Alexander V. Ezhkov, the owner of the ill-fated Polina Star III, has a story to tell about his experience with the yacht builder Oyster Marine.
Ezhkov has put up a website to detail what took place from when in 2012, he ordered the 90′ Polina Star III, a new Oyster 885. The site details what transpired from her delivery in 2014, to her sinking and capsize in 2015 after her keel fell off while sailing in the Mediterranean off the Spanish coast.
The tale continues with Ezhkov’s attempt to reach a settlement with Oyster, ending in the firm’s surprise liquidation in early February of 2018. To read the story on his web site, HOW IT WENT DOWN — THE OYSTER STORY, click here.
It is a fascinating and disturbing story. To be fair, it is entirely the perspective of a justifiably unhappy owner. Oyster Marine’s side of the story may never be fully known. Oyster did conduct its own investigation after the sunken Polina Star III. was salvaged. Unfortunately, the statement they released reads like it was reviewed at least one too many times by the firm’s attorneys. They admitted little more than a ‘”possible” production defect.’
(The original statement regarding the investigation disappeared from the Oyster website following the liquidation. A version with commentary is still available on the Wavetrain blog.) Now that the firm is in liquidation, it is likely that no further substantive information on the sinking will be forthcoming from the yacht builder or its private equity fund owners, HTP Investments.
Did the sinking of the Polina Star III lead to the liquidation of Oyster Marine? At first glance, it would not seem so. Oyster’s order-book stood at $70 million and they had gotten a great response to their Oyster 745 on display at the Düsseldorf 2018 boat show in January. Cruising World magazine honored the model as ‘Best Luxury Cruiser’ in its 2018 Boat of the Year Awards. Things looked bright for the firm in early 2018.
On the other hand, Marine Industry News reports that “the ill-fated Polina Star III has been described by Oyster Marine CEO David Tydeman as the main cause of the recent collapse of the company, with the insurance claims that followed the sinking of the boat in 2015 placing an insurmountable burden on the company.
“Polina Star III sank off Spain in July 2015, generating a claim and counter claims of £7.2m. To date, only £400,000 has been paid, leaving a £6.8m amount to be settled….
The major claim in this instance is the one against Oyster Marine, with counter claims against Bridgland Moulders, the Norwich-based sub contractor, which have delayed the entire process. … Payment of the claim against Oyster and the counter claims against Bridgland Moulders, have been continually delayed. As a result, HTP Investment became impatient over the delays, so withdrew their support, says Oyster Marine.
Looking at the hull below the waterline. It looks as if whom ever that was fabricating was skimping on some of the fabrication. The hull skin only had adhesion around the box like areas. Where boats that are built by the loocals on Mount Desert Island (hinkley’s and others) the box area would have been filled and nnot missing in the centers. Some of those box areas you can see where it looks as if it were poured in. The construction up here would have been a sprayed in construction, never poured.
I wish the owner the best of luck getting money back. Alas Ii too have lost money internationally when the company folded from shoddy workmanship. Only to see that the corporate directors all got fat paychecks and restarted the company elsewhere. Since it was a new company they had no obligatioon to what they destroyed or past debts that were due.
What happened to “The customer is always right”?
Things produced in huge quantities in factories with intense internal oversight and tight process control tend to be better than a handful of people working under a shade tree, relatively speaking.
The myth of the bespoke yacht produced in the uncanny valley of “you’re not rich enough to afford a proper bespoke yacht.”
As well, Oyster could have sniffed the air and figured out they were in a fight with a guy with lots of time and money on his hands. The complaint website is a manifestation of that; a professionally designed and expensive kvetch. 🙂