Whangarei, New Zealand

April 2025 – May 2026
Written by Bruce & Alene in New Zealand & Vanuatu — May – July 2027

New Zealand has a lot of good boatyards and boat services. However, like every other place in the world, some are not top-notch. We’ve created this review hoping it will help other cruisers (yachties in NZ parlance) increase the chances of receiving the excellent service they seek… and avoid experiences like ours.

Happy on haulout day!

In a (very slight) nod to Migrations 31 – Mexico by the Numbers, our review of our haulout experience at Norsand Boatyard in Whangarei will be in the same format.

months in New Zealand

months scheduled to be in Norsand Boatyard

months in Norsand Boatyard

months wasted (25% of our time in NZ because we had to fly out of the country for 3.5 months due to visa restrictions)

>39

estimated days lost because no one was working on the boat

boats (that we know of, including Migration) who had their strong painkillers (oxy, for example) stolen by Norsand workers who had access to their boats

$10,800

in NZ$ we were overcharged for work to repair mistakes made by Norsand

hours spent combing through every invoice line by line to figure out the above number

$7,000

in NZ$ (approximately) paid for living expenses due to boatyard delays

days in advance of our launch date that we sent our letter detailing billing problems and overcharges

hours before launch when management finally agreed to a partial reduction in our bill based on the above letter

hatch lenses broken by carelessness of yard employees (and which Norsand refused to pay for)

>100

fisheyes, bugs, holidays, bubbles, imperfections, sags, etc. in the topside paint

attempts required before port ama interior frames and v-berth ceiling were painted correctly

areas where tape was left on too long and took off underlying paint, varnish or veneer

~800

miles sailed before primer and antifoul fell off strut

Amount of our life wasted… hmmm…?

An excerpt from the letter we sent to Norsand Management on 20 April 2026 (you can read the entire letter if you’d like):

A little background: Migration was built in Japan in 1969, using polyester resin, unfortunately. In 2012 we wanted to sail back to French Polynesia from NZ but noticed delamination of the topside fiberglass in many places (not surprising given the resin choice). We asked Peter (who was yard manager) for a quote on replacing the fiberglass. It was outside of our budget at the time. Thus, with the urging of friends, we chose to sail to Thailand and do the work there. The work took 2 years and caused us a great deal of stress (Bruce’s hair went grey!). We continually admonished ourselves for not having the work done at Norsand.

This is why we looked forward to returning to Norsand in 2025 for this round of repairs – a yard we truly loved from our first time here in 2009 and which we have recommended to scores of cruisers over the years. And this is why our experience over the last year has been such a shock.

We really did love Norsand in 2009 – when we did our own work. We felt the hauling, blocking, and launching of our boat was done with great care. And it still is! Kevin, Shane and Muz do a great job. When we contacted the yard in late 2024 letting them know we were coming the following year, Kevin told us he still had the measurements from our haulout 15 years before.

We’ll say this in bold; For hauling, storage and DIY, Norsand is a great yard. But they are a CLOSED YARD which means that you cannot hire anyone from outside the yard to perform services they provide. Thus, engine repairs can be done by someone else, but rigging, fiberglassing, woodwork, bottom work, etc., must be provided by the yard’s labor.

It is this last point that forces us to say:
Unless you are doing ALL of your own work, or doing work that the yard does not offer,
WE DO NOT RECOMMEND GOING TO NORSAND.

Now for some particulars. First of all, it’s important that we make clear that some of the work Norsand provided was excellent. And we mean it. Jimmy and Tony were talented boatbuilders who we enjoyed working with and they did a great job. However, there were other workers who were not so talented and, frankly, we resented paying for sub-par services. When it came to boatbuilding services, our main complaint was not the quality, but the quantity. Time and again the management would pull our workers away to other jobs, leaving Migration languishing and us paying scaffolding and yard storage costs when nothing was being done, and, of course, delaying our launch. This happened over and over and over, despite emails, phone calls, and meetings. Always with the same mantra: “Not to make excuses, but…”.

Once the boatbuilding (deck, cockpit and mast repairs) were finished, it was time to paint. This is where things really began to go poorly.

Let us be clear: we had emailed a list of our projects and a rough timeline to Norsand months before we hauled out. They had agreed that everything could be done. But once a boat is in the yard, it is a different story. We know of at least 8 other boats that were promised work before they hauled out and that work was then delayed by weeks or months. There were severe management and labor issues in the yard that were not being addressed. The boat owners bore the fallout from this.

