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Belated thoughts on the Crick Show - and a moan


Dave_P

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As indicated in the title, I went to this show for the first time this year. It was an enjoyable day, up to a point, but I don't think I'd bother returning.

 

I bought one of two nice things. Got talked into joining the Hatherton and Lichfield Canal Trust (I didn't mind), mooched about a bit, ate ice cream, drank beer and looked in lots of different new boats for sale.

 

And there's the problem. The word 'different' above.

 

On this forum, I've heard the term 'clonecraft' before but clearly didn't understand what it meant. I'd assumed that I live on a 'clonecraft'. It's 55' long, relatively modern, has a front cratch etc. Seems pretty standard to me, and quite similar to thousands of other boats out there.

 

What I found at Crick was that 'quite similar' isn't enough. New boats all have to be virtually identical, inside and out. In particular this was true of the widebeams, which apart from a slightly different approach from Aintree Boats were actually completely all the same. The layout was the same, the materials were the same, the Sterling Pro Combi was the same, the sales pitch was the same, the wrong information given by the salesmen was the same... I could go on.

 

Where's the creativity, the flair, the 'boatyness'? I can only guess that the builders have decided what the public want and have stuck to the script exactly, but I can't help thinking that if someone there was genuinely exhibiting something different it would have attracted a lot of attention.

 

Just been reading the thread about boats before 1990s and it definitely seems that there used to be a lot more diversity on the cut. I could draw a comparison with car design which used to be a lot more varied. Are we all becoming ultra-conservative in our tastes, with our metallic grey Audis, white plastic caravans and clonecraft boats. I would assume that boat buyers would be a wacky lot, looking for something distinctive. I seem to be wrong. Looking around Crick, I got the impression that most prospective buyers were simply pondering on a widebeam boat as an alternative to a static home in a caravan site.

 

Those same people would presumably be horrified at my boat interior, since the wood panelling is too dark and I don't have marble worktops in my kitchen.

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I guess it is because we are currently in a recession, ano creativity means taking risks and possibly not making a profit.

 

Also in the last few years several respected boatbuilders have retired, died or gone out of business, so there are fewer builders left, so less scope for creativity.

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You are right Dave my widebeam is different so is Lesleys and Richards, we have made them different which to me is a good thing mine has a baby blue Rayburn in the kitchen/dining room baby blue units as well worksurfaces are oak. Bathroom is black and grey [original owners choice] and the bedroom is huge with a 3 seater leather reclining sofa in it.

I also have a wheelhouse its totally different to whats on offer and suits me which is how it should be

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My only reason to visit Crick is to connect with folk I haven't seen for some time, the majority of boats on show hold little appeal, neither do the fudge or face painting stalls. If it characterises the modern boating scene, and I suspect it does, then my diminishing enthusiasm is justified. We spent less than 3 hours there on the Saturday, time to touch base with friends before repairing to the Red Lion for lunch. Had we not held complementary passes, it would have been an expensive visit.

 

Dave

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I think that like cars, a consensus is emerging about how best to design a widebeam and as all builders are selling into the same market, the design of their products converge.

 

Similarly, the market is mostly driven by the rising house market. Because there are now lots of existing boats that don't fit the cliche of a shanty town hovel houseboat, ordinary house buyers are beginning to see widebeams as similar enough to, and therefor a viable alternative to a house or flat.

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Posting the "me too" comments is not really helpful, but I do agree with DaveP. I had been thinking about car design, though. In the days of the Austin 7 there was lots of variation in car design and I could name the make and model of most cars that I saw. (Is is a sign of age that my gandson at 4ys can to the same?) but these days they all seem to be settling down to the "ideal design" certainly in shape. I suppose that it is that design which is most economic in all ways.

 

As regards boats, I would have thought that there was little excuse in terms of fitout, for such uniformity. The boat that I fell in love with at Crick a few years ago was Pyrus (Sp?) with its recycled pine and very boaty interior. Fashion, I suppose is the leader. My wife can't get clothes that she likes because every T shirt is too low cut fer her taste and si sleeveless. But clothes shops a tied into what they know will sell.

 

N

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I agree, thing is that they are a safe bet and they will comply with all the regulations with ease. Anything radical may throw up problems. Back in the '70's when people built there own boats every boat was different, not necessarily better but always interesting, I stand to be corrected but was it Cressy that had a brilliant 12v system? two bare wires, one pos. one neg just below the ceiling, whatever you wanted to use you just crocodile clipped to the wires. I used to keep the gas bottle inside, just behind the rayburn , stopped it from freezing in the winter. Fit outs could be anything from a demolition site or whatever just happened to be around. Most boats now have a big professional input, in fact many owners cannot fix their own boats when things go wrong so inevitably we see a 'lowest common denominator' of blandness that appeals to the greatest number of people. To be honest a walk along the towpath is not very interesting these days and it is another reason why our boating is in France, Belgium and Holland,

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Yeah, I must say I think ours is rather different compared to most.

