Neil Chapman

Who am I?

Neil Chapman - Founder and CEO.

I’m responsible for the initial business idea, ongoing development and current operations at Boatshed.com

What is Boatshed

It's an ongoing plan !

We’ve built a platform that manages not just boats, customers and marketing, but every process and element of selling a boat, including all of the contracts, financial transactions, training, support, communication.

Hi Tech, Hi Touch

People are a huge component in Boatshed's success. Outside of technology we understand the potential pitfalls when buying or selling a boat that you still need a "human" broker for.

Local is paramount to how we operate, so we only sell boats if we have a Boatshed representative on the ground where the boat is. We are growing ! we’re now represented across 16 countries in more than 70 geographical locations. Our mission is simple; "Developing the best people and best technology to sell boats faster"

My Story

I grew up within a family business, at the age of 8, I was placing ballast in steel narrow boats in Staffordshire.
After my studies at college I joined my family to work full time in our family business, boat building by the early 80’s had transcended into the realm of catering and retail.
The family business grew into areas that included Hotels, property development, post office franchising and convenience stores.
Sailing became an escape from work and from 1994 I owned an old plywood 21 foot sloop called "Kymouthoe". This little boat was old and leaked a bit, but I sailed to lots of places on the UK and Irish coasts for several years.

In 1996 I sold "Kymouthoe" and purchased "Supertaff" a 1976 Rebel 41 ketch. She had been ashore for 7 years prior to my purchase so there was a lot of work to do to get her back in the water.

Here are some nice shots of Supertaff from a drone LINK HERE
However I realized very quickly that I needed a business and mission to financially support the sailing habit.
For two decades myself and the team have been working, developing and growing the Boatshed business.
The "Distributed Organisation" approach we have taken with this business means that we can use the technology to manage the core business, whilst still enabling us to keep visiting individual Boatshed locations to get the "ground truth" on what is going on at each location. This model enables us and the team to adapt and develop the business quicker and more effectively. This means the core processes of the business are operated from a variety of locations in the UK and internationally.

We operate some areas of the business from our unique premises in Gosport, UK. The "Engine House" in Royal Clarence Yard was built in the early 18th Century to supply hydraulic power for this huge naval facility, serving Nelson and the British Navy for nearly 3 centuries.

What do I do at Boatshed?

My role is CEO, but my focus revolves around the fact that Yacht Brokerage needs to offer high levels of customer care at a local level: buying a boat can be enormously stressful and sometimes a logistical headache (information quality, viewings, lift outs, dealing with local contractors etc). Boatshed’s service has to fit and interconnect with national and international customer and brokerage requirements.
This blend of local and International, traditional and modern is the essence of what Boatshed is all about.
I also am actively involved with a range of international marine groups and initiatives such as British Marine and Asociación Nacional de Empresas Náuticas.

My knowledge of business coupled with my background in customer service combined with my passion to go sailing created Boatshed.com.

I am fortunate to have a great HQ team to support the business and the web based technology enables me to manage the business from anywhere. I love to be moving and I now spend my whole time traveling to existing or new Boatshed locations developing the business.

Boatshed forms the main component of our NMK parent company.

NMK is a private company owned exclusively by us and benefits from having no external funding, investment or control.

NMK has built and owns the TIM platform that powers Boatshed, NMK is now looking to integrate the TIM platform into other used products such as motor homes, Plant and Machinery, light aircraft etc
See www.timthis.com

If I can help with any information about the group or assist you further please get in touch.

Thanks for stopping by

Very best regards, Neil :)