- Report: #1059559
Complaint Review: bock marine - Beaufort North Carolina
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bock marine
233 core creek road Beaufort, 28516 North Carolina, USA
Phone:
(252) 728-6855
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Bock Marine Piracy still alive in North Carolina Beaufort North Carolina
I own a small (28foot) sailboat built in 1998. It is mostly fibreglass with a small amount of brightwork on the deck, along with varnished mast and spars including a bowsprit. I had the boat hauled at Bock Marine for normal maintenance, bottom cleaning and bottom painting, and derigging for inspection and maintenance of the spars and rigging. I am not a fan of varnish and the work, so I asked Kenny Bock to sand and paint the previously varnish spars, hand rails, companion way hatche, rub rails, etc.
I was surprised to get a bill for over 19,000 dollars. This does not include the intial haul and derig work, but is billing only for two months yard storage (a very reasonable 150 dollars a month) cleaning the bottom (they sanded it instead of blasting for reasons I'm not at all sure about, which meant it was quite expensive, but still... not really the problem here) and materials like epoxy, paint, sandpaper, plastic tarps etc. That stuff sure adds up quick and it's like buying aspirin at the hospital at times. Still, wait for it, not the problem.
The problem was that the charge for sanding and painting the wood (not the whole boat, not nearly the whole boat, not the deck, not the cockpit, not the hull, not even the bottom which is still unpainted) was 350 hours at 45 dollars an hour. Folks, that is a full time guy for more weeks than the boat was even on the yard! There is one other complaint here about Bock, and frankly it doesn't impress me as being very well founded. Bock Marine has its devotees and they speak well of Kenny. Mostly diy types, as am I. I would normally do this myself, but a bad accident left me barely walking and not really up to the chore. But, I do know my way around these things, and have owned and operated a service business myself for 30 years. I know of what I speak when I say that this bill is totally off base. Way over twice what any reasonable person would expect at a premium price. Other local marine carpenters have looked at the job and est. approx 100 hours plus materials should have done it all with plenty of leeway. The work appears ok but nothing real special, which was really the standard I held. Yacht quality not needed or delivered..... at 15,000 dollars....?!?!?! At least the paint should be prefect shouldn't it! lol
So, if you want to know more call me or email and I will provide photos and copies of billing, affadavits, etc. This isn't an opinion, not a misunderstanding blown out of proportion, not an attempt to get the bill reduced to nothing. It's pure facts and they are available for your inspection before you make a decision about who to support with your dollars.
I haven't given up hope that Mr. Bock is basically a good guy who made a mistake internal to his business and will ultimately will do the right thing. If he does he will have my respect and I will post it here. Till then, forwarned is forearmed. I am producing a youtube video and will update with link when it's up.
Andrew Jones
(((ROR redacted)))
3 Updates & Rebuttals
Boatcarpenter
Gloucester,North Carolina,
My Side, the sub-contractor
#2General Comment
Mon, August 05, 2013
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
Gulfstar 50
Newport,North Carolina,
Bock Marine Honest People
#3Consumer Comment
Tue, July 30, 2013
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
Andrew Jones
chapel hill ,North Carolina,
Happy Update
#4Author of original report
Mon, June 24, 2013
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
