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Big boats- big dollars
“ I remember the same things being said about the
first boat I worked on,” said veteran boatbuilder Rube Carpenter, now
living in Port Union. “Back in 1935, we built a small schooner for a man
who was going to use her fishing down in Labrador. That boat cost $8,500
and the fellow who owned her said that he’d never be able to make her
pay. It’s the same story today.”
When you start taking about boats in Newfoundland
today, it isn’t long till you start talking dollars, and big dollars at
that. With the largest class of vessel… the 65 foot ships…now running
close to a half million dollars fully equipped, fishermen using these
vessels are no longer just fishermen in their own right.
Why should a 65 foot wooden vessel cost half million
dollars? Is that price a true reflection of the value of the boat, and
where does the money go? Are the shipyards, or the suppliers, making a
killing on new vessels?
Answers to the questions above are hard to come by.
In preparing this article, Decks Awash contracted a number of shipyards,
asking that they “cost out” a longliner on an itemized basis for us. All
refused, saying that to do so would impair their competitive position.
However, Joe and Rube Carpenter o Port Union did agree to talk about
vessels costs in general terms.
The Carpenter yard has been in business since 1935,
producing high quality fishing vessels. With Rube now being officially
retired from the business, his son Joe, who hold a diploma of Technology
in Naval Architecture, carries on a business he says is n more
profitable today than it was in the past.
“For example, we launched a vessel this morning
similar to one we launched about three years ago,” Joe recalls. “That
one cost about $300,000 while the same ship today is worth about
$500,000. We won’t make any more on this one than we did on the previous
ship.”
Like everything else, the cost of fishing vessels has
risen dramatically in the last five years, as the giddy spiral of
inflation keeps labour and material costs on the increase. The boat the
Carpenters launched this particular morning will cost on the increase.
The boat the Carpenters launched particular morning will cost her new
owner $293,000 for the basic ship, including life saving equipment and
fire fighting gear, but excluding the over $200,000 cost of electronics,
engines, deck machinery and fishing gear, which will be added by other
companies.
“Labour accounts for about 50 percent of that total
of $293,000,” reveals Joe. “That goes to pay the wages of a number of
trades…the logger, the sawmiller, the carpenters, electricians, pipe
fitters, mechanics, caulkers, welders and painters.” And the yard must
pay reasonable wages, or risk losing the highly skilled men they have
trained. In general, the construction trades pay much higher wages.
The second big factor is the cost of materials, and
it’s here that an unscrupulous yard can indeed cut corners. Carpenter’s
Shipyard, a long established yard with a good reputation to protect,
insists on using good materials where another yard might not.
Brandishing an eight inch by three-quarters bronze bolt. Rube explains
what dedication to quality means.
“This bolt costs more than $12.00 today,” he note.
“We could use a black iron belt that costs $1.00 and the owner wouldn’t
be able to tell the difference right away. But in three year’s time, the
fellow would be wishing that he’d paid the few extra dollars for the
bronze bolt, because the iron one will cause him no one or problems.”
Another factor driving up the material costs in one
similar to any manufacturing enterprise in Newfoundland. A great deal of
the equipment, and a major portion of the wood used in the vessel, must
be imported from the Mainland, the United States and countries even
further afield. According to the carpenters, while some of the wood
needed can be obtained locally, a great deal of it….especially pieces
needed in longer lengths, like planking…must be imported , which drives
costs still higher. And the old rule of thumb, that you get what you pay
for, still applies. To get good wood, good money must be paid.
Added to the escalating costs of wood and labour,
there’s additional increases in the cost of doing business. Every phone
company rate increase, for example, is reflected in the yard’s $350-400
a month phone bill, as are the price increases in tools needed to do the
job.
The Carpenters react strongly to suggestions that the
shipyards are making a killing. “We haven’t made any big money in our
lives,” says Rube Carpenter, looking back over his thirty-five years in
the trade. “We made enough to live on…to have a house, drive a car and
so on. But I’ve never been down South for a holiday or anything like
that.”
From what the Carpenters told Decks Awash,
shipbuilding in Newfoundland today is a confused business, dependent on
ever-changing federal and provincial government policies. The new
shipbuilders association, of which the Carpenters are a member, may be
able to help improve that problem area, and may also be able to check on
quality.
What’s the future for boatbuilding in Newfoundland?
From all indications, the inshore/nearshore fishery should be expanding
considerably in the next few years, as the federal policy of making
regenerated stocks available to inshoremen first takes effect. And those
men, whoever they are, will need vessels to carry them to the fishing
grounds.
“As long as there are fish in the sea, there’ll be
boatbuilders,” Joe Carpenter notes. “You can’t catch fish from a truck,
so we’ll be around for a while yet.”
Decks Awash
Vol. 7, No. 5, October 1978
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