UNFORTUNATELY
WE ASKED BARRY TUFFIN OF:
MAESBURY MARINE SERVICES
TO BUILD OUR 'NEW' BESPOKE NARROWBOAT
WHICH WAS THE BEGINNING OF OUR
TUFFIN HELL!
Narrowboat HYDROPHOBIA 50ft cost £54,350
Sept 2007 we commission the build and pay the deposit, the build slot is for March 08 to be completed June/July08. Barry Tuffin brought the build slot forward due to "two people dropping out", and although we were a little nervous because he appeared desperate for money, we agreed to an earlier slot to start immediately in Nov 07 and completion for March 08 as we were paying mooring fees.
Tuffin used the British Marine Federation contract although HE WAS NOT A MEMBER. Also he had changed the last page of the contract so he could be paid up front before work was done.
Here is the original British Marine Federation contract:
And here is Tuffins altered version:
After various stage payments totalling £15,900 Tuffin gave us assurances over the phone that the boat was "coming along nicely", we asked if it had walls yet, he said yes. We couldn't travel for a while because I had a bunion operation and couldn't walk, so we asked him to provide us with e-mail pictures, 6 weeks passed and still no pictures so we travelled from our home in Notts to Oswestry for an unscheduled visit, "I knew you would come" he said! Our boat was still in the primary stages of construction and had NO WALLS!
After paying £15,900 this is all we had to show for it:
but Tuffin said it was coming along nicely!
Building commenced and we paid a further £15,900, we withheld the penultimate payment of £18,550 until 13/5/08 as the build was slow, without going into detail the build was AN ABSOLUTE LIVING NIGHTMARE, I had worked so hard on the design of our boat and had done many collages to help him the best I could, I had planned our boat to every detail but this is a list of all the things he got wrong, every time we made a visit, a round trip of 200 miles, we dreaded it because something was always wrong. Although he had the spec of the boat, he never bothered to look at it!
The List of things he got wrong, some of which were re-done:
1 He used vinyl wallpaper on the internal walls of the boat, we specifically ordered cream boarding as used by The New Boat Company.
2 He did all the bulkheads in wood, we only asked for 1 in wood, all the others should be in the cream boarding.
3 He was about to begin construction of a galley style kitchen, we asked for a walk-through kitchen.
4 HE decided to put wooden diamond shapes on the doors and a metal one on the hatch, we asked for a modern boat.
5 He forgot to construct the bow seats and welded them in after the paintwork was completed.
6 We asked for blue seat pads for the bow seats but he did them in cream.
7 We asked for a low TV unit but he made a high one.
8 We asked for carpet in the saloon but he fitted a laminate floor.
9 We asked for a cream sink but he fitted a stainless steel one.
10 Various power sockets in the wrong place or completely missed out.
11 We asked for a cream enamel hob but he fitted a stainless steel one.
12 All 5 wardrobes were not made big enough to house a standard size coat hanger. Size 7-8 years old had to be used!
13 He put buttons in all the upholstery, we didn't want any.
14 Because he forgot we wanted wardrobes in the saloon, he built them over the seating, hence the reason for the patchwork of wood!
15 A recess should have been made behind the saloon seats to accommodate the table (which he had done on another boat), consequently with nowhere to stow it the table is permanently up and always in the way.
On a particularly bad visit I was so appalled by our boat that I cried in his arms, he assured me he would put it right, little did I know then that HE HAD ALREADY NOT BOTHERED TO INSULATE THE CABIN ROOF FRAMES!
The build progression was painfully slow, the weeks turned into months and the seasons passed until he finally said it was ready to collect...
On 1st August 08 we went down for our pre-arranged water trial. We were so excited, my husband booked a month off work in order to get the boat home to Beeston Marina. We hired a van to take all our belongings including the kitchen sink (you know how it is ladies) and had bought a months supply of food!
TO THIS DAY I STILL CAN'T BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!
We turned the corner, the boat looked so beautiful on the canal for the first time, she was shining in the sun, the signwriting looked amazing, Tuffin and his workers were busy washing her down, at last our boat was ready....BUT IT WASN'T
Watch this video, it's our so called finished boat, Tuffin assured us she was ready to go, HYDROPHOBIA DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A TOILET FITTED!
Video1
He had put the boat on the water unfinished, letting us come all that way for our holiday just to get the final payment out of us, we couldn't believe it and still can't!
We had to store thousands of pounds worth of belongings including 3 flat screen TVs (one for saloon, one for galley, one for bedroom) in his caravan which didn't even have a lock!
The boat was a mess, we pinned up a list of jobs to be redone and told them that the outside paintwork was totally unacceptable, in the sunlight and up close it looked horrendous, they started sanding her down for another paintjob but on the canal with no polytunnel the second paintjob was worse than the first!
