Build Update #4 - Pinocchio's Revenge

The title is a bit tongue in cheek for this update - there is good and bad news. Let's start with the good news first shall we?

Gonna need a bigger boat?

Have you ever heard the expression "Good things come to those who wait". In our last build update (Jan '03) we were hoping for things to be coming to close in April but alas very little has been done in terms of progressing our build.

But what has happened is the boat got longer! Turns out hulls 2 & 3 were not riding flat which causes all sorts of problems in a boat including not being very fuel efficient. The answer, courtesy of a new marine architect Stimson Marine, was to add buoyancy in the stern by extending the hull so we will now have a 60 footer.

What happened to the original architect (Howard Apollonio)? Turns out Granocean (our builder) have been ghosted by them. Maybe something is up with Apollonio, but we've heard this story before. Starting a couple of years ago frustrated vendors have been reaching out to us asking what the heck is going on with the build/communications... I'm inclined to think the problem may instead be with the yard 🚩.

When will the boat be done?

It would seem that similarly to us, Q7 Marine and Granocean don't have a clue about when out boat will be finished 🚩. Seems pretty laughable 2 years later but back in build update #2 (October 2021) we were talking about a January 2022 delivery.

Back then when we talked to Q7 about our concerns and asked for their help getting the project back on track we were assured by their principle they would step up. They have proven to be ineffectual. With the benefit of hindsight it is now clear they don't have the ability to influence any of this so we are pretty peeved that they offered these assurances in the first place.

So it comes back to us to hussle. After our latest "come to Jesus" meeting 4 weeks ago to yet again express our frustration with lack of progress and visibility re delivery date, the yard assured us that we are now the highest priority and furnished a new "generous" plan stating a November completion and committed to fortnightly build updates.

Fast forward 4 weeks and it turns out they couldn't keep their meeting commitments for more than 1 time. After a week of chasing them up for the 2nd update it turns out there was a public holiday in China on that day. It must have been some new holiday since they seemed to be unaware of it previously. Seriously, it seems super inept to me that they weren't able to organize a different date around that.

We did manage to get an updated project plan but it now shows several major milestones pushed back anywhere between 10 - 28 days. It looks like very little has been done (apart from the hull extension mentioned above which they assured us would not impact the schedule) in the last 4 weeks.

It boggles my mind that items in a schedule can be 4 weeks behind after only 4 weeks in. In a nutshell, their estimates are at least 50% wrong so I'm predicting a March 2024 completion date, but who knows, maybe by then our boat will have grown another couple of feet.

It is super frustrating to be in this position and to be honest we are feeling quite helpless. We are so sick of having smoke blown up our arse about so called progress. In the mean time we are doing some local travel (fishing with mates/Mudgee wineries) to keep us busy and try to help our mental health!