Alan Rosensweig

[tomrealest]

I will be posting a LONG positive post about Cracker Boy Boatyards in Riveria Beach by West Palm that I am extremely happy with.

I had one negative experience and I would like to give other forum members a heads up to proceed at your own risk.

I got an estimate from Alan Rosensweig to do some glass repair and painting and I accepted his bid. He was told CLEARLY that the boat would splash on September 29th and he said no problem he would have all the work completed by them. I called Alan the week of September 17th and he told me "no Problem". When I got to the boat Thursday September 27th the work was far from being completed and nothing had been painted. I called him three times that morning and left voice messages each time plus some text messages. I never heard from him. I had planned on leaving Sunday evening October 1st but stayed over because of Alan. The next morning I confronted him about my messages. He claimed he had gotten none of them??? He got all my other calls but not these??? Million excuses. Today, October 8th the work is not done.

The bills at Cracker Boy have to be paid before the boat splashes. I think a reasonable practice that I have no problems with. REMEMBER, I still have not heard from Alan via e-mail or cell phone. I told the Cracker Boy office worker that I think he should pay the yard storage bill from Saturday, 9/29 but I would give him a break and say from 10/2. He started yelling at the girl and I told her to forget just pay his bill.

Decide for yourself. I own my own business since 1988 and have run other peoples businesses since 1979.

Alan Rosensweig
1124 Avenue C
Riviera Beach, Fl 33404

 

[Boatsb]

I can see the work taking longer than anticipated because the job is bigger than expected when you open it up or weather makes it hard to work but to ignore calls is the big issue.

More than once I have had to explain the job is going to take longer because of backorders or material shortages too but always am in contact with the customer. Too often though they do not hear what you are saying as it is not what they want to hear. Facts are facts. If he would have called and explained there would be a delay because of an unforeseen circumstance would you have understood?

 

[rsmith]

Remember CBBW is a DIY yard. If you hire a subcontractor to do work on your boat and he does not preform it is your responsibility. It is not right to bring the yard into the mix. CBBW in Ft Pierce has been hauling my boat for over 25 years. I've never had a problem wih them but I have seen many of the "gypsy" contractors that frequent these type yards come and go over the years. It seems to be the ones who do the best work are the most tempramental and have a "prima donna" attitude. I always enjoy watching when one of these guys clashes with the "yacht owner" that has the same attitude. Remember too like mutual funds "past results dont garrantee future performance"

 

[tomrealest]

Thanks for both of your reply. I completely agree with Boatsb, Scott's comments. Remember, I am in business. I LOVE CRACKER BOYS AND THANK GOD YOU GUYS RECOMMENDED THEM TO ME.

I am taking my boat back there next summer.

I see this strictly as a communications issue with Alan. When he gave me the excuse about his phone & not getting the messages, I had a thought that I did not express to him. "I think I would head to my phone store and get another phone". How can a businessman work without a phone that works? Unless you work strictly on the Internet, which Alan does not, I think it is impossible. Remember, only when the splash was at hand did he have a problem with his phone. Alan's excuses were plausible but I do think, having the time he had, he ultimately was at fault. My conversation with him in the boatyard was NOT loud or abusive. It was business like and stern. I DID NOT raise my voice. I wanted too but that keeps both parties from reaching an amicable agreement. I am a "win_win" guy and want to do business with the same type of people if I can.

RSmith, I appreciate your comments and they re-enforce my decision to go to Cracker Boy next summer. I love them.

Tom

 

[dsharp]

You could always take your boat to a yard with employees and then you migh have a better experience with scheduling or give you the attention you feel you deserve. Maybe give him a reasonable time to return a call before you blow his phone up with calls and texts.

 

[jim rosenthal]

Well, I feel his pain. (Tom's, not Alan's) I like my boatyard, who shall remain nameless, a lot- nice people, orderly and clean operation- but they had promised to paint the topsides of my boat for two years running, in the winter, after she was hauled, and totally failed me both times. I ended up doing it myself this spring and summer as we all know. And they have employees, and they do paint work and glass work, etc. I don't know what went wrong, but at some point I just quit wanting to know and decided I'd get myself moving and just get it done.

I do agree, though, that bringing the boat to a yard where the work is done by their employees on a contract is the best way to go. You can't enforce a good working attitude, but you can take some comfort from a yard being willing to make a formal arrangement for the work.

Incidentally I'm going back to my boatyard for the yearly haulout. All that stuff they do well, and they are honest and careful. I just don't think they are able to move projects through their facility with anything resembling reasonable speed.

 

[jpmccros]

Hello,
I know this is late, on the thread but i figured i would offer another opinion about Mr. Alan. I just recently spent ~40 horrible days working and living in the Cracker Boy Boat Yard. The "horrible" part comes from the intense summer heat and the incredibly under powered wall mounted AC i bought to get me through the nights.

First let me speak about the yard. The yard was excellent, professional, and very organized when it came to dead lines and scheduling commitments. They don't have the "island time" mindset as some of the other marinas that i have experienced during my boat ownership period. I would highly recommend them for DIY work and living aboard during the work (regardless of how depressing that actually was).

Next, Mr. Alan. The guys is a nice guy. He will try to help you out when you are in some tough situations. I came into the yard with a budget that I told him i need to try to do everything i can to stay below. He inspected all things that i needed work on and told me it seemed do able. I did a lot of work myself and he helped me by giving a lot of advise and driving me around to his other contacts to help get me discounts on material. He never made a dime off those discounts, and that was pretty impressive that someone would do that. He let me use all his tools during the day which saved me a fortune since i didn't have to buy them for short use cycle. The work that he did do (thru hull replacements, patches, and shaft log realignment) all were done properly. I will say that it seems the repetitive work is done by his workers which seems quite common in the boat yard. Workers alone are quite difficult to train and keep around simply due to how difficult it actually is to work on a fiberglass boat in 90+ degree heat. One of his workers (John) has been there for quite some time and did an excellent job in my thru hull replacements. He really does care about doing the right thing for you and your boat. Anyways, i hit a few rock bottom moments at the yard and Alan really helped me out.

Now here are my boat yard observations:
Alan does tend to give the best answer that you want to hear. The answer is mainly based on perfect scenarios like all sunny days, other boat work is going as expected, and nothing on your boat is going wrong. One could argue that his experience should take into account the potential threats and readjust accordingly. I tend to think its more of a personality thing that some people have. Some tend to think in a perfect world where others appear more pessimistic.

I can understand you issue with the lack of communication. I will tell you this, the guys phone was ringing a lot and he answered his phone every time i was around him. When i called, he typically answered the phone. When i asked about timing of some things, his first response was the best answer i wanted to hear. In reality, a few things that were uncontrollable and unforeseeable caused a day or two delay. It happens. And I image some unforeseeable issues have also turned into a few weeks worth of project time.

When in a boat yard, you can't ever ever ever trust anyone's quote or time schedule for work. It's not that the person is bad at business, its because you are on a boat and once you start to work on one thing you realize 2 other things are broken. That means Time and Money! I always lie to myself when i do my boat work and have yet to get my time / money estimates right.

My only advice that i can give is that if you are concerned about time and money, your best bet is to contract someone and do the work with them side by side, or at least visually inspect the work each day or two to keep the contractor accountable. Some times contractors get more jobs than they can handle at once, and if the owner of a boat isn't around, their boat will be on the back burner. After being in the boat yard for my 40 day stint, i understand your frustrations and can easily see how you ended up in your situation. I could imagine that there are many other boat contractors that have a similar instance where they promised a time and couldn't deliver. Sorry to hear that it happened to you. My review is simply to offer a positive for the guy. Good luck in the future.