feature Shipwright Gary Grizzell invites <strong>Shipshape</strong> aboard his burgeoning waterbased business, Floss’s Fuel Delivery Service The fuel-delivery service is a spin-off, really. My main job is as a shipwright at the <strong>Bristol</strong> Classic Boat Company on Redcliffe Boat Yard. It was my first job out of marine school and I was lucky enough to be part of the team that built the <strong>Bristol</strong> Channel Pilot Cutter for the Island Trust. Daytime work is building, repairing and maintaining boats that people bring in – we’ve got nine boats in for repair at the moment and have just taken delivery of a big yacht for a refit for winter. We do all the maintenance for <strong>Bristol</strong> Ferry Boat Company too. I do my wood and coal delivery at the evenings and weekends. The idea for the Floss’s Fuel Delivery Service came about after a conversation I had with Mark [Rolt, director of <strong>Bristol</strong> Classic Boat Company] about selling the spare wood produced on the yard as fuel. We produce a lot of wood waste on the yard so I thought it would be a good idea to chop it into logs and sell it on. I did a census around the docks and got pretty positive responses – before I knew it I was buying coal wholesale. I also do waste collection, picking up old batteries and used oil. I’d had my eye on Floss for quite a few years, when I was living down in Cornwall. I begged the owner to sell her to me but he refused. I got her in the end though. I didn’t buy the boat with fuel in mind – I just bought it because I really wanted it. I absolutely haemorrhaged cash doing it up and then had to come up with a way of paying the bills. I started delivering in December 2009 after a bit of delay in getting Floss ready. But this year we’ve hit the ground running. I’ve got the boat here, the coal here, last year’s customer base to work off. Were thinking of offering a general recycling service too but there are quite a few hoops to jump through. We’d need a bigger boat too. I reckon I’m up to about 100 customers now. And I’m starting to get random calls about collecting waste oils and batteries. There have also been enquiries from Saltford and Hanham too, so that’s something I’m looking into. The business has developed into a nice thing but it’s all down to Mark’s generosity and patience. I operate out of the yard and can store everything there so it’s really down to him. If I do have any spare time, I don’t go very far from the habour – there’s everything you need down here: the Old Duke, Grain Barge, eighteen Shakespeare Tavern, Nova Scotia – nice pubs, good food, great music venues and a good community spirit. The redevelopment of some of the dockside is a benefit to the city. I’m a big fan of interesting architecture and new design but I don’t see a lot of that going on. I think the city should be doing more to encourage boats in, making it a more interesting and inviting place for big commercial yachts. We’ve got bags of space, after all. A lot of the boats that are fitted out in France and Spain should be coming here – we’ve got the skills and infrastructure but they’re enticed away. The facilities abroad are taken care of and looked after and I think the Council has taken its eye off the ball a little bit here. If you’ve got big privately owned yachts coming in, it brings the money in. I’ve lived and worked on the Harbourside for about 12 years. I live on boats, work on them and deliver door-to-door so you could say that I live and breathe boats, really. The people who I’ve been nodding and saying ‘all right’ to I’m now having conversations with. It’s definitely a very friendly place to be – everyone living the same way, slap-bang in the middle of the city centre, not that you’d know it. It’s a different way to live. Not freezing cold in the winter, like everyone thinks. Once you get the woodburner going it’s lovely and cosy. More: bristolclassicboat.co.uk, 07530 173989 s Coa <strong>Shipshape</strong>
feature “I think the city should be doing boats in, making it a more interesting and inviting place” more to encourage l porter <strong>Shipshape</strong> nineteen
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