Low price Catamarans

[RB PowerSailing]

Dear RHough and sctpc ,


you can find on the web criticism to Toyota and Microsoft and also to RB . This is surely ok and how should be .

Our boats are constantly improved , thanks too to the feedback of the customers , that is carefully recorded and become part of the engineering process in some cases . This is the ISO 9001-2000 , that we follow .

RB would not take part directly in a forum that is properly commenting , criticising too , RB production . As it is happening continously in many forum .

It is the first time that i answer directly , in fact .

I surely will not publish any part of the contract , especially signed with a client . It is a private document with a client .

Sometimes it is hard to keep a client happy ; there are persons that simply have too many espectations and their budget don't match with the idea of their boat ; RB office is constantly trying to prevent problems and is monitoring the whole production .

Anyway , beside all the efforts , an unhappy customer is a possibility : i remember here a client of a small 16' 'pocket cruiser' that was heavily complaining that the boat 'was moving ' just too much .....

He couldn't launch and recover the boat alone and this was another reason for him to complain .

All this is just part of the work . Of course i will not try to proove that we are professional boatbuilders ( how could we proove this , apart launching 1 boat/month with over 100 boats ~30' delivered ??) as our work is the best answer .

But in this forum , defamations and calumnies took the place of the civil and normal discussion .

RB is legally proceeding against defamations that are illegal .

You can easily find yourself many posts with PERSONAL accusations , heavy offenses and bad words , directly to myself personally .

This is illegal and constitues a criminal case in Thailand , at least .

As far as we traced the IP , there are only 2 persons -always the same 2 - that are constantly publishing defamations and calumnies , and offences .

Whatever their problem with their boat , personal offences are not allowed , not by RB , but by the Law .

One more time : posts and opinions got just nothing to see with personal offences . More then welcome then , any comment and opinion.

I will keep reading , from time to time , the forums , and when i find some interesting comment about our production , i will take note , exactly as i did many times .

Dear Rhough ,

it is a pity that you never build a boat in Asia . It would be a pleasure for me to meet you and show to you the yard and the production . If it happens to you to be in Thailand , pls give me a call ( office 66-38-303675) . You could change idea .

We are not trying to silent who complains ! Just legally acting against offences and defamations , that even if based on something real , as a problem in the boat ( that is not the case ) , are still illegal .

If your Window XP is not working well , you cannot publish i bold letters : Bill Gates is a crook ! , as unfortunately happened in this forum , pls see the first and second page .

Opinions and complains are natural and sometimes even welcome . I am referring only to the offences .



Best Regards


RB

[kengrome]

Your money will be better spent hiring someone that knows how to keep customers happy than wasted trying to silence those that complain.

There's nothing a builder can do to prevent an UNREASONABLE customer from complaining and demanding things he has no right to complain about.

Here's another fact for you: ***** does not have to post his contract because he's not the one complaining. It's the whiners who have the responsibility to prove their complaints, and as we can see they STILL have not done so -- because in my opinion they are not justfied in making those complaints in the first place.

[masalai]

kengrome, I fully endorse your view as expressed in post #170, and I would like to see a "bit of ass kicking" directed to the baseless complainers who would neither put up or shut up....

[RHough]

Originally Posted by kengrome

There's nothing a builder can do to prevent an UNREASONABLE customer from complaining and demanding things he has no right to complain about.

Here's another fact for you: ***** does not have to post his contract because he's not the one complaining. It's the whiners who have the responsibility to prove their complaints, and as we can see they STILL have not done so -- because in my opinion they are not justfied in making those complaints in the first place.

I think you are wrong. As a customer you have every right to question and complain if you think you have not been treated fairly.

It is nearly impossible for a customer to change from being satisfied to a raving complainer if the service provider is not also to blame to some extent.

Who's job is it to make sure the customer knows exactly what they are entitled to? There are two signatures on contracts. Both sides have a responsibility to know what performance will satisfy both parties.

Much of my professional career was as a customer satisfaction expert. I cannot think of even one customer that became unreasonable if they knew what they could expect from a contract. The service provider should learn from each less than 100% satisfactory experience that they provide their customer and act to remove the cause of dissatisfaction for future clients.

As soon as you allow yourself to think that there are unreasonable customers that you can do nothing about, you are guaranteeing that you will have some. It has been my experience that selling your service on price makes the job of creating satisfied customers much more difficult than it has to be. I know that providing good value creates satisfied customers and makes a business profitable. This has been proved in every industry.

