G'day,

Looks like a Chinese company is going to produce a beach version of a harryproa. 5m/15' long, 2.2m/7'4" wide, 50 kgs/110 lbs with a windsurfer type rig.

With all the horror stories coming out of China I want to ensure the quality control is as high as possible.

Therefore, I am collecting horror stories about production beach cats. Everything bad that has ever happened to your boat that could have been averted if the builder was more concientious or experienced.

Please post them here, or to me privately at harryproa@gmail.com

Thanks.

regards,

Rob Denney
www.harryproa.com

If you were worried about the Chinese production quality, why did you hire them to do the work?

In light of the nonsensical nature of this post, and the fact you mention your 'harryproa' twice, perhaps you should consider purchasing an ad from the fine folks who sponsor this site?

Rumor has it the harryproa from China is laced with lead and built by workers who moonlight at milk bottling plants.

I could be wrong.

G'day,

Tami,

They hired me, not the other way round. I know a bit about the boats I design, but not so much about production issues. Thought I would ask here to see what I could learn.

Sorry you find it nonsense, but really glad you took the time and effort to tell me.

If it all works out and I have something to sell, I may well take an ad on this forum.

Hobie 1616,

That rumour is why I want to install a reliable QC system.

James and George,

Thanks for your off list comments. I can see why you did not want to make them public.

regards,

Rob

I'm sure the only to get good quality from an Chinese or even another asian national like Indonesia is to place a westerner inside the factory as a supervisor who walks the floor at least daily if not hourly.

Wouter

I'm still confused as to why we as end users would have knowledge of production issues? We aren't IN the factory? If we have a problem, we send the boat back to the dealer and get him to fix it - that's what we pay him for. We don't know what in the factory happened to create the problem - that's for the internal QC guy. See what I mean?

Now your question might be better directed to someone like Matt Miller, the Hobie rep - he works for the factory.

Both Ian Farrier and James Wharram are online. www.f-boat.com and www.wharram.com respectively

Neither Farrier nor Wharram have any bones about telling it like it is with respect to who builds their designs. Both are VERY EXTREMELY protective about builders and are quick to tell homebuilders to not even think about deviating from their plans.

more examples: Farrier is not very enamoured of Corsair even though they've been 'divorced' for some time and isn't very happy about Corsair moving production to Vietnam.

If you go to the Wharram site or read Wharram's articles he is constantly making the point about quality of production whether it be from hired builders or homebuilders.

I am just familiar with those two because I own(ed) their boats and read their articles. But as an end user I can't speak to issues they have faced in regards having their designs produced.

This is your reputation as a builder on the line, should you be doing this for a living. think about it. If you have to ask, maybe shouldn't go there?

Sorry I offended you, but this seems obvious to me. I am all about people paying their way, having been burned by a 'free ad' kinda guy, but that's another story...

Rob, i think this is a great post, and this is a perfect place to ask... i have no data but i want to support you in posting here... i see no "nonsense" with your question.

Please let us know what you find and any policy you plan to use to handle it.

Actually, as a end user, we do see issues with boats that we purchase. It might come in the form of delamination, voids in the epoxy, poorly laminated blades and boards, masts that were built without structural integrity and much more. Does this lead us to the reason that this happened in the production process? Sometimes it does. I looked at an A-Cat that was shipped out to a top competitor in which one of the hulls was not glued correctly and it had to be cut apart at the bows, straightened and reglued. My A-Cat had the beams reset because it originally was not lined up correctly when the beams were first layed up. As to promoting a product on this website, I do believe that with all that Rick and Mary have given to this community, you should pay for an ad. I have seen many other products discussed on this forum that did help promote the product, but most of those were talked about for certian reasons. The LR2 A-Cat and the A3 A-Cat have gotten quite a bit of exposure on this forum because of the uniqueness of the product when they were first released. I do not know if Morelli & Melvin pay for ads and I am sure that John Lindahl does not, but John builds one at a time and does only upon request. These boats do get talked about and I am sure that they have recieved orders because of that. The harryproa project could be talked about without placing an ad in the thread. Those are just my opinions though.

G'day,

Wouter,
Done that, the guy running it is a German who has been boatbuilding in China for 20 years.

Tami,

No offence taken.

I don't expect this forum to know how factories fixed the problems, but it is a good source of what the problems actually are.

Andrew,
Ta. Some of the controls I want to include are: weight and centre of gravity of the boat. Static load tests of hulls, mast, rudders, beams and booms to test deflections. Tests will be photographed and included with each boat's paperwork, as will instructions on how to repeat the tests, so the distributor and/or the owner can do them as well.

Resin coupons, hull cutouts, materials, environment and vacuum details recorded for each laminating step, and included with each boat.

This is already standard practice on our larger masts. Takes a while for the workforce to get into the swing of it, but once they are, quality is good and consistent.

The beams and decks are built in the same mould so alignment is not a problem. The rig is unstayed, so as long as the carbon mast and boom bench test within limits, there should be no problems. Sails will be mass produced once we know what works, so should be accurate.

The rudder blades are joined along the sides, not the front and back. This is more work, but gives a much more reliable join and more accurate leading and trailing edges.

The boats will be painted post mould, so a visual check of the laminate will show any major vac bag leaks.

There is still scope for stuff ups, so a 100% money back guarantee is the last part of the equation.


Windswept,
Ta, that is exactly the sort of problems I want to know about.

Re ads: The plan is to build a couple of boats and test them in China to get any obvious glitches resolved, then offer 4 boats each to buyers in Europe, USA and Australia at a low price to get feedback from sailors. As boats become available, ads, test sails, races and boat shows will follow.

Happy to discuss any of the above.

Regards,

Rob

You certainly meant to add "...after there are boats for sale", for there was certainly no promotion.
Rob just mentioned it will be a 5m version of a Harry Proa. This is the same as saying it will be a 4m version of a catamaran or trimaran. Harry Proa is a type of proa, better than both the Atlantic and the Pacific Proa.

Take care,