 

We have a Trad Stern, quite rare in itself on a WB - but it does mean I have a utility room/tool room just inside the back hatch

Ours has the trad layout with the bedroom at the back end, most now seem to have a reverse layout with the galley/saloon at the back

Not sure what the "trendy" material is these days, but ours is fitted out with Oak with Ash trim, except below the gunwhales and the ceiling which is white tongue & groove.

 

Unlike Peter boat - we keep our 4 seater corner sofa in the saloon but have a full size walk around bed in the bed room wink.png

 

 

 

 

ETA - whilst typing the above something struck me. I was offline for a few months from Nov - April, and since I've come back there seems to be a lot less WB members posting. Did I miss something major whilst offline? Are we really not welcome round these parts, was there some serious bust up? I've always taken the banter between WB & NB owners as just that...banter in the most part.

 

Where have the likes of:

 

Dean

Blackrose

Jeylyn

Juliynn

 

all gone? there's someone else missing, but their user ID slips my memory at present.

Edited by Bettie Boo
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Posting the "me too" comments is not really helpful, but I do agree with DaveP. I had been thinking about car design, though. In the days of the Austin 7 there was lots of variation in car design and I could name the make and model of most cars that I saw. (Is is a sign of age that my gandson at 4ys can to the same?) but these days they all seem to be settling down to the "ideal design" certainly in shape. I suppose that it is that design which is most economic in all ways.

 

As regards boats, I would have thought that there was little excuse in terms of fitout, for such uniformity. The boat that I fell in love with at Crick a few years ago was Pyrus (Sp?) with its recycled pine and very boaty interior. Fashion, I suppose is the leader. My wife can't get clothes that she likes because every T shirt is too low cut fer her taste and si sleeveless. But clothes shops a tied into what they know will sell.

 

N

I suspect that boat builders are being conservative to a point and the ones that did build "something different" have gone out of business which I think `is the case with the Pyrus boat you describe.

 

I know what you mean with the era of Austin 7s I love old cars but again a lot of the makers who were a bit off beat have gone out of business long ago. Austin when they were building Austin 7s they knew the value of family likeness in their designs. In photos an Austin 10 looks very similar to a 7 which in turn looks like an Austin 12 etc.

 

In anycase unless we are in the market for a new boat our opinion on the market does not mean that much.

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I stand to be corrected but was it Cressy that had a brilliant 12v system? two bare wires, one pos. one neg just below the ceiling, whatever you wanted to use you just crocodile clipped to the wires.

Adelina.

 

They would pile their possessions onto the bed in stacks of increasing value in case it sank when they weren't there.

 

Cressy had a bath at gunwale level so it could drain overboard (Rolt didn't believe in pumps, seemingly) and the hot water.... Well, there was a diversion valve in the raw water cooling from the engine- hot water from the Cut!

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Also in the last few years several respected boatbuilders have retired, died or gone out of business, so there are fewer builders left, so less scope for creativity.

That's a major factor I think - for example Steve Hudson always exhibited two boats at the show, and at least one would have a thumping, gleaming great engine and a back cabin. Love or loathe his bow shapes and washers rivets, his creations were utterly distinctive. Last time I went, last year I think, there wasn't a single traditional engine on view in the equipment tents either - whatever happened to Russell Newbery's stand, which was always a crowd-puller as they had an engine chugging away on (I think) compressed air?

Edited by Athy
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...Where's the creativity, the flair, the 'boatyness'? I can only guess that the builders have decided what the public want and have stuck to the script exactly, but I can't help thinking that if someone there was genuinely exhibiting something different it would have attracted a lot of attention.

 

Just been reading the thread about boats before 1990s and it definitely seems that there used to be a lot more diversity on the cut.

If you want boat diversity get off the cut and onto some rivers. The canals are the home of boat monoculture (and probably always were). These days perhaps in part it stems from the attitudes of canal boaters themselves. You often see examples on this forum: Someone wants or does something a bit different and people come down on them like a tonne of bricks. The same people then complain about "clone craft"!

Edited by Claude
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Nothing new to this similarity surely. Chances are if you want something different it will be less practical/efficient than the norm. Look at back cabins on trad working boats. They all followed the same/similar layout because with over a hundred of years development they offered the absolute best use of small space granted to them as living accomodation.

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Yeah, I must say I think ours is rather different compared to most.

 

We have a Trad Stern, quite rare in itself on a WB - but it does mean I have a utility room/tool room just inside the back hatch

Ours has the trad layout with the bedroom at the back end, most now seem to have a reverse layout with the galley/saloon at the back

Not sure what the "trendy" material is these days, but ours is fitted out with Oak with Ash trim, except below the gunwhales and the ceiling which is white tongue & groove.

 

Unlike Peter boat - we keep our 4 seater corner sofa in the saloon but have a full size walk around bed in the bed room wink.png

 

 

 

 

ETA - whilst typing the above something struck me. I was offline for a few months from Nov - April, and since I've come back there seems to be a lot less WB members posting. Did I miss something major whilst offline? Are we really not welcome round these parts, was there some serious bust up? I've always taken the banter between WB & NB owners as just that...banter in the most part.