On that day the relationship between ourselves and Tuffin completely broke down, I was in tears again and we asked him for our money back, we were so shocked when he said we could have it, he said it would take a couple of weeks to sort out but after a couple of days he said he couldn't get a mortgage on the boat so we had to carry on with the build because 'THE BOAT' was all we had!
We had paid £50,350 and the remainder of £3,988 was to be paid on completion, he e-mailed us and said the boat would be ready on 23rd August 08. We went down again, no longer excited, expecting disappointment , my husband had booked ANOTHER holiday from work, again the car was full of food and this time we took our nephew and his wife so they could drive our car home for us. My nephew used to work for Birchwood Boats so he was interested in seeing the boat.
We took one look at our finished boat - it was pretty grim, videoed it and drove home from Oswestry to Notts for the last time.
Although at this stage most of the problems seemed to be cosmetic, we knew it would be ludicrous to pay Tuffin any more money, the boat just wasn't worth the £50k we had already paid. We needed a solicitor and rejected the boat completely, but this meant we had NO BOAT AND NO MONEY!, not the strongest of positions to be in!
These are the videos of the boat the day we rejected it.
Video2
Now let's just see all those doors again!
Video7
YOU CANNOT CLOSE THE BOW OR STERN DOORS FROM WITHIN THE BOAT - YOU HAVE TO FORCE THEM SHUT FROM OUTSIDE - A TWO MAN JOB, SO WHOEVER IS OUTSIDE WOULD HAVE TO CLIMB IN THROUGH THE SIDE HATCH!
In case these videos won't play, here is a list of everything that was wrong with the boat on the day we rejected it and some choice photos:
1 Outside paintwork (which has already been done twice) brush marks, 'orange peel'.
2 Poorly fitted bow seat pads.
3 External bow table off centre.
4 Only 1 gas bottle fitted and not retained.
5 Port side bow door fouls on horn.
6 Bow doors cannot be closed from within the boat.
7 Saloon wardrobe sides are made up from 3 pieces of wood and all 5 wardrobes in the boat are not wide enough to house a standard coat hanger.
8 Behind the saloon seat there should be a recess for the saloon table to be stowed.
9 The vinyl wall covering (which should be cream boarding) is poorly fitted and covered in rips, scuffs and air bubbles along the entire length of the boat.
10 All the wood trims are poorly fitted, the woodwork around the windows is particularly bad and none of the woodwork is 'scribed in'.
11 The saloon seat upholstery is baggy and the wardrobe doors rub on them.
12 The saloon carpet is already fraying and is poorly fitted.
13 The saloon ceiling lights are not fitted flush.
14 The masons mitre joint on the galley worktop has a step in it and the edging strip is damaged.
15 The 240v socket in the galley doesn't fit flush to the wall.
16 One of the galley drawers doesn't open fully.
17 One of the base cupboards doesn't close.
18 The cutout for the sink has been overcut and a piece of wood has been glued in where the cupboard door hinge is fitted.
19 The laminate floor in the galley/bathroom has been poorly fitted, has no beading or trim - the gap is filled with mastic.
20 Some parts of the galley bulkheads have no varnish on them.
21 The tiling in the shower is staggered - despite being re-done.
22 The ceiling above the toilet has a block of wood plugging a hole in the trim.
23 The architrave around the bathroom door at the gunnel is so poorly fitted that you can see through to the bedroom.
24 The bedroom carpet is poorly fitted particularly toward the stern.
25 The reading lights in the bedroom should be hard wired, they are cheap stick-on lights.
26 The door between the bedroom and the engine room will not close.
27 The vinyl covering around the swim area is stained and poorly fitted.
28 The steps to the engine room are covered in glue.
29 The engine room floor panels have screws missing.
30 The wood panels and trims in the engine room have excessive gaps.
31 The stern door cannot be closed from the inside.
Photos showing the unskilled, unprofessional joinery:
Three wood grains on the side of the saloon wardrobes.
Uneven tiling due to Tuffin using bits of card instead of tile spacers.
Our archway, the true standard of workmanship.
This window hardly looks new.
The gap between the woodwork and the window.
Engine room panel gaps.
Tuffin used mastic to fill in the gaps around all the laminate instead of trims.
Step in the join on the worktop.
The entire boat was covered in bubbles and rips in the vinyl.
Port side bow door fouls on horn.
Picture shows gas bottle not retained - in direct contravention to the BSS.
We instructed our solicitor in September 08 and in December 08 I saw Hydrophobia up for sale on a website, Tuffin in doing this was in breach of his own contract, we called the police and they told us that if he did sell the boat he would be arrested for fraud as HE DIDN'T OWN IT - we still had title to it through the stage payments & contract. Phil Picking did a glowing piece on it for Canals and Rivers Magazine, it was advertised for £63,000, IT WAS A DISPUTED BOAT AND WAS NOT TUFFINS TO SELL!
