The deal that we offered her was that we would take over the business and proceed to improve the plans and grow it as we saw fit, while still paying her what she had averaged for the previous five years, and she was no longer required to work. We offered her five years of that (and were prepared to go as high as ten, as I recall), but she would accept nothing less than a lump sum, period. As has been pointed out, RR has no incentive to sell the business for anything less than a small fortune, since selling plans is making a her a sufficient living, with minimal effort. My guess is that this golden goose will be passed on to the next generation, so the KR will continue to plod along in its current state of affairs.
If you check the archives you'll see where I volunteered to completely redraw the plans for her several years ago, correcting mistakes and making them easier to read. Kevin Kelly had done a set on CAD already, but there were some things that were inaccurate or even backwards. And they were still dimensioned in a bizarre manner in which the spaces between verticals were defined individually, but not cumulatively. There's no telling how many boat construction mistakes those dimensions have led to! [Most people like to pull a tape measure and mark off the numbers all at one time, rather than measuring 14", move the tape, measure 14.5", move the tape...you get the idea.] I offered to tweak the drawings for her, and immediately update them whenever an error was discovered, for absolutely free. I never could talk her into letting me do that, and I can only assume that she didn't trust me for some reason. I DID correct the bluelines and send them back to her, but those plans haven't seen the light of day, as far as I know. It's been said that RR just isn't business oriented. There are lots of complaints about the lack of response from phone calls and faxes. I asked her about this when I ordered my KR1B plans, and she offered that she answers all calls, except the ones where there is no return phone number left. Dr. Dean and I tried to sell her TET wing attach fittings for the same price we were selling them on KRnet. She said that was actually less than she was paying for them (from Ken Brock, I believe), and she expressed some interest in them, but we never heard anything else about them. In my opinion, it's just not good business practice to buy something from one supplier for years without ever checking to see if someone else could supply the same thing for a lower price. And this was right after her current supplier shipped several sets of WAFs that apparently hadn't been properly heat treated (Mike Mims bent them with his bare hands). We were convinced that we could do so much more for the company and the KR by actually caring, working hard, and improving the plans and products, that we would be turning a profit immediately, and still keeping her salary coming as if nothing had ever happened. We thought she might find that offer attractive, as she would have a steady income for years, and not have to be around to work the phone. The liability thing is a definite concern. You can say that we wouldn't be liable all you want, but that doesn't keep some idiot from hauling you into court and costing you a fortune in legal fees before it finally gets thrown out in court. I've seen it happen too many times, with ludicrous charges, and costly results. Mark Langford, Huntsville, AL N56ML at hiwaay.net see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