While I agree 100% that the complainers here have not done anything to prove their claims. We don't know all the background that made them decide to take the actions they did. Somewhere the process failed, and it is not 100% the customer's fault, it never is.

RB, I think you can see, that the majority of posters in this thread, including me, see that the actions of the complainers is less than reasonable. Your company was being defended for you. Your responses here show that you are willing to address concerns that your customers have, that earns some respect. If I didn't think you were trying to do a good job I would say nothing and offer no advice.

My comment about having a boat built in Asia was out of line; I would like to retract it and offer my apology to you and other builders in Asia.

[robert self]

Originally Posted by kengrome

Robert,

The only location in the world that I'm aware of where Western Red Cedar is grown is in the Pacific Northwest USA and Canada. It is not a tropical specie by any stretch of the imagination, and and most of SE Asia is tropical, so I strongly disbelieve that he used WRC sourced from SE Asia.

Maybe ***** used Japanese Cedar instead? It is common in eastern Asia (not Southeast Asia) and that's the closest specie I can think of to WRC that grows natively in Asia at all.

Of course Paulownia (Kiri) is not a similar specie but it is lightweight and soft so it has these similarities to WRC. It has been grown for literally hundreds of years in plantations in China and Southeast Asia, and more recently in Australia. Perhaps ***** used Paulownia in your hull?

Hi kengrome,

Thanks for the feed back.

***** uses the word "cedar", but even though I live in the pacifac northwest I don't know much about trees and wood.

Maybe ***** can be more specific about the species? He buys 2x8 or 2x10 by the container load and I had originally thought the wood originated in the Pacifac NW, but then ***** mentioned locally grown.

I've attached a couple of pics of the wood used to strip-plank my hull. That's a closeup of my hull sent to me by *****. Maybe you can identify it based on the color and grain????

I came up with paulownia wood having a pale white color with straight grain. But only a quick web search.

I am keen to know the species. Then I can research the specific weight and engineering properties of the wood. I am pretty sure this is the species ***** will use to build my unstayed mast. I've designed the mast diameter and wall thickness based on the engineering properties of western red cedar. Dimensions and weight would be different if my assumptions about the species and properties are substantially incorrect.

cheers
rself

[Nordic Cat]

On the RB power and sailing site they claim to be ISO 9001 - 2000 certified, and show all the designs they build and design etc.

I followed the links, and cross checked the certificate shown. The certificate is a valid one, but not for this company!

It also does not cover the design or building of boats.

The certificate is issued to: *****'s Sailing Centre and valid for:
Sales, Supply and services of Power and Sailing boats. NOT for building boats.

http://www.********************/img-b...ficate-03b.jpg

This certificate is only a registration, not a valid approval, as there is no statement or logo of the approving national/international body, in this case UKAS. There is no mention of UKAS on the certificate.

This is downright misinformation by the owner of the site, and can only have one purpose, to mislead. To get potential customers to believe that they are choosing an ISO approved supplier.

This is not the case here.

If you lie about this kind of thing, then I can not believe any of the other things you say Mr. RB.

[robert self]

Originally Posted by sctpc

Well you have also produced no evidence proving you are building professional boats, and for no proffit (10%) and free storage god you must be the most careing person on the planet .

But I do agree this Thread has seen its day and should be closed down.

IMO ***** would be nuts to lobby for closing this thread. Lots of publicity and visibility, all of it FREE to RB, from a 3rd party unedited source. Not like blogs where (usually) the only comments that get posted are the positive ones. Sure, there are a few "volatile" posts. Maybe 5 or so out of 173. But those posts have been effectively countered by many more positive/neutral posts. Why go dark when some guy named SteveW handed you a freebie in March/08 with a posted question about your company. I wonder what a public relations guy would say?

What is the bottom line? Has RB's backlog of projects been affected? Only ***** knows. Thread has gotton 10,477 hits since started in spring/08. Thousands of viewers have seen the pics of the T60 and 42ft cat. 92 downloads of my PDF showing RB's workmanship on my monohull. Ranked 14th in popularity based on number of views among the multihull sub-section of BoatDesign.net. Seems like damn good numbers to me.

Sure, many of those 10,000 views are "drive bys" looking to see how nasty a poster can get. But there is a 'flag for moderator' button on upper right of each post. If you don't like the post, hit that button. I've not used it and don't know what happens. Maybe the eruptive posters will be blocked.

cheers
rself

[kengrome]

I think you are wrong. As a customer you have every right to question and complain if you think you have not been treated fairly

Actually I never said a customer does not have the right to complain, so I hope you're not trying to make it sound like I said something different from what I really said!



