Powercat 525 Evolution-Our Experience of Ownership

This year the Southampton Boat Show is on from the 12th September to the 21st.

Our family went along to the last one in 2007 for the first time and had a lot of fun.  I thought I would describe our experience at the Boat Show last year in case anyone is thinking of going along this year for the first time.

You can get a lot of information about the boat show on the Southampton Council website as well as the official website run by the NBS-

NBS is a subsidiary of the British Marine Federation (BMF), the trade association for the UK boating industry. Run by the industry, for the industry, the profits from both Shows are reinvested back into the UK leisure marine industry through the services and representation provided by the BMF.

 We used to live near Southampton a long time ago and so we knew the area fairly well.  We travelled down the night before and stayed in a travellodge which wasn't too great.

Since then we found a wonderful hotel in Portsmouth and I would stay there now if I had the chance again its the Marriott Hotel and is near the port itself.  Its a bit of a drive to Southampton but personally I would stay there and drive over.

We parked the car at a park and drive carpark in Southampton and caught one of the buses laid on to drive up to the Boat Show itself.  One of the things we particularly noticed were the extremely flamboyant trousers that many male visitors were wearing to the show.  It was almost as if there might be a secret 'horrible trousers' competition to be won by the oddest colour/pattern combination!!!

I have never seen so many weird trousers outside of a golf tournament!!

Once at the show we entered the huge covered area and began wandering amongst the displays.  I was immediately captivated by a stand selling multicoloured polarised sun glasses and we bought two pairs - both of which have been lost by now and which I regret immensely as they were very good.

I also bought an enamel brooch designed to hang glasses from which was very useful and which I still have - unlike the glasses.  It took ages to go round all the stands. We saw bicycles which folded up so they could travel on a boat with you, and lots of other gizmos etc.

Then we went outside and walked and walked and walked.  We went on lots of boats and our teenage son was very impressed with the young ladies wandering around with very long legs and very short skirts who were employed by the show as 'helpers'. 

We visited the Powercats stand as it was the main reason we were there, to view some bimini designs (which unfortunately didn't materialise) and they had provided us with our tickets.  We had a ride out on the demo boat and got quite wet, then we found something to eat.

There was a lovely stand selling tuna steak sandwiches made with freshly cut tuna steak cooked on the spot.  We walked around some more and teenage son had a go on a sailing simulation and then we found a stand selling AquaGlides and bought one of those.

By then we were very very tired and headed back to the bus which took us back to our car and our long long drive home.

I can reccommend the Southampton boat show - as it is the 40 year anniversary this year it will probably be even more fun.  Hopefully the weather will be good too.

We might go again this year if time permits.  See you there maybe?  If we go you'll be able to identify us by our POWERCATS.BLOG.CO.UK - OUR EXPERIENCE OF OWNERSHIP T-shirts

Papers have been served on Powercats Ltd of Redruth Cornwall.

It is a shame that we have arrived at this position and it could have been avoided at many stages during the process leading up to this moment.

These are just a few musings on the situation.

If Powercats had agreed to take the Evolution 525 Powered Catamaran back when we told them that we were rejecting it on the grounds that it was not what we had contracted to purchase - in that it was not free from defect and in our opinion (later to be confirmed by a highly qualified and independent marine surveyor) it was not fit for the purpose for which it was purchased, this being within a couple of months of taking receipt of the boat (you can read the whole sorry saga if you wish to, by going back to the start of this blog and working through it) then as far as I can see they would have had this result:

1.  We would have been left with the opinion that our powerboat was a '"one off"" mistake and that they were a professional company that wanted to maintain a good reputation for a good quality product.

2.They would have had to spend around £2,500 to transport the boat back and then maybe another £500 putting it into a state where they could sell it again for a reduced price of maybe around £23,000 going by the prices of second hand boats on sale at the time.  The £500 is a complete guesstimate assuming that they have the expertise and materials on hand at their boat yard and it certainly wouldn't cost them anything like what it would cost a 'man on the street' to get it fixed.

They would have refunded us our £37000

So on the debit side they would have

£37000 - refund
£2500 - transport
£500 - fixing up costs as boat builders themselves

which is a total of £40,000

then they would have sold the boat for

£23000

which is a total 'loss'' of £40000 - £23000 = £17000

BUT  depending on the profit margin on a new boat given we were charged £37000 plus for it then it could even be that the 'loss'might only be a bite into the profit margin rather than a real loss in actual terms.

Instead they have insisted on forcing the issue and making our position as difficult as possible with the result that

1. They have had to deal with a Trading Standards investigation.

2. They have had to cope with the negative impact of a seriously dissatisfied customer.

3. They have a legal case hanging over them with the attendant costs implication.

4. It is very likely that they will still  have to refund and transport the boat - and in the meantime the boat has got older and devalued further and so the likely secondhand sale price for them is less than it would have been at an earlier point in time.

They were also given the opportunity to pay us £10,000 as a way to end this situation early.  This was early on in the Summer and would have given us the chance to purchase a cheap RIB - so that our Summer would not be a total loss as far as boating was concerned.

We would then have spent time over the Winter fixing the boat up so that we could sell it next season as we do not want it any more and just want it gone and the Powercats company were not going to take it off our hands so we were looking to find a simple and quick answer to our dilemma.

Unfortunately Powercats didn't come to any agreements within the time scale allotted and kept asking for more time in order to reply with preconditions that were in our opinion entirely inequitable and against our principles.  So alas they lost the chance to limit their losses to £10,000 total.

My estimate of their possible costs now are as follows:

£20,000 - our legal fees going on the bills so far and extrapolating to the final cost.

£37000 (ish) - refund on boat

£3000 - transport and fixing it up

£20,000 - their legal fees - assuming they spend a similar amount to us

total - £80,000

Of course that will be lessened by the amount they manage to sell the boat for as a second hand model.

It is entirely beyond my comprehension that it should have come to this point.  But then again I couldn't believe they would have sold us a boat in the condition they did in the first place, so it is not surprising that their conduct throughout this legal dispute has been equally unbelievable.

Once the case is over I will publish in detail some of the more extraordinary twists and turns of this unpleasant experience - frankly truth is definitely much stranger than fiction.

By the way it appears that Powercats will be appearing at the Southampton Boat Show this year - so if you are going anyway you might like to pop along and see what a Powercat boat looks like when it is made properly.

You may then realise why we were keen to buy one in the first place.  It is such a shame that our particular boat is so vastly different from the demo models.