Recycled hire boats good value

Published: Friday, 18 February 2011

WHILST some canal businesses may be sunk in gloom, one operator has opted to expand his hire fleet by a third this year—and is already seeing the new boats being booked out as quickly as he can introduce them.

Boat hire business Norbury Wharf based on the Shropshire Union Canal has expanded the value end of the boat hire holiday market, with the company making a conscious decision to offer boats at prices more easily afforded by families and groups of friends.

Recycling

In order to keep prices down, the hire firm has been recycling boats. One of the new additions to the fleet is Ember, (pictured) a 69ft, 10 berths which has been created from the remains of a burned-out shell.

Two more are older, but sturdy, vessels, a 48ft four berths and a 62ft six berths named Quartz and Princess respectively, which have been bought from one of the large hire operators and given a new lease of life by the expert restorers at Norbury.

Can beat on price

Managing Director, Simon Jenkins, explained:

"We don't claim to have the cheapest boats for every week of the season, and we also operate some luxurious boats, but we think that, on average we can beat everyone else on price.

"I believe there is a great future in UK holidays if we can get the quality and the price right. There are a lot of families out there who would love a canal holiday instead of taking the risk of going abroad and we have cut our profit margins in order to put that within reach."

Paying off

With one of the new boats booked out from April until September already, and bookings as a whole well up on last year the decision to go for growth already seems to be paying off.

Simon added:

"We made a decision last year that we would aim to sell more to more people with the smallest margins we can afford, and that is working for us. For instance we aim to be one of the cheapest for diesel on the system and we are currently selling FAME-free red diesel at 69.9p a litre. Because of that policy we sold 180,000 litres of diesel last year.

"The same approach seems to be working with the hire boat business, providing a good quality boat which has all the mod cons and allows us to give ordinary families canal holidays they can afford—and that means more people will come to know and love our waterways, which means more business for everyone in the long term."