[MHml] Builder's Construction Pymts (was Builders in South africa)

[brian eiland]

Also, make sure the progress payments are reasonable and reflect the value of
the labour and material into the boat as it is built. Boatbuilders ALWAYS want
to front load a contract so they are working with your money. If things go
south, they may have more of your money that the boat to date is worth. 

Evan Gatehouse 
____________________________________________________ 
Brian added some observations:
...excerpt from Thailand report with names deleted
 
The managing director spent a lot of time in the charter and boat building
business in France, so obviously he has a catamaran heart. If his name
hadn’t been French, and he didn’t have a bit of French accent, I
wouldn’t have believed he was French. He is a very knowledgeable
boatbuilder, and one of the most 'up front', honest appearing guys I've ever
met in the business. He has developed a method of keeping track of EVERYTHING
in the factory without being obsessive about it. He can tell you how many
rolls of tape were used on what vessels, and who took aspirin and when. Now
this is the ultimate in cost control production. With this system of record
keeping he can bill the client on a monthly basis rather than by stages. 

This keeps his cash flow problems to a minimum, and allows the client to keep
tight control on the running cost of the project...no BIG surprises to come up
as with stage payments. And the client can get a full and exact incremental
accounting as the project goes forward. Marvelous for both parties. Very few
builders could ever offer such a payment plan as they don't track things with
this exactness.
 
He is right up front with his charges to build, and that is basically his cost
plus 20%. He bills labor out at 8 euro per hour. He builds in a set %
additional charge on all equips added to the vessel to cover handling,
installation, etc. In general he works on a time and materials basis to build
a project rather than some guesstimate as to what the vessel will cost lump
sum. He wants to make an honest 20% profit.
 
So the client is only left with the questions of will he 'pad' the bill, or
will he have competent folks working on the project that won't be 'learning'
at the client's expense. With his record keeping and honesty, I don't think
you will find any 'padding' of the bill. Besides on a monthly billing basis it
would be easy to detect. 

He did another smart thing. He located himself right in the old facility
utilized by those fellows that spent 10 years building those super yacht
138's. He is surrounded by a work force that was trained for those years…he
has some real experienced workers from what I can tell...and all the extras he
might need in a sudden overload situation.
 
Composite boatbuilding in Thailand, or other hi-humidity situations, can be a
problem. All of his materials, cores, fabrics, resins are stored in a temp and
humidity controlled room that has 24 hour monitoring and recording devices. He
has assumed control of a metal working facility directly adjoining his space.
If you saw the workmanship on these stainless pieces you would want even more
of it on your vessel. But be careful our light-weight multihulls should try to
restrain themselves from those obsessively heavy big stainless fixtures.
Beautiful work though. And he is building for other manufacturers & marketers.


Summary: This builder would be very high on my list of potentials. I think the
yacht quality is attainable, and I think you would get a most honest
accounting for the work. I believe he might be able to construct at least two
70 foot cats, possible 3 simultaneously along side several smaller projects he
might have. There might be some cost savings in simultaneous constructions of
identical designs.



Remember I had just visited XXXX and come away with the idealized picture of
manufacturing cost-tracking, with monthly reports and billing, etc. So I posed
the question to them, as to whether that was possible with their operation.
You probably guessed the answer already, as with most boat builders, there is
not that 'exactness' in boatbuilding so they couldn't possible accomplish such
a thing...stage payments only. My bottom line concern is how do they apportion
out the 'management expenses' to each project. And certainly their overhead
cost are significantly higher


Brian Eiland

beiland at usa.net
www.RunningTideYachts.com
distinctive expedition yachts