Made in China

[Steve]

Hello,

I recently visited my old club and noted just how many Swift racing shells
they had. Having been out of the sport for quite a while I was curious to
find out more about these boats, so I searched the web to find that they are
made in China.

Looking back on RSR to see what users of these boats thought of them and how
they compared with more established makes I found some threads about 5 years
old. So, I thought it was high time to perhaps re-visit this topic,
especially as the issue of longevity has 5 more years of user experience
from which to draw upon.

So, is the stigma of "Made in China" still applicable - at least to racing
shells?

I can see that pricing plays a major part in the choice of these boats and
that for this reason Swift will figure highly for many clubs with tight
budgets.

However, has low cost proved a false economy over the years? or are these
inexpensive shells really on a par with other boats?

Also, how does the other Chinese manufacturer, WinTech compare both with
Swift as well as others.

I would be very interested to hear your thoughts, ramblings or ravings on
this subject :)

--

Regards

Steve

[Carl]

This question has hung unanswered for a week, so clearly there is an
embarrassing elephant in the room.

This is part of a much bigger & no less inconvenient question? It isn't
a case of stigma but of perspective. It is part of a process and a way
of thinking which will turn & bite us all.

At present most goods can be made far away & shipped around the world
for less than the cost of the same and better goods made here by your
neighbour. Not surprising when labour rates, health care, social
security & working conditions there are markedly inferior to those which
you, the buyer, would deign to accept.

So we've seen the hollowing out of Western nations' manufacturing
industries, with jobs in manufacture exported on such a scale that we
can no longer make many of the goods on which we depend. Meanwhile the
accompanying industrial injuries & environmental damage, which would so
horrify our delicate sensibilities if they were to happen here are
conveniently out of sight and out of mind.

Another result is the lack of job opportunities for youngsters in
manufacturing, despite repeated raising of school leaving age & the
growing scorn for & disregard of manufacture as a fit & proper activity.
Once it was a matter of pride to buy British, or American, or from
wherever you earned your own living - we were proud of what we made, we
knew it was good, & by so doing you kept your neighbour in work, he did
the same for you & between you you also made the exports which paid for
what we needed from abroad.

Man was made for work, with hand & brain. If we no longer make things
there'll be no work left for those whose natural talents lie that way.
Do we believe that we can run a stable economy when entirely dependent
on what other nations can make for us & can afford to render a chunk of
our youth unemployable? I recall when politicians said we didn't need a
manufacturing sector since services would do it for us. Well, since
2008 we've seen exactly what the banking & insurance "industries" can do
for us. It ain't pretty, & the rest of us are saddled for life with the
wreckage of that hubris.

In the USA the talk is now of "re-shoring" - of bringing back industries
which over the last 10 or so years were cheerfully off-shored to such
places as China. As a result, a few prominent people became very rich &
many former American workers were left to rot. Thus certain highly
fashionable phones & computers, although US designed, are made in
sweatshop Chinese factories with appalling accident rates which are
rigged with safety nets in an effort to reduce workers' suicides.
(Similarly, we export farming to countries where they have enough
difficulty feeding themselves & fly the vegetables grown on land
expropriated from the locals to our supermarkets. And we have no change
of feeding ourselves in Britain if need arises.)

Far Eastern work conditions as described above would be intolerable in
the West, so we export them out of sight. But it is already nearly too
late to bring all that off-shored industry back to the USA & Europe.
Our skills base has been laid waste while the artificially low value of
the Yuan keeps the economic scales tipped one way, even as Chinese wage
rates continue to rise. America sinks ever deeper into debt, its cities
even go bust, but continues to buy, buy, buy from its transpacific
neighbour. As does all of Europe.

We kid ourselves, in Britain, that we can export our design skills, &
our whisky, & somehow this will make up for the loss of manufacturing
industry. That foolishly ignores >3000 years of Chinese history: how
dare we presume that Chinese designers won't soon exceed the expertise
of British design studios?

So what about quality? If it's cheap enough we don't question quality,
good or bad. As we adjust to the lower quality of many imported goods,
we lower our sights & accept "that's how it is". But this, too has
consequences. As well as your neighbour losing his job when his firm
off-shored its production, other firms are now being damaged by their
management having bought cheap from afar. As just one current example,
the makers of London taxis are crippled by defective steering systems
sourced from China. A simpler example is in the nuts & bolts of
industry - you almost can't buy nuts, bolts, washers or screws that
weren't made in the far East, but quality control can be a nightmare.

