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Tough Times Ahead for the Boat Industry? |
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Chew my RS
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Oct 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 790 |
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Topic: Tough Times Ahead for the Boat Industry? Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 9:04am |
Rising oil prices mean higher prices for resins, synthetic ropes, sail cloth, foam cores, carbon, fibreglass, rotomouldable plastics etc etc etc. Yesterday it was announced that prices at the factory gate (ie prices of raw materials) were up 28% compared with 12 months ago. Presumably we can expect new boat prices to rise over the next few months. Also, of course, credit is harder to get so presumably the finance deals from the likes of RS, Laser and Topper are likely to be more expensive, if available at all. The result, I guess, is that new boat sales are going to drop quite significantly this year and next. I sincerely hope Topper International, Laser, LDC and all the others make it through the tough times, but I do fear there may be casulaties. |
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Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 10:20am |
Well they'll just have to become more efficient wont they?
No more taking orders and expecting customers to wait so long they get bored. Sailing is such a backwards Cottage Industry, tell me where else are you expected to place orders and miss an entire season whilst you await delivery. Both of my recent purchases were a total joke. The RS500, I made the buying decision in July and failed to acquire the boat until the following November and now, once again having made a buying decision ages ago now, then seeing a completed model at a show what three months ago, I'm still waiting. What other area of retail operates like that? Little wonder there's not much going on. Then again, it's still an enthusiast based business and thus totally relies on our enthusiam. That enthusiasm I fear isn't going to stretch into generating the volume sales they'll require for roto or blow moulded washing up bowl production. They may be O.K. for centres, but I can't see them re generating the large numbers of the seventies and eighties. Nor can I see the skiffy overpowered, one windstrength, overly difficult boats doing much else but confining that area of the sport to the margins. It's a dumbed down world these days, folk demand and get instant gratification and if they dont get it, they vote with their feet and go do something else. Sailing, like windsurfing is run by a body that spends almost its entire effort marketing to youf and the way it does it tends to innoculate them forever against ever becoming hooked, there appears to be little for the would be adult with regards training, it's left to the classes and so often there are silly distances involved with doubts as to the value of the journey. So yes, most definitely tough times ahead, for all concerned. |
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Jon Emmett
Really should get out more Joined: 15 Mar 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 985 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 10:24am |
There industry does seem to work off large margins at the moment with a Performance "Laser" sail costing around £400 and a "Insail" Laser sail costing around £150. So you would hope they could just adsorb the increased production costs...
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Rupert
Really should get out more Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 10:36am |
There is an old saying "to make a small fortune as a boat builder you must start with a large one..."
I doubt Laser, dispite their large mark ups on Lasers spares, are making any more than respectable profits, and maybe we will see some price rises. Which will have a knock on effect into the 2nd hand market as fewer people change boats, and everything will slow down. A good thing might be that we might get fewer new designs being churned out if the sailing school market shrinks. |
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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Chew my RS
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Oct 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 790 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 10:56am |
I can't disagree with anyting you say GRF. The sport doesn't help itself in so many ways.
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tack'ho
Really should get out more Joined: 08 Feb 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 1100 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 12:17pm |
Performance cars! I seem to remember Sir John Harvey Jones, he of the long lunch and larger girth, going to morgan cars and telling them to stop hand building and to speed up production to clear there waiting list. The told him to get knotted! I all seriousness though, as soon as you move out of Rotos and into performance boats you're buying a hand built product. Now how well hand built depends on your builder of course but if there isn't a production run on or your boats a one off then a building slot needs to be found. Now if there is a slow down you may find lead times slow as more building slots come up. But then lets look at 2 of our forumites who've just got shiney new toys. Both as excited as little kids waiting for xmas! I'll take waiting on a quality product and getting that final pay back for your paitence when something worth having arrives, over the 'want it now.....bored wiv it want somefink new' attitude of the throwaway consumer culture; that way lies roto moulded crap from china! So lets rejoice at being involved in an industy where real people really build things with there own hands.....long live cottage industry boat building!! |
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I might be sailing it, but it's still sh**e!
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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 12:26pm |
Well it will scarcely be a new experience if Topper or Laser go bust... Its not as if it hasn't happened before.
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Chew my RS
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Oct 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 790 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 12:36pm |
More often than a League 2 football team, some might say... I was thinking that the cost of tooling for the rotomoulded boats must be high. They must need large volumes of sales to pay back the initial outlay. Rising prices and less money in our pockets, isn't going to help at all. Then of course, if, for example, Topper go bust that will mean less advertising revenue for the likes of Y&Y.
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Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 12:56pm |
I think the fixation with "class" racing doesn't help.
Certainly there is nothing like it to build character and get a fair measure of ones ability, but there is also the counterpoint in that you are condemned as a lessor mortal far more easily when there is nothing else to blame, and anyone who's done it can tell you there is a hell of a price in terms of time and practice to guarantee your place at the front of any half decent One Design fleet. The seed bed to successful regatta competition has to be the local club, and to my mind it appears that this is the area most neglected, local clubs by their nature cannot support classes purely by the transient nature of the human race. Unless you are lucky enough to live close to somewhere like HISC, it's fundamentally why I do this. I like to sail near where I live, but I also want to sail in something modern and relatively simple with a half decent handicap. Folk passing by then want to do it, join in, join our club buy a boat like ours, but.... Say what you like about the RS500, but easy to sail isn't one of its attributes, yet all the pundits think it is, so what chance for a sailing future if a crew of our relative skill struggle with what is supposed to be a user friendly club racer? So you point them at something easy, like a Laser 2000, they then are forced to languish at the back of a fleet.. It's why a higher volume higher performance hull shape more resistant to spills and with better weight carrying with maybe different rig options to my mind is more suitable. Which is why I'm about to buy what I am, in the hope that I can take lessor capable folk out to race now and again without the fear of putting them off forever. The only place to really teach folk is on the water, telling them why you're doing what you are doing. Teaching em to sail is one thing, teaching them the intracasies of the race course is entirely something else. And seriously without racing, I personally don't think there is anything particularly endearing or enduring about sailing a dinghy. It put's the "chess" element into what is an otherwise fairly tame past time. Whatever - my three happorth... |
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tmoore
Really should get out more Joined: 01 Nov 07 Location: Wales Online Status: Offline Posts: 880 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 10 Jun 08 at 1:06pm |
im sorry GRF but i disagree with what you say about the rs500. my school has just bought 4brand new ones in order that people can 'learn to use an assymetric and trapeze'. my crew and i find it very easy and rather dull but we do sail a 29er normally. i think it is an easy boat to sail, difficult to race to handicap. that said my crew and i got a 3rd first time out with the race sails....... this credit crunch is affecting everyone. the boys and girls at the real top of the game wont see that much difference because of the funding they get. its those who are just short of getting sponsorship that will feel the impact most. tough time are ahead for every industry, hopefully this will remove a few of the lower quality classes and help strengthen class racing and increase club participitation due to more similar boats racing together. |
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