The painting never went as promised. Some of it was good; some of it was terrible. Some of it had to be redone 2, 3, or 4 times. And many days no one worked on the boat, but because of all the tape and plastic, we couldn’t address our own long list of projects. We won’t bore you with any more of this. We’ll just say that, even with a change in management in January, our requests were repeatedly ignored and repairs to the mistakes made were continually put off. In fact, those promised repairs were never completely addressed as it rained the last days before our launch, so some were never completed.

We did have one diligent painter on the job. Much of what he did was very, very good. Some, so-so. But the painting done by others was abysmal. Especially the topsides job done by one worker we had explicitly asked to be taken off our boat after seeing the quality of his work on a small job in the port ama.

Finally, although we used Norsand’s rigger in 2009 (when he worked for a different company), and had a very good experience with him, we do not recommend using Norsand’s rigging services now. Dealing with the rigging department was frustrating and their services are overpriced.

We’ll summarize (keeping this short because writing this is making us angry and we’d rather enjoy the cruising life now!):

We arrived loving this yard and looking forward to this refit. We left frustrated, disappointed, and unhappy.
We have little confidence in the longevity of the topside paint job.
We can’t speak highly enough of the slipway crew: Kevin, Shane, and Muz. They are gems.
If you want to haul and store your boat while you travel, we highly recommend Norsand.
We did have some excellent work done and were grateful that Tony and Jimmy were assigned to our woodworking and fiberglass jobs.
The yard has serious management and labor issues that impact boat owners — not in a good way.
Billing is a disaster and we would have overpaid thousands of dollars if we hadn’t spent hours going through every line of every invoice.
Materials waste is rampant and due to the way billing is done, there is no way to monitor it effectively.
The unprofessional management style of Excuse/Bully/Ignore isn’t exactly customer-service oriented.

When the management finally agreed to the reduction of the bill 16 hours before we were scheduled to launch, they did apologize “for the inconvenience and experience you have had during your stay in the boatyard.” This, after spending the entire day trying to strongarm us into accepting their terms. Perhaps they meant it and are truly trying to do better. We would not bet our future boatyard experience on it.

There are many great boat services in New Zealand, and especially in Whangarei. We love Aotearoa and its people. We made great friends in 2009 and even more this time around. You can have a positive experience having work done on your boat in NZ.

Just don’t do it at Norsand.

Photo documentation (a small selection)

Yes, it’s very shiny, but every piece of orange tape is a blemish.

Remember, this is only a small sampling. Our folder of mistakes has nearly 150 photos in it. But we won’t subject you to all of them.

Be good. Be safe. Have fun.
BB & ADR

You know you’re in the yard too long when you show up on Google Maps…

Some Letters to Norsand

20 April 2026
Norsand Boatyard

Dear <Norsand Management>,

It has required many hours to categorize and recategorize Norsand’s work, condense our notes, and gather photos. We have been working 7 days a week to get the boat back in the water, and thus the delay. However, we now can provide you with the following.

Attached you will find a spreadsheet that shows how much we have paid for various jobs. Much of the work in the invoices was not categorized correctly. This spreadsheet does so.

A little background: Migration was built in Japan in 1969, using polyester resin, unfortunately. In 2012 we wanted to sail back to French Polynesia from NZ but noticed delamination of the topside fiberglass in many places (not surprising given the resin choice). We asked Peter (who was yard manager) for a quote on replacing the fiberglass. It was outside of our budget at the time. Thus, with the urging of friends, we chose to sail to Thailand and do the work there. The work took 2 years and caused us a great deal of stress (Bruce’s hair went grey!). We continually admonished ourselves for not having the work done at Norsand.

This is why we looked forward to returning to Norsand in 2025 for this round of repairs – a yard we truly loved from our first time here in 2009 and which we have recommended to scores of cruisers over the years. And this is why our experience over the last year has been such a shock.

Billing
Because of the miscategorized jobs and the combining of different jobs in one line item, it was difficult to keep tabs on how much jobs cost. I would encourage the yard to sort this out.

Labor Quality
As we have said many times, Jimmy and Tony were exceptional. There were only a few issues which they willingly corrected. <J> was a slow and not very experienced worker. For example, Bruce (fortunately) happened to notice him preparing to fiberglass the port bow before it was repaired properly and stopped him just in time. This happened because Tony had been put on another job for a couple of days and was not there to supervise.

