Quality Vs bean counters, the demise of the boatbuilder.

A total lack of quality control and integrity. Lets get ready to rumble!

In the blue corner, we have the undefeated champion, the faceless corporation, trained by renowned coach, shareholders. In the red corner we have the defeated at every turn engineering department, trained by the right way to do things.

What a heavyweight clash, we start today in a bit of a huff, from working on a boat built in the late 90s, straightforward quality, good components, less frills and easy to upgrade, now, en route to fix things that should not be faulty on a boat costing half a million Euros and built less than four years ago. Why is this the case?

I have seen a lot during my time around boats, some boats that should not be in the water, others that I find it hard to find fault with. What I have noticed lately is a severe lack of quality control or continuity in production. One day the same boat from the same manufacturer is perfect, other days it´s riddled with faults and problems that should not have got past the quality assurance process. Well, in fairness they didn't, the corporate machine stamped it as “that'll do”, this is damaging the industry in so many ways.

Faceless corporation

When financial crises occur, a lot of business suffer, boatbuilders are not immune, save for possibly some of the mega yacht constructors who cannot be considered production boats. Boatbuilders get absorbed by other companies, which can work if the buying company has an interest in boats or at least experience in the industry, unfortunately that is often not the case and they only see a numbers, the boatbuilder can get forced into trimming down staff, quality of materials, production times etc. all of which equates to a drop in quality. It´s been heard a few times where a yard was bought up by either a competitor or a large corporation and the rumors start, don´t buy brand "X" after a certain model year, the quality went way down.

Production line cuts

Aside from the low volume bespoke boats, most are made on a production line, either big or small and there is a logical process from start to delivery to the dealership. If engineers, QA staff and skilled workers are not allowed to do things in the best way possible due to the purse strings being tight, the finished product will suffer, this seems to be a tactic of a corporate takeover, streamline the production line, source less expensive parts and turn things out quicker. Just see how the warranty claims rise going down this road.

Poaching staff

I had a conversation with someone who is heavily involved with production at a very large builder, one of the core problems is staff poaching. A boatbuilder has employees who are trained to do tasks to a certain repeatable standard. Along comes the poacher from a rival brand and like a drug dealer offering free samples, recruits the employee from the rival by bettering their terms and conditions somehow.

From the poachers point of view, this makes great sense, they get a trained employee with a history from a rival in the industry and they have little investment in training. All this underhandedness leads to a large turnover of staff, this is at a point where there does not seem to be younger people coming into the industry, especially in the repairs and maintenance sector.

You would imagine that this sort of thing would encourage companies to hold onto their staff, maybe raise salaries or make them more loyal, but it does not seem to be that way. I don´t know if it is considered a cut into the profit margin or the company does not want to be held to ransom by the employees and so they let them go. One other thought is that they could raise salaries but likely would pass on those costs to the buyer, further increasing the sales price.

COVID

I know COVID gets blamed for everything and really it´s impossible to have prepared ourselves for what happened, so what was the result for the boatbuilding industry? Well, a lot of the long term employees, those who would be approaching the end of their careers, did not return, this left a gap in the experience level.

There was another effect of COVID which was surprising to a lot of people, boat sales. The demand went off the scale, new and pre owned models alike, prices went up as the demand exceeded supply, if it looked vaguely like a boat and floated it sold. The knock on effect of quality or lack of quality control was basically there was little to none. The boats had to be shipped, people were waiting, a lot of those customers were buying their first boat and so had no basis of comparison.

Those of us in the trade held our heads in our hands and what things were becoming, we are still finding faults years later of the boats sold during that time. I know of a couple of salespeople who try to avoid selling these boats on brokerage or taking them in part exchange, such is the level of notoriety.

Young People entering the workforce

The problem is there's not enough of them. I cannot say for other countries, here in Southern Europe there has been steadily declining birth rates for many years. Amongst my colleagues it is not uncommon for them to have many siblings, some in the double digits, I have six brothers myself. There was a news article on the lunchtime television stating that for every five people who retire from skilled trades, only two possibly three are coming in. The article did not state if it was because there just wasn't anybody or if these industries are just not appealing to younger generations.

We are an ageing workforce, every year I see skilled people retiring with nobody replacing them. So what does this mean for quality? Well, a lot actually, if you have an experienced worker with skills honed through years of work, they will show a novice how to do things well, they will pass on their knowledge, whereas if the quality control department or the people showing others how to do the work have delusions of adequacy or very low standards, well that will be replicated in the work turned out in the future.

Components or construction

I would say most of the components used are of a decent standard, improvements can always be made. Upholstery, switchgear, door closures, pumps etc. all seem to be largely good. The problem comes from how all these components are installed, you could have the highest quality fittings and fixtures on planet earth, if they have been assembled with little care or knowledge then the end result will be problematic, some examples that keep getting repeated:

• Lack of sealing, so water gets in where it should not, not sealing stainless steel screws makes them rust by crevice corrosion. If insufficient sealant has been used below the waterline this can be potentially catastrophic and will certainly mean hauling the boat back out for repair.

