170069.jpg

  19. Gardner 2LW, starter engaging problem

    in Boat Building & Maintenance

    Posted

    what size and type is the engine start battery?it may be worth doubling its capacity.

     

    Thank you, I already have double starter batteries, its not a battery issue

     

    Charles

     

    Check that your starter motor is not too close to the flywheel or misaligned. I've seen them packed between the mount and motor before now. Slacken the clamps and move it back a little bit. If its not that its probably down to a tired starter motor lacking the initial inertia to engage and move the engine.It's why we refurbish all of ours as a matter of course during restorations. Getting a B5 reconditioned is easy enough but if you are stuck for a good repair guy get in touch and I'll point you in a low cost direction!

     

    Thank you, its a new starter and the ring gear is new too. I will check the clearance

     

    Charles

  23. Gardner 2LW, starter engaging problem

    in Boat Building & Maintenance

    Posted

    Would appreciate a bit of help/experiences of the following problem. My engine is now fully installed and was started up for the first time this week. All is well except that sometimes when I turn the key I get a single click (in fact more often than not from cold, although its only been started about 10 times from installation. I have asked a member on here via email and he kindly came back along the lines as follows. He said

     

    "What’s happening is that the clearances between the ring gear and the starter pinion are still very tight, the bearing on the pinion is probably still tight and the edges are still sharp. So if they teeth on the two line up exactly just by accident when the engine stops the pinion is blocked. Sometimes trying it a couple more times will get it into mesh and sometimes just turning the engine slightly will do it"

     

    I have turned the key on and off up to a dozen times and sometimes it starts after 2 or 3 turns of key. While there is no pulley guard on, I can indeed move the pulley a little to turn the engine and this fixes it but I wont be able to get at the pulley once the guard is installed. Anything I can do?

     

    Thanks

     

    Charles

  24. Selling boats so soon

    in General Boating

    Posted

    This is a question I have often wondered about where someone has ordered a boat, perhaps waited 2 years for delivery and in a year later its up for sale. I have heard a number of stories about ill health and that's understandable given that its likely that predominantly older people will be commissioning new boats. I also think that once on the water, there is realisation of the cost of ownership, and the loss of interest on the purchase price and loss of what else they could use the money for if not tied up in the boat. Other reasons of course but these are the two I favour as prevailing

     

     

    Charles

  25. Something unusual at the brokers...

    in General Boating

    Posted

    A BMC is a kind of engine, not to be confused with a back cabin.

     

    I agree Fenny looks lovely and in reply to the earlier question, I would guess probably draws about 3'

     

    Boat mans cabin is a commonly used description, nothing wrong with using that term abbreviated that I can see even if not correct (if it is incorrect that is. Its like calling former working narrowboats "historic" which they commonly are called, but whats historic about them?

     

    Charles

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