We’ve addressed the rigger issues in a separate email.

It is with the painting that the most problems have occurred. We imagine you are pretty well aware of the issues that the painting department has had for quite some time. Though we know you are making efforts to correct the situation, we were, unfortunately, the victims of a department filled with poor workers and under poor management. A few notes about this:

After the first round of interior painting, the port ama frames came out so poorly (as well as the issue with the aft lazarette lid, addressed below) that we told <D> we did not want <S> working on our boat. Unfortunately, he did not honor our request and the result is the paint job on port topside. Why such a poor paint job was not corrected immediately by those in charge is incomprehensible.

Additionally, <S> painted the aft lazarette lid twice because he said the Alexseal paint we provided did not cure. We were not here at the time but I am sure this is because he mixed it at the Awlcraft ratio of 2:1 instead of the Alexseal ratio of 1:1. We have used that paint many times for small repairs and it cured fine when we mixed it. The Alexseal paint was thus wasted and an inferior product put on without consulting us.

The issues with some of the other paint crew you are already aware of. These resulted in long delays, many mistakes, and many weeks of our time wasted.

Work We Didn’t Ask For
Following is some work that was completed that we never asked for and therefore should not pay for.
Hull sides next to the frames in port ama. We asked that only the frames be painted.
Ceiling of anchor locker. We did not request this as it was already epoxy coated.
When <S2> was told to clean up the boat in January, she did not consult with <B> and removed the plastic and tape protection before <B> was finished painting. Thus, <B> had to re-protect the boat. A waste of time and materials.
Boom: We didn’t want the entire boom painted — just the areas we had sandblasted and repaired.
Masts: Filling and sanding. Holes and dings filled that should have been left alone. We were very clear that we did not want small imperfections repaired. We were assured that the masts would only need a light sanding, a spray of primer, another sanding and then topcoat; we did not expect or want a $10,000 paint job.

Delays and Impact on Us
As a closed yard that advertises itself as providing professional services, Norsand did not deliver in several areas. We know that attempts are being made to turn that around. However, from September 2025 to January 2026 the work we agreed to did not move forward at the pace implied by our discussions. As noted in earlier emails we sent in 2025, the yard reassigned workers to other boats in the middle of our major jobs. This caused a delay of at least two months. Much of that time we could not do our own projects due to the condition of the boat. We have included a copy of an email from 25 September 2025 which clearly shows that worker availability was already becoming an issue before the work actually started. That was our first attempt to bring this to the attention of management. We have also included another email from November asking the yard to make Migration a priority and finish the work as promised.
Not only did poor workmanship cause Norsand to redo some of the jobs, it added weeks to our worklist. Examples of this are the filled holes on the mast and boom – something we explicitly said we did not want to have happen. We were lucky both of these filling ‘projects’ were stopped before they were complete. Jimmy stopped <S> from filling all the holes on the mast and Alene avoided a small disaster by rushing to the yard to discuss the boom with <D2>. We had specifically said to leave all holes. Now, however, we have spent hours determining where hardware should be placed on the mast, and have hours yet to go with the boom.
In January, nearly 2 weeks went by where, because of work stoppage due to mismanagement of product, we could do nothing on the boat as it was covered in plastic.
The constant delays in completing (and fixing) the work meant we had to cancel several visits from family and friends. Our entire sailing season was lost.
Much of our time was spent finding problems, communicating them to management, and then ensuring the problems were corrected. When we pay a professional for services, we do not expect to have to manage that professional. We expect them to deliver what they promise.

Overcharges, Hidden Costs, and Time Wasted
We were charged $8,676.96 for the Awlcraft paint products. The official quote from International was $5,993.52, and <D> said that was high.
2+ months extra of scaffolding charges that totaled nearly $10,000.
2+ months extra of flat rental.
2+ months extra of car costs: fuel, insurance, maintenance, etc.
Starting and stopping jobs costs more in labor and materials. Any professional knows that leaving a job for a week requires more effort to get it going again. Tools have to be moved back and forth, tape lines retaped, etc.
Months of delay because we could not work on the boat during painting – even when painting wasn’t happening. <A>, you will remember that we practically begged you to have Jimmy start the mast repairs in October so that we could be working on putting the hardware back on the masts while the topsides were being painted. Due to the delays in repairing the masts and painting them, we had to scramble throughout March to get them in shape for re-stepping.
Lots of overspray on various pieces of hardware – which we cleaned up.
We were charged $8,531.41 to paint the new frames, a small area in the shower, the closet ceiling, and small areas of the v-berth walls and part of the ceiling. This is exorbitant.
$3,298.16 just to paint the aft lazarette lid.
$372.50 to move the mast to the half-round and then the next day to move it to the workshop. All because of non-communication among staff.
As the rigging billing is difficult to separate, it is hard to determine exact costs for different parts of the job. However, we know that <G> charged 15.5 hours of labour to put our rigging and steering cables together in 2010. We know there was more labor involved in disassembly and repair for this job. However, the total hours charged this time was over 4 times that amount.

