Complaint Review: bock marine - Beaufort North Carolina

I did the work on Andrew Jones’ 28’ sail boat “Phyllis May”.  The job was to apply an awl grip finish to all the exterior wood. This consists of masking, scraping, sanding to bare wood, remasking, coating with epoxy, sanding, recoating with epoxy, sanding, remasking, priming, sanding, priming, sanding, remasking, top coating, sanding, top coating and hopefully it’s done.

Mr. Jones stated there was not that much work to be done, I disagree: a nominal 2x4 rub rail, a wrap-around cap rail 2x4 x4x4x2,  2 pin rails, 2 winch tables with 4 supports which had to be disassembled, 2  (7’ open handrails), a shattered boom rack which was glued and fiberglassed, a sliding companionway hatch which was rebuilt (plywood replaced 2 layers of cloth and Formica interior panel to eliminate any further maintenance and the tracks that held it), 2 panel companionway doors with drop board and surrounding door jam, and 2 water diverters. I can understand why Mr. Jones did not want to varnish this twice a year to maintain a quality finish, it is a lot of work.

While we were stripping the above, Mr. Jones was repairing the butt end of the mast and removing the hardware from all the spars (mast, boom, gaff, and a very long bowsprit). He was impressed with the work we were doing and asked if we could do the same to the spars.  I don’t like to paint wood spars because you can’t see the condition of wood through the paint as you can with varnish and informed him of my concerns but agreed to do as he wished.  In the process I noticed a crack half way through the bow sprit, I informed Mr. Jones and we agreed that it needed repairing. I scarphed in a 3’ piece of spruce with long scarphs to remove the crack.

 Anyone who has ever done any trim work knows there is a lot of hand sanding involved; sanding has to be thorough and you can’t burn through the edges. The rub rails involve 3 surfaces and 2 edges, the cap rail involves 5 surfaces and 4 edges.  One look at the open hand rails and they speak for themselves, all the spars were round. We used sanders where ever we could but a lot had to be sanded by hand.  Everything was thoroughly sanded 6 times and masked 4 times. To properly maintain varnished exterior wood in NC it needs to be done twice a year (one masking and one coat of varnish), in the tropics more often.

I billed Bock marine for 350 hours, that’s when I stopped the clock.  I also deducted 25% from the bill and worked another 24.5 hours, no charge, reassembling everything and repainting the spars which had dulled out because of humidity and rushing to finish (my fault) 

I agree with Mr. Jones that the bill was high, but he doesn’t ever have to varnish again. That was the main purpose of this job. In my opinion Mr. Jones got a deal, the amount of labor hours billed was correct and the work was done properly, and nobody sat around watching paint dry.

374 hours in 39 days averages out to 9.5 man hours per day for 2 men. Nobody asked for an estimate and if they did Mr. Jones would probably be varnishing it himself or getting a 100 hour substandard job. I stand by my work and my reputation. 

As it turned out, I was the one who actually got ripped off.  I received $1,000. less than what I billed and that after the 25% discount and no charge hours.

Jeff Heyland

 www.jeffheylandboatcarpentry.com

   We have been customers of Bock Marine since Sept 2006 and have been very satisfied with the work ethics of owners Kenny and Nancy Bock from the beginning. These people don't only treat you as customers but also as friends.

     As for the complaint above, this boat was brought into the yard and blocked within 30 feet of our boat, we got to see the condition of it when it came in and also saw the progress as the workers stripped many coats of Cetol from the woodwork and then applied 2 to 3 layers of epoxy to smooth the surface sanding between coats, alot of this by hand no machines. Then came the primer 2 to 3 coats with the same care sanding between each coat, lastly the finish color was put on, rolled and tipped again sanding between coats. Somewhere in the middle of the project the mast and boom and other pieces were also added to the project, again with the same care sanding and scraping began epoxy applied, primer then finish coat. While all of this work was going on we never saw the owner of this boat show to say one way or another if he was pleased with the work.

    As a concerned customer of this one of a kind business we are very displeased with the way the boat owner went about handling his problem, I know for a fact that the Bock's bent over backwards to do everything they could to resolve this in a timely and business like manner.

Regards

Ken Farwell

S/V Starfish

I'm very glad to say the Kenny Bock proved he deserves his very good reputation in a field that is flooded with unhappy consumers. The problem has been resolved to the satisfaction of both Bock Marine and myself. That's not an easy thing for a business owner to accomplish when things have gone seriously south and a customer is very suspicious and unhappy. My real compliments to Bock Marine, and I can recommend them without reservation. It's easy to be great when all is going well, but the real measure of customer centered business is how the worst day of the year is handled. 

Thanks Kenny.

Andrew Jones