A ferry tale

Attempting to sell one of my "world's best ferry designs" in the 1990's to a local but prominent ferry company, the unhappy manager, known as GF, eyed me suspiciously. "You were here before trying to sell me a ferry design, weren't you?"

I nodded "Yes, twice before, but our designs are even better now, not only will they make better profits, but they will protect your company from any competitor" I declared happily. As chief designer, draftsman, tea maker and BD chief of our small company, I knew all about selling. Smiling in the face of the face of adversity was on Marketing page one.

His face contorted angrily "Listen carefully, I told you twice to piss off, now I'm telling you to f...off! we're not interested in your f...ing designs and we don't have any competition!"

I responded calmly "Don't be wishy washy about this, just tell me yes or no. Do you want a new design or not!" As he was about to explode into apoplexy, I stood up and left.

Now I knew why he was called GF!

I had learnt all about rejection as a pimply teenager and as I descended the steps of his office, a cheap rickety four storey tower relic from the 1982 Commonwealth Games, I gazed across at the four ancient landing barges that were making his fat cat shareholders a tidy $6 million profit a year. The fat cats, a combo of accountants and lawyers whom I met later in life and got on well with, were "sweating the assets".

Sweating the assets is a fairly common beancounter strategy, of maximising dividends, but deliberately failing to refleet, never mind the discomfort of travelling passengers. This was the same strategy as Alan Joyce with Qantas, in case you wanted some revelation as to why Qantas service, reliability, ratings and attitude all tanked. Joyce took it over as number two airline in the world, but by the time the company finally woke up to him, it was number twenty-three, with an ancient fleet and costly to replace.

GF amused the marine industry by buying cheap old Nato landing craft and sneaking them through Queensland survey, which was a self-regulating system at the time. He purchased unused, ex-military azimuthing drives and stuck them in multiple units on the back of his 74m smooth water landing barges. Despite his lack of marine engineering knowledge, they ticked the box of being cheap and protecting the sweet dividend! These drives shuddered and shook themselves free of the hull and over a short period of time littered the bottom of Moreton Bay. Their corroding remains are probably still snagging lines of local fishermen to this day.

What GF didn't know, was that I was a Scot who had repeatedly watched "Chariots of Fire" and "Braveheart" and I set out not only to fight, but to beat him.

Having done my homework, this Island trade at the time generated $20m in ferry revenue, this being 85% from passengers and cars,15% from trucks. GF's ancient landing barges were noisy, with a 6.5m climb up steep stairs to a 1950's ancient style café, with small high windows and Nescafe coffee. To ensure maximum discomfort, exhaust pipes placed either side of this miserable excuse for a café, added 10 decibels to the noise levels and produced extra vibrations for travellers to assist any weight watching efforts. These flat sided vessels allowed side waves to slap and send saltwater spray over the cars on deck. However, they were perfect for the truck market, particularly smelly garbage trucks.

Designing and tank testing our proposed ferry for the operation, was straightforward and would give us a vessel with relatively small engines, using only half the fuel of any of the GF barges on each crossing.

Funding the balance of the vessel build was a challenge, with a bank manager from the Queensland Bank quizzing me on my logic. "Let me get this right, you are planning to directly compete on this Stradbroke Island trade against an established monopoly with four vessels and zero debt, at the same ticket price?" I nodded a yes.

He then continued to tell me he had a holiday house on the Island, travelled frequently, knew the trade well, knew the incumbent owners and declined to give us the loan.

Selling the kids was my preferred option, but unacceptable to my wife, so we had to go for hard finance for the balance of this fairly simply designed and simply specced vessel.

So, in December 2003, our new modern catamaran, the Seabreeze, with a quiet, modern coffee shop only 2.5m above the main deck, akimbo windows for children to watch the waves and flared ship sides to contain the spray, entered the harbour in competition to this monopoly.

GF and his team were openly laughing from their office tower at this new ferry, because "it only carried one lane of trucks". They still didn't get it!

For visiting overseas clients, I would take them across to the Island on GF's barge and then do the return trip on the Seabreeze. This wonderful chalk and cheese, page two marketing strategy, saw us winning two designs from a prominent Dutch group within 24 hours of the trip across the Bay.

Using the same strategy, we secured orders from Venezuela and Bahamas, then repeat orders.

As for the Seabreeze, anyone who liked a good coffee in a quiet lounge, or did not want salt spray on their vehicles, travelled on the "Big Red Cat" as she became known, attracting the majority of passengers and cars. We took the whole $6m profit from the incumbent in year one and I resisted the urge to put a framed photo of GF on the wall!

A few years later, a bus company came along with a big cheque for our ferry company. This was the closest I have ever come to kissing a guy! Not long after, the bus company then sold the company including Seabreeze to a public company, where at twenty-two years' old, she still operates, reportedly as the highest KPI performer in their extensive fleet.

There're two morals to this ferry tale. Firstly, sweating the assets is not a good strategy. In transport, whether a fleet of planes, buses or ferries, these assets should never be older than eighteen, maximum twenty.

Secondly, be prepared to give visiting sales reps at least fifteen minutes of your time, to hear if they can improve your company's bottom line. Resist the urge to be rude or dismissive of them, such as telling a rep to p...off or f...off.

They could just re-emerge and take your business away!