Materials Waste
As goods from the store are not itemized on our bill, it is impossible to know if our materials bills are accurate. We do know that there has been a great deal of wastefulness: paints not closed properly; thinners left without the cap on; taping and retaping and retaping ad infinitum; plastic removed from the boat and then put back on; materials purchased, not used, then not returned, etc.

Loss of Confidence
Will the topside paint last? Was the mainmast repaired correctly when it was sanded through to bare wood after being coated with epoxy and multiple coats of Interprotect? Given how much poor workmanship has happened, how many of the paint jobs will fail prematurely? What other damage to the interior or exterior will we find?

Rather than leaving the yard feeling like Migration is in great shape, these are the questions created by a multitude of errors (please see separate email that documents mistakes, messes, forgotten cleanup, etc..)

On top of that, the experience of our galley items being taken from the boat, and the theft of our painkillers – all without an apology and an initial comment blaming us – does not add to a feeling that the yard values our business.

Yard Attitude
One of the most galling things was that with every discussion throughout late 2025, the yard did not seem to care about the problems, expenses and delays they were causing us. There was always an excuse that another boat needed the workers. If the yard mismanages their labor, we should not bear the financial burden and loss of time. The yard’s lifeblood is working on boats. Not so for your clients. The time wasted cannot be returned and we resent the lack of cooperation we received.

We would ask you to answer truthfully: Was the work on Migration performed with a professionalism that the yard is proud of, and if this were your boat and your experience, would you be pleased with the outcome?

We acknowledge that you have corrected many of the mistakes at your cost. However, we should not bear the costs of mismanagement, poor workmanship, and poor hiring practices.

Our bill should be reduced by $29,500.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Best,

Bruce & Alene
s/v Migration

Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2025 21:20
To: ‘Norsand | Services’ <services@norsand.co.nz>; ‘Norsand | Supervisor’ <supervisor@norsand.co.nz>
Subject: Migration status

Hi <Norsand Management>,
As you know, the safety scaffolding is now installed. Thanks for making that happen.

We have removed the hardware required for Tony to begin work: Windlass, bow roller, cleats, chocks, mast wires thru-deck, spinnaker track, stbd cockpit line box, etc. The only remaining piece is the foredeck hatch which will be removed Friday.

As we’ve said in the past, we would like the work to be done in a timely manner. What we would like to avoid is having our projects spread out due to lack of workers and thus not finishing before the holidays. This should be no problem provided we start as soon as possible and the work on the deck is completed so that <D> has plenty of time for painting.

We were very surprised to find that Tony is extremely busy with several projects when we specifically requested his time for the end of September months ago. Beginning last year, we’ve tried very hard to keep you apprised of our needs and timing. We hope that we won’t be disappointed.

Thanks very much,
Bruce & Alene

Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2025 13:49
To: ‘Norsand | Supervisor’ <supervisor@norsand.co.nz>; ‘Norsand | Services’ <services@norsand.co.nz>
Subject: Migration Status

Hi <Norsand Management>,
I believe that the scaffolding is not coming until Friday. This news is a bit unsettling as we first discussed modifying the scaffolding two weeks ago. This delay will definitely impact the project.

As you know, we were hoping to have the painting done and be out of the tent by the holidays. I’m not sure that’s possible now as there is a great deal of hardware that needs to be installed after the painting is finished – both on the boat and the spars. Additionally, we will be away for the first half of January.

I understand that there are many projects you must address in the yard as well as unforeseen events. But I’ll reiterate that we’ve been clear about our schedule for months. I do feel that if Tony and Jimmy hadn’t been drawn away, the deck work would have been finished some time ago and the masts would have been repaired and ready for painting.

The delays in the project also add up in yard fees, scaffolding fees, and our flat rental.

I know you want to check Migration off your list. That will only happen if she becomes a priority in the yard.

Thanks,
Bruce & Alene