The “Amelie Rose” Situation

Although the UK government have now decreed that Skippered Charter is once more acceptable in the UK, they still insist that we follow all of the regulations regarding how, and how many, people can gather together. This gives us some issues, most noteably that all of our remaining bookings are for “multi-household” adventures which clearly go against government advice.

It does open up the opportunity for us to take single households out on multi-day adventures or to take groups of up to four people on day sails. Sadly, taking four people on day sails is unlikely to be financially viable (unless they’re willing to pay over £200 each for the priviledge) so our only option is to provide “Whole Boat” Custom Charter Adventures for single households (see Topsail Adventures Launches “Build Your Own Adventure”! for more details).

There are still further issues however:

1) In order to preserve capital, we stopped the refit process on Amelie Rose back in March when it became clear what was about to happen, and also furloughed Nic as soon as we were able to. We are currently therefore 4-6 weeks from being ready to operate (Amelie Rose still needs a liftout, antifoul, engine service, LSA servicing, paint & varnish work sorting, a new jib, and currently we’re about a third of the way through re-caulking the deck).

2) The costs of all of the above plus upgrading her insurance to operational status are significant and need to be recouped in the 2+ months of season that will remain once we get operational (rather than being spread over 6+ months of a normal season). We will then have to bear all of these costs again (and much more) before we can re-start again in April 2021.

If we shut the business down until next year we *just* have the reserves to make it through til then (assuming Topsail Adventures lays off Nic). If we start up now and then either don’t make enough to cover that cost or are shut down again by (for instance) a local lockdown then we will probably no longer have the money required to start up again in 2021 and the business will be essentially dead.

3) We are about to have to cancel the remaining bookings that we have for this season as they are all multi-household and therefore will be starting this process from scratch.

The Plan

Our liftout is currently booked for the Week Commencing 27 July. If by that point we have enough “Build Your Own Adventure” days booked to be financially secure then we will go ahead and finish our refit, aiming for Amelie Rose to re-enter service on or about 15 August. If we have not been able to get enough days booked then we will cancel all 2020 operations (and obviously the liftout and refit activity) and, once the Job Retention Scheme ends, make Nic redundant. The company will then remain in suspension until Feb/March 2021 when we’ll start preparations for our 2021 season (if that remains viable).

How you can help

Are you looking for a fab family holiday on a beautiful wooden boat? Get booking! Do you know someone who might be interested? Let them know! Have lots of friends with families who love to sail? Share this with them!

We have until 27th July to get as many “Build Your Own Adventure” days booked as possible! We’re currently at about 30% of the target – and every day helps…