What I actually said and meant, in different words, is that an *unreasonable* customer will complain about things he has no right to complain about, but he won't prove his right to make such complaints because deep down he probably knows his complaints are unreasonable. There is usually nothing a reasonable person can do to change this.

Much of my professional career was as a customer satisfaction expert. I cannot think of even one customer that became unreasonable if they knew what they could expect from a contract.

So once again we are talking about the contracts themselves. Maybe if the whiners here will simply post their contracts we can all see who is right and who is wrong, and possibly encourage those who are wrong to 'correct their mistakes' and perhaps behave more honestly or ethically the next time.

But the whiners refuse to post their contracts even though they have had week after week to do so. This leads me to believe they never will, and I have a theory why: My guess is that the whiners have probably re-read their contracts, seen where they are wrong, and decided that rather than embarrass themselves any further they will simply NOT post their contracts.

Somewhere the process failed, and it is not 100% the customer's fault, it never is.

I agree. On the other hand, when a customer complains about something, the first thing an intelligent person will do is ask for the evidence or proof that such complaints are justified. We have asked and asked, yet the whiners have posted nothing to justify their online complaints and accusations.

I will say this once again:

If you dare to bring your complaints into a public forum such as this one -- and then someone asks you to prove that you are justified in making such complaints -- you have an obligation to either post your evidence or shut up and get lost.

And if you fail this obligation (like the whiners have in this thread) you will lose any credibility you might otherwise have had, and you will brand yourself as the 'bad person' while making the other party look like he is the far more honest and ethical party in your disagreement.

[RHough]

Originally Posted by kengrome

So once again we are talking about the contracts themselves. Maybe if the whiners here will simply post their contracts we can all see who is right and who is wrong, and possibly encourage those who are wrong to 'correct their mistakes' and perhaps behave more honestly or ethically the next time.

We agree.

It is a two way street. There was a lack of understanding somewhere. We have a novice/amateur on one side and a professional builder on the other. Who's job is it to make sure the terms are clear and understood by both parties?

There is always room for improvement in how we deal with customers.

[RB PowerSailing]

Dear Nordic Cat ,

the ISO process of certification is variable from company to company , depending the manufacturing process and the target of the ISO set up .

We applied for and we r now using the ISO 9001-2000 set up in order to keep a proper control and record of our internal processes of manufacturing , marketing , recording datas , costing , relations with suppliers and customer's service .

The ISO 9001-2000 is a tool that is used by the companies as it is a practical and proved way to generate an easier management and at the end of the story , larger profit .

way more complicated that what can be described within few lines by somebody that got not a complete knowledge of the english language .

let me add that the ISO became already ( 1 year only ) a daily tool for our office , store , accounting girl , supervisor , electrician and so on .

I remember when my old electrician , Mr. Peerapong , was daily buying switches and wires , without a proper planification .Running around and wasting time and burning our expensive car fuel .

Now , it is a pleasure to see a precise documentation on his new work , BEFORE the work is started . Precise orders a couple of weeks in advance of all the parts and components . Precise record of the costs and suppliers , in order to speed up the next purchase and minimize the costs .

The electric installation of an RB 34 is now lasting only about 4 weeks and i noticed less expenses as well .

This is our ISO 9001-2000 .

It is a lot of work and expenses , with a precise target . It is a tool , practical and useful for us , mostly , more then for the customers, so i don't understand what you mean by your post .

There is absolutely nothing to hide ( what ??!!) in this certification .

I imagine that it should be easy to download enough documentation about the ISO 9001-2000 , to better understand what i briefly explained .

I just wanted to underline that the ISO is an internal tool and the clients should appreciate that the company is trying someway to get more organized .


Regards

RB

[RB PowerSailing]

Dear Nordic Cat


you can contact Khun Chanyaporn of SCW International Certification , Bangkok Thailand that will provide the details of the notify body that certified my Company .

About the designs :

Albatross Marine Design , Naval Arch . A. Nazarov , is the designer of most of our boats , now in construction or launched .

The designs are realized and the structural calculations performed with an official ISO sofware , if i remember well , we are talking of an ISO 12215 .

This certificate is only a registration, not a valid approval


This company got his approval and passed the test and examination for the ISO 9001-2000 , now is registered ISO 9001-2000


Pls be so kind to double check .

Tks

RB

[Nordic Cat]

Originally Posted by RB PowerSailing

Dear Nordic Cat ,

the ISO process of certification is variable from company to company , depending the manufacturing process and the target of the ISO set up .

