Prime Motor Yachts Olympic Blog

Despite other areas of the boating world reporting a pretty slow start to the season all the staff at Prime are very happy to confirm that in truth we have never been busier – having the responsibility to make all the boats ready for the olympics does definately sharpen the attention span and to see how the event is steadily becoming ever nearer does keep the pressure on.

The photo accompanying this update shows our ever increasing collection of trawlers which are now in the water and ready to go – on top of this we have a 52 in our commissioning shed and at present a nice collection of Antares 880′s and Antares 780′s in the boat park which are being kept company by a flyer gt44 and another ST34 – in the next few days most of these will find their way into the marina as in the not very distant future we will have some more deliveries, a gaggle of barracuda 9′s, some more 780′s and a few more inboard boats as well.

You are very welcome to come and have a look at the collection at any time, we have an event to publicise all this happening in June and there will be more news be issued about all things Olympic on a more regular basis from now.

Our threat to bring back Michael Fish has not led to much improvement in the weather – we may have to think of another plan.

The nature of all large corporate contracts means that they attract some dedicated corporate artwork and we’re pleased to say that beneteau’s supply of motor boats to London 2012 is no different – this is the official logo for the contract and it will appear in various places throughout the next few months – we all think it looks very good indeed.

So it really is getting close now – with the fanfares starting to sound around the uk that there are only 100 days before the start of the 2012 games it certainly was something to help us concentrate on the job in hand.

The fleet for our Olympic supply has been steadily arriving at Portland for the last couple of weeks meaning that today we have 3 st44′s, 2 st34′s, 4x A880′s with another 5 boats arriving next week – golly.

We will upload some pictures of the boatyard which is certainly becoming dominated by brand Beneteau.

We will shortly have more news as to some upcoming beneteau events which will be taking place at Portland before games time and some other very interesting news.

watch this space.

Prime were very pleased to be asked to help to find new owners for the various Protector ribs purchased by London 2012 back in 2009.

The fleet of ribs had been first purchased by America’s Cup management to be used in the America’s cup event held in Valencia – London 2012 then bought the boats as they are perfect for sailing event management and support and with the majority of the fleet being excess to requirements once the games are over we were very happy to help out.

The opportunity to buy the ribs was released in association with the RYA with the hope that the available boats would continue to be used within the sail training community within the uk – we are pleased to confirm that virtually all the boats will be continue to be used to help train and encourage more people to get afloat in the uk.

We are pleased to see the first boat of the 2012 olympic fleet has now arrived with us. The ST52 will be used as a VIP boat at games time and was brought over to Portland from the Beneteau factory at Noirmoutier which makes both the 52 and the 44.

The boat left Noirmoutier early last Thursday and ran hard all day eventually reaching L’Aber Wrach on the Northern coast of Brittany. She left early the following morning and reached Portland at 2-00pm having travelled 365 miles at sea in just under 18hrs. For those interested she burnt around 2400 litres of diesel during the trip.

The boat will remain at Portland until after the games.

You will find numerous references to all matters olympic dotted around our website – for any of you who are confused at all these references this post should clear up any confusion.

Firstly the location of our offices and commissioning sheds put us slap bang in the middle of the Olympic and para Olympic sailing venue – we have known this for many years and ever since we decided to locate our business to the new marina we have known that the Olympics would bring an enormous spotlight to this area but that this spotlight would be accompanied with some disturbance which would only be natural bearing in mind the size and complexity of an event such as the Olympics.

With the ever changing economic conditions of the last few years the level of disturbance we have been expecting has been changing with every release of the uk’s gdp – thus there has been some frustration to deal with as the plans for the event and how it will impact on our business changes.

In addition to this we were lucky enough to win the contract to supply London 2012 with various boats which are to be used at games time to fulfil various functions – the contract discussions started in early 2009 and the contract was signed at London boat show 2011 – some boats will be used to back up the race teams administering the racing but in addition we are supplying a large number of st44′s and st52′s which will be used to ferry the worlds press out to the watch the sailing with the 52′s being used by the ‘olympic family’ to ferry Heads of state, VIP’s and royalty to see the racing.

Prime’s job in all this will be to receive all of the boats from the beneteau factories, prepare the boats for london 2012 and then supervise the supply, arrange skippers to operate some of the boats, maintain the boats during their period of use and then receive the boats back at the end of the contract – all the beneteau dealers throughout the uk are playing their own part with each dealership supplying a share of the boats required proving that the beneteau network is a strong and reliable group of companies with Beneteau receiving various marketing benefits from London 2012 including the ability to state that Beneteau are the sole supplier of motor boats to london 2012. We organised a total of 21 boats for the test event in 2011 and we are organising 23 boats for the games themselves.