According to our contract we had to instruct a single surveyor, who's word would be final and binding, who's fees would be bourne equally by both parties. Tuffin agreed to pay his half but when the report was ready HE REFUSED TO PAY! WE ENDED UP PAYING THE FULL £1000!
We expected the report to reveal the cosmetic defects but were shocked at some of the findings. Firstly, as stated in our spec we had paid for a 4 cylinder Barrus Yanmar 4TNE84 with a power output of 26.5kw,however he had fitted a cheaper 3 cylinder Barrus Yanmar 3TNV82A-D with a power output of 22.8kw. As if this wasn't bad enough, he hadn't mounted it correctly either! He hadn't insulated the roof frames and as a consequence of this staining had occurred. We were shocked to know this as another of his boats (Westwood) had a similar problem. NO LESSONS LEARNED THERE THEN!
The electrics were dodgy, to say the least. Some of the welds were porous and the standard of welding was poor and below that of many professional boat builders. The aft hatch runners were not securely attached to their frame. The coolant intake hose had a kink such that the water flow would be restricted and the hose could be expected to fail prematurely.
The craft was at variance with both the BSS regs and the RCD regs. This in particular we found amusing, the location of the hull identification number is very specific: "ISO 10087 '5.3 location, the HIN shall be visible on the starboard outboard side of the transom, or near the stern within 50mm of the transom top, gunwhale, hull/deck joint or its capping, whichever is lowest."
However there was no marking at this location, but there was a CIN marking on the inside return of the gunnel on the port side of the craft within the bow cockpit which is the WRONG END AND THE WRONG SIDE OF THE CRAFT!
Hydrophobia was valued at around £40,000.
Anyway the report was strong and in our favour, now we could sell the boat and take Tuffin to court for the consequential loss we would suffer. We found a buyer for the boat (which is another story) but Tuffin refused to hand it over saying we had to pay the final payment, the boat had been valued in the region of £40,000, we had paid him £50,000 and according to the contract the surveyors word was final and binding, what part of this did he not understand? After 3 solicitors letters and threat of a court injunction he still refused to give us the boat. We had title to the boat so we phoned the police, they were about to pay him a visit and that's when I found out (by chance on the internet) that he was bankrupt and he hadn't even bothered to tell us!
Tuffin was made criminally bankrupt in1991
Bankruptcy notice
and had an IVA in 2005
IVA Report
We hadn't managed to get the boat away in time because Tuffin refused to hand it over, the Trustees now fancied it belonged to them, we were the only ones who had paid for the damned boat and yet everyone else thought they owned it, what a nightmare we were living, I still can't believe how much chaos one man can cause! Anyway our solicitor now had to take on the Trustees, and after 2 long months of hell they agreed THE BOAT WAS OURS!!!
A letter from our solicitor to the trustees saying how awkward and unhelpful he was to deal with:
This is where the story should end, but no such luck! It was sold to Orchard Marina, they agreed to pay (after some haggling) £35,000 for the boat in June as soon as the paperwork was available, and while the Trustees were making their minds up we kept them informed and the price was always the same, however on the day of the sale they dropped the price to £32,000, my husband managed to negotiate them back up to £33,500 and they put the boat on their website a few weeks later at £54,000!!
OUR LOSSES:
Loss cost of the boat. £16,850
Interest at 4.0% over Barclays base rate as agreed in the contract. £6,528
Mooring fees £1,204
Travel expenses £480
River license and insurance losses £145
Surveyors report £1,026
Legal fees to date £5,405
Total losses £31,638
CONCLUSION: It seems Tuffin has won again, well our hard earned cash anyway. He plays the system well as he has before, so lets hope this website puts an end to his business. Remember, he who laughs last laughs longest.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE A BOAT LIKE OURS PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT MAESBURY MARINE SERVICES WHO SPECIALISE IN THE BUILDING AND FITTING OUT OF POOR QUALITY NARROWBOATS
After taking legal advice for this website, we were told we had to tell the truth, that part was easy, but also we couldn't call Tuffin any defamatory names so please feel free when you are reading our story to include your own expletives!
Take a look here - this is not the first time tuffin has done this: http://beta.bloglines.com/b/preview?siteid=7449634
To be continued.......
It seems that our nightmare has become someone else's dream. Hydrophobia was sold by Orchard Marina for £55,000 and renamed Joe's Dream. We hope that Orchard Marina have rectified all the faults that Tuffin engineered in. We wish you well and hope you enjoy your boating days more than we did.