We applied for and we r now using the ISO 9001-2000 set up in order to keep a proper control and record of our internal processes of manufacturing , marketing , recording datas , costing , relations with suppliers and customer's service .

The ISO 9001-2000 is a tool that is used by the companies as it is a practical and proved way to generate an easier management and at the end of the story , larger profit .

way more complicated that what can be described within few lines by somebody that got not a complete knowledge of the english language .

let me add that the ISO became already ( 1 year only ) a daily tool for our office , store , accounting girl , supervisor , electrician and so on .

I remember when my old electrician , Mr. Peerapong , was daily buying switches and wires , without a proper planification .Running around and wasting time and burning our expensive car fuel .

Now , it is a pleasure to see a precise documentation on his new work , BEFORE the work is started . Precise orders a couple of weeks in advance of all the parts and components . Precise record of the costs and suppliers , in order to speed up the next purchase and minimize the costs .

The electric installation of an RB 34 is now lasting only about 4 weeks and i noticed less expenses as well .

This is our ISO 9001-2000 .

It is a lot of work and expenses , with a precise target . It is a tool , practical and useful for us , mostly , more then for the customers, so i don't understand what you mean by your post .

There is absolutely nothing to hide ( what ??!!) in this certification .

I imagine that it should be easy to download enough documentation about the ISO 9001-2000 , to better understand what i briefly explained .

I just wanted to underline that the ISO is an internal tool and the clients should appreciate that the company is trying someway to get more organized .


Regards

RB

I am well aware of what ISO9001-2000 requires, and what advantages it can have for a company.

My comment is that the company RB Power and Sailing is NOT CERTIFIED! Another company is.

That company is not certified to build boats, nor design them!

The certificate does not state which National certifying body has approved it, so is worthless.

[Nordic Cat]

Originally Posted by RB PowerSailing

Dear Nordic Cat


you can contact Khun Chanyaporn of SCW International Certification , Bangkok Thailand that will provide the details of the notify body that certified my Company .

About the designs :

Albatross Marine Design , Naval Arch . A. Nazarov , is the designer of most of our boats , now in construction or launched .

The designs are realized and the structural calculations performed with an official ISO sofware , if i remember well , we are talking of an ISO 12215 .

This certificate is only a registration, not a valid approval


This company got his approval and passed the test and examination for the ISO 9001-2000 , now is registered ISO 9001-2000


Pls be so kind to double check .

Tks

RB

First you say you are not approved, but only registered. In the next line you contradict youself. What are you?

I think the fact is that the company you represent here nor any other has a valid ISO9001 approved QA system of any kind. And regardless it does not cover the building of boats.

There is no ISO approved software for boat design either.

Your statements are misleading on this subject as is your website. If you are a serious businessman that is to be trusted, this kind of thing is not something that will increase your credibility.

In Europe and the USA this would lead to severe action against you and your company for false claims.

[Richard Woods]

Looks like many of the misunderstandings are because English is not RB's (and several others) first language. I appreciate the problems they must have trying to think coherently in a language not their own.

So, having said that, ISO12215 is the Scantling standard for small craft. These days boats are expected to (but don't actually have to) comply with it. Same with the Stability ISO standard 12217 (which I helped prepare as the multihull representative on the committee)

Thus when RB says 12215 is "a registration not an approval" I think he meant it is a standard that needs following, and only if followed correctly can a boat be classified according to the RCD.

And in that he is correct.

Being more constructive..

I am also puzzled by the western red cedar comments. I thought it was only a temperate forest wood. I was unaware that it grew in the tropics.

In fact wikipedia says this

"Western redcedar (Thuja plicata) is a species of Thuja, an evergreen coniferous tree in the cypress family Cupressaceae, native to the northwestern United States and southwestern Canada, from southern Alaska and British Columbia south to northwest California and inland to western Montana. It is one of two arborvitaes native to North America; not a true cedar (Cedrus), but is the source of what are called cedar shingles."

Having said that, western red cedar is an unusual wood to build a mast from. Sitka Spruce or Douglas Fir would be more normal

Richard Woods of Woods Designs

www.sailingcatamarans.com

[Nordic Cat]

RB states that they use an ISO approved software package for scantling design.

To my knowledge there are NO approved software packages, but there are some that COMPLY with the standard, even though I doubt that this is fully validated by a third party.

I know this might be nit-picking, but the total effect of these statements is to attempt to enhance the image of his company, and make it seem maybe more competent than it probably is.