 

Where have the likes of:

 

Dean

Blackrose

Jeylyn

Juliynn

 

all gone? there's someone else missing, but their user ID slips my memory at present.

I have a 2 seater sofabed in the living kitchen as well as a floating Island its on wheels so can anywhere its needed. I liked the big bedroom as you can be watching TV on the sofa then just shuffle to bed still watching the TV. The living /kitchen is big enough for six so it means I have my own private saloon as well just attached to the bedroom lol

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must say as someone looking in the not too distant future to have a wb built when we visited mercia marina a few weeks ago we found most of the wb for sale there very similar in design some had great feature but big square bums others had nice bums and terrible layout inside. the one thing for sure I'm guessing is there is only so many ways you can layout a nb or wb but with habit more thought in how the owner intends living/using the end product and the use of new materials on the fit out surely more alternatives can be made possible. that said maybe for the builders of such boats its a safe easier way of producing the end product by using the same layout and the same interior products their team once they have built one should be able to produce the following ones quicker as they learn all the ways to do the job on the first one so can avoid hours of head scratching on every other build. We liked the fact that burscough boats said they wanted our input so they would build what WE wanted but already i have heard from a member of this forum that he was told the same so he drew out his rough plans and headed for the yard only to find that by the time they had CAD his plans they were no longer what he drew but more what what the builder was pushing towards so its very much a case of finding a true bespoke builder who will build what YOU want.

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I suspect that there is actually a bit more diversity in what is being built but that boatbuilders are reluctant to take the more quirky examples to a show like Crick.

 

I confess to having what is mostly a standard reverse layout 58' built in 2015. But we wanted the galley at the back but not the bedroom at the front so we have two living spaces and the bedroom in the middle. Not actually very radical but I've only seen one other, where I got the idea from.

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We have a Trad Stern, quite rare in itself on a WB - but it does mean I have a utility room/tool room just inside the back hatch

Ours has the trad layout with the bedroom at the back end, most now seem to have a reverse layout with the galley/saloon at the back

Not sure what the "trendy" material is these days, but ours is fitted out with Oak with Ash trim, except below the gunwhales and the ceiling which is white tongue & groove.

 

 

Where have the likes of:

 

Dean

Blackrose

Jeylyn

Juliynn

 

all gone?

 

 

I do like the look of a WB with a Trad Stern. Very hard to see examples of them around the system, though I think their is a high company on the K&A who have Semi-Trad WBs in their fleet! Both styles I do like and if / when we are in a stage to get our own boat it is something I would like. Still convincing Mrs Dharl at present, she is still preferring NBs. Did you commission your WB if so who was the shell builder please?

 

 

Yes noticed there has been few less of the regular WB posters about, I think its more of the ebb and flow of a forum rather than anything more suspicious then that! Though I havnt seen Juliynn post ion well over a year!

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It would be much better to spend an afternoon wondering about central Birmingham, a wonderful diversity of boats.

But then you live here don't you?, so its no surprise that you find Crick a bit bland.

 

.................Dave

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I suspect that there is actually a bit more diversity in what is being built but that boatbuilders are reluctant to take the more quirky examples to a show like Crick.

 

I confess to having what is mostly a standard reverse layout 58' built in 2015. But we wanted the galley at the back but not the bedroom at the front so we have two living spaces and the bedroom in the middle. Not actually very radical but I've only seen one other, where I got the idea from.

 

 

Honeystreet (b 2005) is a similar layout, the forward 'saloon' is actually the Master suite with the ensuite, which you do have make up every night while amidships is the perm double.

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I do like the look of a WB with a Trad Stern. Very hard to see examples of them around the system, though I think their is a high company on the K&A who have Semi-Trad WBs in their fleet! Both styles I do like and if / when we are in a stage to get our own boat it is something I would like. Still convincing Mrs Dharl at present, she is still preferring NBs. Did you commission your WB if so who was the shell builder please?

 

 

Yes noticed there has been few less of the regular WB posters about, I think its more of the ebb and flow of a forum rather than anything more suspicious then that! Though I havnt seen Juliynn post ion well over a year!

 

Nope the shell was almost 5 years old when we bought her and the previous owner had fitted her out himself using his own skilled workforce (he's a property developer) then his wife decided she didn't fancy boating on the canals for her holidays or even weekends so he put her up for sale.

 

He had commissioned our hull from Cuttwater Boats - the other bit that I would recommend for anyone looking to have a WB hull commissioned is the chinned hull; it gives so much more flexibality in mooring spots. We seem to be able to get in a fair few places that other WB's can't and/or closer to the bank. Which is really good for me, I have problems with my legs so don't trust myself on the gang plank

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One that colour is.

Exactly baby blue and very nice My friend Richard has bought one as well because its different

That's what I was thinking too.Baby blue sounds lovely.

I will get around to posting picture of her one day when I am sure she is finished

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