Then there's design piracy, widely encouraged in the far East. I don't
care about the pirating of intrinsically worthless goods such as jeans &
handbags whose price depends on the bling value of their maker's name.
I do care about aircraft flying with spares closely copied from original
equipment but made to far lower standards & so painstakingly dressed up
as the real thing that they can hardly be distinguished from the genuine
article - until they fail.

In this setting one can foresee, in a rather short period, an inversion
of the former relationships between nations. My question is this: how
can an indebted, spoilt & increasingly office-bound European & US
workforce cope when, suddenly, their custom is no longer needed by the
energetic far East? Unable to make anything at home, & no longer able
to afford to be a ready market for increasingly costly imports, what
will become of them?

That's why we need to think very hard about the quality & value of what
we buy. If we think it smart to wipe out our indigenous industries,
then we'll buy the cheapest regardless of quality. If we care about our
own futures, and our childrens' futures, we will think of such things
before we spend. Are we proud of the efforts of our indigenous
industries & designers, & do we care for our nation's well-being, or do
we not give a damn?

Carl

--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: carldouglas.co.uk & now on Facebook @ CarlDouglasRacingShells

[Henry Law]

On 05/11/12 00:30, Carl wrote:

> This question has hung unanswered for a week, so clearly there is an
> embarrassing elephant in the room.

It's an old elephant. Thus John Ruskin 1819-1900 (if the attribution is
correct):

"There is hardly anything in the world that someone cannot make a little
worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone
are that person's lawful prey. It's unwise to pay too much, but it's
worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money
-- that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything,
because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was
bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a
little and getting a lot -- it can't be done. If you deal with the
lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if
you do that you will have enough to pay for something better."

--

Henry Law Manchester, England

[Phil]

Lack of job opportunities?

"WS Atkins struggles to find UK staff � Independent on Sunday" -
Atkins is struggling to fill 1,200 British vacancies in the face of
stiff competition for talent and concerns that the country is failing to
produce enough science graduates. As Atkins recruits to pursue new
opportunities in the energy, defence and aerospace markets, chief
executive officer, Uwe Krueger, said: "It is an important sign that
makes me optimistic about our UK business, which, please keep in mind,
is also serving international clients.� Atkins is battling for workers
in the oil-and-gas world, where demand in locations such as Houston in
Texas, and Perth in Western Australia remains hot. Uwe added: "The other
uncomfortable truth is that we are just not churning out enough talented
young engineers at the moment." Trade bodies estimate that engineering
firms need to recruit another 2.2 million people over the next five to
10 years to fuel industry growth and replace those who are retiring.

[Carl]

But those are not the job opportunities I had in mind, Phil.

Too often we tend to think narrowly of graduates, not of those who are
potentially talented in less intellectually rarified ways.

I'm troubled by the narrow vision of bright folk.

We're surrounded by young people who, properly encouraged & in the right
climate of opinion (i.e. one where we do not fixate upon celebs,
get-rich-quick & "designer" this & that tat) would love to have real
jobs making real things - the very jobs which have been deliberately
exported & destroyed.

These folk are never going to be solving the demanding intellectual
problems of getting oil out of difficult strata, of stopping it from
flooding out of ineptly-managed well-heads or designing the next
generation of aircraft. Without degrees but with appropriate vocational
training they could & would be the talented craftspeople, gifted carers,
fantastic builders & great workplace engineers. And, dare I say it, the
future builders of such fine racing shells as this one:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=102915489870903&set=o.408901542463723&type=1&relevant_count=1
or these:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/c67.0.403.403/p403x403/523822_478753052145238_310935772_n.jpg
or this one:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/559064_448898588464018_1448746399_n.jpg
or this one:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/577397_414591645228046_1392490073_n.jpg
or this one:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/538727_414596825227528_629819937_n.jpg
or even, for those with real flair, this one:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/529770_409147402439137_328075481_n.jpg

or they could be the people who, in our own works, made this:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/285759_491563484197528_247875395_n.jpg
or, working completely from scratch, designed,programmed, machined &
created these fully-functional replica oarlocks:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/181140_448910621796148_1163697285_n.jpg

For none of the above do you need degree-level training. What you do
need is good workplace training, unfettered natural aptitude, childhood
familiarity with the possibility of making stuff with your own brain &
hands (rather than picking it ready-made out of a box from China) and an
employer with a market, one which understands & appreciates real quality
products which perform outstandingly & just last & last.

These are the people, a large proportion of our population & the
potential salt of the earth, whose needs & opportunities are being
wilfully denied, stifled & sold down the river every time we buy cheap
stuff from far away.

Apologies for the rant, but I'm sure you get my meaning.

