Coupes off the Marquis Site

Tiara

We sold our Tiara 39 Sovran this spring. I liked the build quality of the boat and she met our needs well (couple with golden retriever and no kids). We cruised it extensively (200hrs/yr) around the great lakes in all sorts of weather. The drop curtain and dual 16k btu heat/ac units extended our season up here a lot. The boat was a little wet, however with full glass and the hardtop, it was not a concern for me. The negative of the Sovran line for me is the bulbous hull design. As, other mfg's have done (cruisers etc), in an effort to gain more interior volume as a cruising boat, they made the hull a little bulbous which makes the boat a little rough in a head sea. I have run the 43 Sovran numerous times and although still present, the added few feet does help the ride in a head sea. In the relatively protected grounds that you cruise in, this may be a non-issue.

Depending on your budget, the new 50 or 44 (being released this fall) in my eyes are a home run from a hull and layout prospective. They are constructed on the hulls Tiara built their name on (open/convertible) yet have a cruising layout. The only drawback for me personally is I'm not in a huge hurry to buy another Volvo powered boat and will likely end up with a 42 or 43 open over the winter.

Do you like the Lobster boat look, e.g. MJM Yachts? (Or look at this thread for a lot of other brands.) That's the sort of thing I'd go for and I think it'd be pretty practical in our weather.

As another practical matter, how big are you looking at? It's been a while since I worked at Heather, the biggest slips there are, what, 40-something feet? There are some bigger slips across False Creek, I suppose. If you're mostly gonna putt around English Bay and sometimes cross the Strait, I'd keep it to something small and managable.

I think you said you're not keen on sportfishers... but there's a decent-looking Viking 47' listed on craigslist, moored on the north side of False Creek. I've seen it from the seawall and it looks pretty good to me.

The IPS system is very efficient and extremely helpful at times. There were evenings when we were being blown off our finger pier by sustained 28kt winds and I just sort of chuckled as we untied and headed out to dinner on the boat... something I wouldn't have likely done with traditional propulsion in this boat. However, without derailing this thread too much, I had an issue with 1 motor(not drive) just out of warranty that was pretty well documented that it was likely a mfg defect. Tiara was first class the whole way through and engaged Volvo at the highest levels that they could. Volvo entertained the situation for a bit, shotgunning parts at it (not covering labor) until an engineer friend and I using a mill in his shop, demonstrated that the bracket they were saying was incorrect was in fact the same as the new one they sent and the likely cause was a block that was drilled incorrectly from the factory which needed to be shimmed. At that point they "opted not to participate any further". I think the engineering behind the system and the technology are impressive, I just personally had a bad experience with Volvo and how they handled my situation, and am not in a hurry to have to work with them again. Tiara on the other hand has been a class act. I've pretty much had a rep there on speed dial with a myriad of questions and they were always willing to help. YMMV...

Prior to buying our last boat, we had our hearts set on a formula 40 or 45. Their quality is fairly good, the boats do perform and I liked that you can get a hydraulic platform from the factory which wasn't available on the Sovran. The boat fell short for us in a few areas: One, even on the 45, the walkways down the side are extremely narrow which made me a little nervous having my wife hang fenders and attach lines. The salesperson was quick to point out the walk-through windshield, however in reality fenders and lines still need to go down the side. Along with this, up near the bow pulpit, the deck slants downward as opposed to being molded flat or recessed like a lot of other boats for additional safety. Lastly, aside from running with full canvas on (if its even safe/possible),there didn't seem to be a good way to attach any sort of drop curtain etc like on the Tiara that would allow us to easily climate control the helm area in colder WI Fall and Spring weather.

These were just our findings as we searched for boats in the 40-50' range. One thing that should be glaringly evident in this entire thread is that like a house every boat has trade offs and everyone has different things that are important to them when making a purchase. We were chasing quality and function all while staying within a fairly modest budget...

Max