Colecraft or Reeves?

[PD1964]

3 hours ago, El Tel said:

Interesting comments

i went to a very well known builder in Sheffield this year and found them quite complacent and tried to steer me away from what I wanted. My response to the bow issue or anything else you are paying a lot of money for is to specify exactly what you want and ask can they do it. Simple really but as in all things where you are having something done is to get it in a contract and visit regularly

That well known Sheffield builder has been building building boats and winning the Crick show with his shells for many many years, so complacency and steering the potential buyer in the right direction obviously works for him, maybe your build requirements/ideas just didn't work. Sometimes the customer is not always right. I'm sure he won't loose sleep over it if you don't order a shell from him.

[Ex Brummie]

The short answer is find a builder who builds something that you want. Boat builders are notorious in building what they want, because that's all they can do.

[David Schweizer]

19 hours ago, Ex Brummie said:

The short answer is find a builder who builds something that you want. Boat builders are notorious in building what they want, because that's all they can do.

Very True, except that it isn't - I will explain  When we were first looking for a boat, I visited R.W.Davis at Saul and asked if he was willing to build a boat based upon the Small Northwich working boats. I was told in no uncertain terms that he would only build a boat to his standard design, the same as all the others he built, I walked away.   Guess what? Five years later he introduced the Northwich Trader which is based (yes you have guessed) on the GU Small Northwich boats, perhaps in retrospect he considered my suggestion, but he never came back to me.

[alan_fincher]

1 hour ago, David Schweizer said:

Very True, except that it isn't - I will explain  When we were first looking for a boat, I visited R.W.Davis at Saul and asked if he was willing to build a boat based upon the Small Northwich working boats. I was told in no uncertain terms that he would only build a boat to his standard design, the same as all the others he built, I walked away.   Guess what? Five years later he introduced the Northwich Trader which is based (yes you have guessed) on the GU Small Northwich boats, perhaps in retrospect he considered my suggestion, but he never came back to me.

Is it?  Only very loosely, if it is, as it looks nothing lie them whatsoever!

[David Schweizer]

47 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Is it?  Only very loosely, if it is, as it looks nothing lie them whatsoever!

I agree. When the Northwich Trader was shown at the 1999 Worcester IWA National Festival, I went onto the rear deck and looked down the cabin sides, and having spent years on the back end of a Small Northwich was aware that it was not correct. I said to Jan, who was on the towpath "Well they have got the cabin profile completely wrong", but at the time I was unaware  that Phil Trotter was almost next to her.  He was less than pleased with my observations, insisting that they had copied the Grand Union drawings accurately. My response was, "Well Yarwoods clearly didn't"  he was not impresswed