Solving this problem is actually easy, use more sealant, if it doesn't  ooze out when you assemble the items you have not used enough. When sealing screws and fixings,  countersink the hole, then fill with sealant, this small step will help make a more effective seal and prevent water from getting in than simply sealing to a flat surface.

• Impossible to reach fittings, this can be anything from mildly irksome to down right neck breaking, thru hull fittings and especially seacocks in the underwater part of the hull absolutely must be easily accessible. I have a feeling that actually might a legal requirement, I suspect the work around is, if it´s visible you can access it? Well unless you have the reach and upper body strength of an orangutan or Marvel super hero, then it´s going to be difficult.

• Fuses and breakers, would it hurt to put them where they can be reached? not hidden or involving a climb over a really hot engine room to reset or change, because that´d be great, also a label now and again would be handy.

• Aluminum meet stainless, this one is great, we know how the sea is really corrosive, so what do we do, we assemble items, usually hatches, windshields, wakeboard towers or lighting gantries made of very expensive aluminium using....stainless steel fasteners.

Why is the last point a problem? I hear you ask, well that while stainless steel is brilliant for use on boats (the good 316 grade and not the rubbish being used at the moment), it does not play nicely with aluminum in the presence of salt water. In basic terms it is called galvanic corrosion, two dissimilar metals (stainless and aluminium) in the presence of an electrolyte (seawater) will form a galvanic cell and the aluminium will get pitted and damaged by the chemical reaction.

The solution is fairly straightforward, you isolate the two metals as much as possible with a barrier material or product, Teflon gel is a great example, we use it all the time of aluminum wakeboard racks that use stainless bolts to hold them in place, works great, but, obviously at the factory they seem to have skipped that part of training, because I see a lot of very expensive components requiring replacement, refinishing (painting or powder coating) because the corrosion has set in.

Not so stainless

I cannot express just how much of a nuisance this one is. In short, there are multiple types of stainless steel and, given enough time, even high grade ones will eventually degrade. The problem is, lately it seems they lowest bidder is supplying boatbuilders because, for sure the stainless steel (especially screws) being used is anything but. I have seen new boats that have been in yards, boat shows or storage that are already showing signs of rust and have not even been put in the water yet!

The correct type of stainless is called 316, it has and extra element called Molybdenum added to it, this makes it extremely resistance to corrosion, even in the harshest of marine environments.

The net result is a client sees rust stains all over their new boat, the fixings have to be replaced and all the mess cleared up. The client and the dealer lose here, client doesn't see product as quality, dealer cannot claim the fixings or their replacements under warranty (in most circumstances) and so is out of pocket, a lose lose situation. Why is my stainless steel rusting?

Stupid solutions to non existent problems

In a bid to pack as much as possible into a small boat, whether that be for streamlining parts across the range or upping the perceived value of a product, I see too many solutions to problems that really don´t exist, mostly in the form of automation, that when on a small boat with a finite amount of space to mount stuff takes up valuable storage. Some typical examples are:

• Electrically raising and lower navigation and/or anchor lights. Added complication, especially on a small boat.

• Remote battery switches, these work well when your boat is large, gives great flexibility of installation and means that large and heavy battery cables need not be installed over long distance. This is completely unnecessary in a 25 footer, added to which, if there is no battery, the remote solenoid is installed in a place where it cannot be reached and worse still, no method of emergency paralleling batteries.

• Fridges, so this is contentious I agree, it depends on the style of the boat, but fitting a fridge compressor in a 19 foot boat with a single battery set up is a recipe for problems.

• Expensive switchgear, there is no need to use those flashy stainless steel switches with halos on small boats, unless you are a really high end builder and your smaller models are already into six figures.

The net result of these "solutions" is generally a higher sales price and often a higher failure rate of components coupled with higher repair prices as there is so little room in some boats that much has to be taken apart to get to the faulty component.

Masters of our own demise

It is a bit our own fault. We have become more and demanding in our products, however, from what I can see we have become more and more accepting of poor quality and apathetic service. We pay for convenience and price point over quality or value for money.

Conclusions

I understand that companies have to make profits, a lot of nautical companies have been or are being absorbed by large corporations, some of those corporations already have boatbuilders in their portfolios and so should have an idea on building a boat, others just see it as another arm of their business, designed to make a profit.

At the time of writing, boats have never been more expensive, the prices have increased way over and above inflation and demand does not really seem to be tailing off as fast as you would think. I suspect the less mass produced, independent builders will carry on turning out high quality products.

New vs restored

Not just boats, but cars, motorcycles, houses, there are forums that specialize in restorations, recreations and upgrades to older products. A lot of the work is done by  people who do not do that kind of work for their job but have a lot of the skills to start with, it is also true that a lot of the work done is vastly better to what some professionals turn out and certainly superior to the original. 

This I suspect will become an even more lucrative and popular sector. The aftermarket range of products has never been better, both in terms of choice and quality. Quietly we are navigating towards to old adage of “they don't make em like they used to” and we will have the faceless business people to thank for it. One word of advice on this and the subject of this post, quality does not come cheap, but when compared to longevity it will pay for itself many times over, specially when it does not give you problems in the future.

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