As a result of our contract success’ and our location we have found ourselves with the pleasure of dealing with many different departments within london 2012 and have got to know a lot of their staff from procurement and various other london based dept’s to the on site staff delivering the event itself – this has led to a complex array of situations and emotions from great elation at the time the contract was won to extreme trepidation when benteau asked us to take a lot of responsibility for the contract fulfilment – the blog allows us to keep our clients, customers and friends up to speed with how we’re getting on and what news is current on the olympic site – we look forward to keeping it up to date for you.

As far as the sailing events are concerned some useful information would be as follows – there will be over 200 support craft, an estimated 60,000 daily visitors to the sailing venue spectactor areas,  a worldwide tv audience literally in the many millions, various helicpoters, warships, no fly zones and various other stuff – all in all not too big a deal.

After supplying customers with quite a few boats that had been used in the 2011 olympic test event we thought it would be informative and helpful if we could get some feedback from one of our clients as to their experience and whether they were happy with the deal they received.

A big thank you to the clients who offered to help and accordingly please find below, in their own unedited words, what our clients think.

Beneteau Antares

We had owned a sailing boat for a number of years but due to a change in our circumstances we sold her, spending the next 2 years yearning to be back on the water.

Our first introduction to Beneteau was during our in depth search for a small motor boat in which to have fun. Our research led us through many types and styles but we settled on our first Beneteau, a 650, roomy, stylish and extremely maneuverable and ideal for a first time motor boat owner.

On contacting a number of dealers, we were very impressed with the response and attention from Prime Motor Yachts in Portland.  They found us a brand new 650 at a very competitive price, their sales and after sales service was second to none and our beautiful boat, ‘Little B’ was delivered to us safely.  We enjoyed ‘Little B’ for a few years on the River Exe in Devon and decided to move her down to Noss Marina in Dartmouth for easier access.  We felt the need to expand our adventures and wanted to be able to tour the coastline therefore requiring a larger vessel with a greater range, to not only sleep comfortable on but to also live aboard for a number a days.

We once again began our search but this time knew that we wanted to stay with Beneteau, we viewed the New Beneteau Antares 8.80 in March of 2011 having contacted Prime Motor Yachts, they indicated that a few of these beautiful boats would be arriving in April/May of that year for us to view.  It then transpired that some of the boats were to be used for the Olympic trials taking place in Portland and there would be a great deal on these boats after the events. This offer we could not resist as the boats were guaranteed to be delivered ‘as new’.  On viewing the boat it was so much more than we expected, as part of the agreement, Prime Motor Yachts would take ‘Little B’ in part exchange at a competitive price, the deal was done.

Throughout the process of buying our beautiful, new, high performance 8.80, ‘Islander’, we experienced attentive, informative and helpful customer service from all at Prime Motor Yachts.  Upon delivery to Noss Marina, all went smoothly.  Our boat was delivered as promised, in first class condition, you certainly would have never known she had been previous run in the Olympic trials.

We are very happy boat owners and we know we have the support of a great team..

A big thank you to Mike, Nick, Caroline and all the team at Prime Motor Yachts.

Having known that the Olympics would be coming to town for many years it is very interesting to see just how many people are finding themselves surprised at the array of changes that will be happening here during games time.

We have been discussing topics such as parking, access, staff welfare, uniforms and a whole host of other topics all related to the boats we are supplying for this years games –  the level of organisation undoubtedly make the olympics stand out as the largest event in the world – with a little over 4 months to go everything appears very calm on site and its quite difficult to imagine just how many volunteers, boats, competitors and support staff will be here in such a short space of time – should we be excited or worried

As the start date for the Olympic and para-Olympic games gets ever closer so more and more organisations are starting to arrive and site and every day we see a very interesting selection of visitors walking around the marina.

This week we were asked to help introduce a pretty large party of Police staff to the subject of motor boats and give them some basic instruction as to how motor boats are laid out and whats where – our team spent a whole day offering whatever help we could and we all hope that our knowledge will help them to carry our their various tasks a bit easier.

As we are now getting steadily closer to weymouth and portland hosting the largest sailing competition in the world everything here is getting quite exciting. The purpose of this blog is to let our clients and followers know how we’re progressing with the boats Beneteau are providing which we have the responsibility to commission and organise for London 2012.

Earlier this week I had a meeting with several london 2012 departments – the sailing organisers but also the Olympic press and Olympic family departments as well – it seems that the events here will be attracting interest from literally all over the world and it gives you feelings both of excitement and fear thinking just how many people will be watching.

The back of house organisation is all going really well, we have one small issue regarding how the benteau team will get access to food once inside the venue – but hey – we could all afford to lose a few pounds.

more later

More news soon