I have read this post with interest, and Infact a few online forums are discussing the downfall of SVBC and the way it has effected the customers.
I do recall some years ago a company based in Lincolnshire (I am trying to search for the name) went bust with 5 customers who had paid deposits and although the £'s were not so great (boats were only £50k then for a 57ft'er) it was still very worrying.
Anyway this company had "been on the slip" for a long time and the then General/sales manager resigned from the company and "Started his own boat building Co" called Pheenix Boats. When the company went down with the shells on site and nearly all of the at a degree of fitment, rockwooled/engines fitted etc the old manager contacted all these people and offered to finish the builds for them at a reasonable price.
It transpired that the manager had set up an "Echo" company and the main company had just gone belly up to capitalise on the goodwill and trust of the customers. So the owner of the original company had gone down, about 9 months before in colusion with the manager set up another firm to basically mop up all the business and rip them off. This was only found out by accident by a customer who returned to the "new" yard at about 6pm after leaving his cheque book on the boat that was in build and spotted the former boat builder having a cuppa with the "Ex manager"
I will endevour to locate the company details but in cases like this it can be a very messy and confusing time and when large sums of money are involved people do very unorthodox and unscruppulus things.
And I do believe that this is not the first time that SVBC has gone down it I think it's the 3rd.
Bill Tages