Cheers -

[Phil]

On 06/11/2012 15:43, Carl wrote:
> On 06/11/2012 12:02, Phil wrote:
>> Lack of job opportunities?
>>

>> "WS Atkins struggles to find UK staff – Independent on Sunday" -

>> Atkins is struggling to fill 1,200 British vacancies in the face of
>> stiff competition for talent and concerns that the country is failing to
>> produce enough science graduates. As Atkins recruits to pursue new
>> opportunities in the energy, defence and aerospace markets, chief
>> executive officer, Uwe Krueger, said: "It is an important sign that
>> makes me optimistic about our UK business, which, please keep in mind,

>> is also serving international clients.” Atkins is battling for workers

I did get your meaning, and there will always be a need/desire for this
'hands-on' sort of work.
In another era, I would have found myself building boats. That option
was denied me even in the early 80's as it became clear how our economy
was developing. Fortunately I had other strings to my bow, and so could
countless others if properly nurtured.

Phil.

[Carl]

But countless others lack your intellect and maybe your opportunities, &
have fewer strings to their bows. They do have other talents but,
sadly, ever fewer opportunities to develop & apply them. Shall we just
cast them aside?

I'm sure you'd have made a very fine boat-builder, Phil, with your Dad
to guide you at first. And I suppose I'm living proof that talent (?)
can apply itself to anything it wants badly enough to do. But I
remember great racing shell builders, e.g. Frank Sims. Perhaps the king
of his craft, Frank quit building boats after his uncle died. He was a
wonderful boat-builder could not take the pressures of running a
business. As he once put it to me: "I couldn't sleep at night for boats
keeping coming over the end of the bed at me". He became a school
boatman, and then a club boatman, both a sorry waste of his talents.
What Frank most enjoyed was going fishing.

Reverting to topic, here's a very revealing comment I happened upon
today on a musical instrument vendor's website:
"Clarinets Direct makes a point of only handling fine quality
instruments. We will not deal in [until such time as quality control and
build improves] Chinese made or sourced products. NB Many dealers are
now selling such instruments, often under their own UK and USA brand
names, as entry level instruments. Never has there been such a
convincing reason to buy a second hand quality instrument for about the
same cost as one of these new!"

Sounds familiar?

[Paul]

My club purchased 6 or 7 of the original single skin kevlar finish "Euro" shells from about 2002-2004, at the time they were about half the price of a "top end" boat.

The first parts to go were the fittings - the slides, wheels, shoes, foot stretchers, steering wire etc failed in various ways after 2 or 3 years.

The hulls started to crack in various places after about 4-5 years. Now, 8-10 years on they are the last boats to leave the shed, with people preferring to use the older 1995-2000 “top end” boats.

These were the first Chinese boats to hit the market however, since then they have significantly improved from what I can tell looking at the newer “Flying Eagles” and “Swifts” at the club next door. These hulls appear well made and stiff and the fittings have vastly improved. The price has increased however to about 2/3 that of a “top end “ shell. Would I buy one for myself – no – for a club – yes.

In terms of speed - I recently borrowed a low end Kevlar/core mat “Club” grade scull, in place of my high end scull. It felt nice to row and was very easy to balance, but I only just beat a field in a race that I would usually put 5-10 seconds on – not bad for a boat that I’d only just hopped in.

I think every club needs a combination and hierarchy of boats. The important thing is that all boats are well set up – the main thing we find that puts people off a boat is bad set up. I think the place for Chinese boats is with novice, second year and school rowers, where it doesn’t matter if they get banged around or take a couple of holes from crash landings – older “top end” boats should be used by masters and unfit rowers, or as top end rowers as training boats.

[Charles Carroll]

> For none of the above do you need degree-level training.

Carl,

Maybe so!

Nevertheless, truth to tell, there is a rather talented engineer that worked
out the hull geometry of the shells in those pictures ...

One might argue that his University training is in chemical engineering, not
fluid dynamics and hull geometry and material engineering. But I know a
Nobel laureate whose training was in Quantum Mechanics but whose Nobel is
for Economics, so I wouldn't too fine a point on that.

Here's a brief thesis from Alfred North Whitehead that my father forced me
to contend with in the early 1960s:

"In the conditions of modern life the rule is absolute: the race which does
not value trained intelligence is doomed. Not all your heroism, not all your
social charm, not all your wit, not all your victories on land and at sea
can move back the finger of fate. Today we maintain ourselves. Tomorrow
science will have moved forward yet one more step, and there will be no
appeal from the judgment which will then be pronounced on the uneducated."
"The aims of education--a plea for reform," chapter 1, p. 28 (1917)

Warmest regards,

Charles