The closure of his company will not affect the LBS in any way. According to NBS MD Andrew Williams, filling the Challenger Syndicateship space at this late stage may be difficult, but the inland waterways feature will not be affected. ‘He’s put all the work in and organised it all. The feature is all finished and it’s happening,’ Williams told BB. ‘The boats went in over last weekend.’

Challenger, however, had a boat booked outside in the dock and some space booked inside. ‘There will be a little bit of space that, at this stage, will be hard to re-use,’ said Williams, ‘but we’ll try our best.’

Rimmer started his inland waterways shared ownership scheme some 15 years ago and built it up to today’s 27 boats with 12 owners. The market however, began to cool off a year or two back and Rimmer had to look around for other ways of using the shared ownership idea, moving first into Thames cruisers and then into French canal boats.

His next move was into the lucrative Mediterranean market, starting with three Bavaria sailing yachts in Alcudia. From there he moved into powerboats, moving swiftly from a Broom 50 to a Squadron 52 via a Princess 55.

At last year's London Boat Show Rimmer dabbled in supercars, creating a great deal of interest in the central boulevard, but maybe not too many share sales. And without share sales, there was no appreciable income.

But the company also runs the eight-boat Challenger Stealth fleet of hire boats, which could, perhaps, continue to run as a separate business.

This is not, of course, the first time Rimmer has lost a company, with Black Prince Narrowboats having gone bust some years ago.

However, this time the shared ownership basis may mean a less disruptive finale as the title to the boats - in theory - remains with the owners. BB understands, however, that Rimmer may have retained a 4% share of each craft, which may give leverage to some people...