The British Marine Federation (BMF), once alerted to the situation made immediate arrangements to identify a solicitor people can talk to if they have complaints regarding Challenger Syndicateships.

The solicitor concerned is Russell Kelly at Lester Aldridge; telephone 023 8082 7416, email Russell.kelly@LA-Law.com

In addition, the BMF and the Association of Pleasure Craft Operators (APCO) took action to ensure that anyone who had booked a holiday with Challenger Syndicateships was offered another holiday by other member companies.

However, the problems of those caught up in the mess surrounding who owns what boat will not be sorted as quickly and easily.

BB has tried to contact Ed Rimmer without success, so we can’t give you his side of the story. But we have spoken to some who have stories that seem incredible, if only for the astonishing childlike trust they put in a person to whom they hand over nearly £100,000 without seeing (or receiving) definitive proof of title of a boat.

One broker, who has been repossessing boats for various finance houses, suggested the BMF’s Boatmark scheme – almost universally ignored by the industry - would have solved many of the problems by providing instant title provenance to any would-be purchaser.

Another aspect of this debacle, as Lady Bracknell might have remarked upon, is that to lose one BMF high ranking non-exec may be a misfortune, but to lose another within the space of five months looks like carelessness.

And that is unlikely to instil in the general public a nice warm glow of confidence in this industry.

BB will bring you more when we can report with confidence the many stories floating around that have yet to be confirmed as fact .