Buyers Trapped in Feud with Sunseeker...

I'm dealing with a Princess right now, less than 2 years old. HUGE gelcoat cracking and bubbles under the gelcoat.

That's easy, go with a Hatteras.

I like Feretti's, I DON'T like the design. They're a good sea boat. But, I'm 6'3 and my hair touches the salon ceiling in most all of them. Way too low on the head room. They also have the sills of death.....a sill that sticks up 1" under every door way and you bust your toes on. Also they're a good sea boat, but seems like Feretti always under sizes the rudders.

Sunseeker builds a very good sea boat. Quality is pretty good.

Yeah and it's a boat you buy with top quality that has minimal issues. How is the 75' Not equivalent to a Euro boat? Cruises at 26 knots, has plenty of range, a real engine room, real crew quarters, plenty of flybridge room, etc. A flat salon level without a bunch of steps, and a great sea boat. Styling looks familiar to me. You get what you pay for. You want cheap, buy a Chinese yacht.

Yes, you're comparing a builder that has EVOLVED to match the usage of motoryachts, to builders that refuse to evolve. It's like the Porsche that still has no cup holders.

Exactly, but they're still 75' Motor Yachts with similar cruising speeds and same amount of staterooms and similar design as far as usage goes. Perhaps the Euro builders should step up to the plate and add creature comforts such as the option of having air conditioning and heat on the flybridge of a boat this size and a hard top design that allows enclosing it with strataglass or ez2cy for the climates in which they sell these boats to. Who wants to deal with removing an hours worth of cushion covers and then have no place to store them because the under seat storage has no height to it when you can open 3 strataglass panels instead. Or who wants to sit on the open flybridge of a motoryacht that's doing 27 knots all day and dealing with up to 50 knots of wind?

Or, the Captain have to be stuck at the lower helm with much reduced visbility when there is inclement weather further reducing visibility or very uncomfortable getting rained on, on the flybridge in it?

Why can't they raise the seating a mere 4" so you actually have usable storage under the seating for cases of bottled water and refreshments and things you actually need to enjoy a trip on the yacht, using it as a yacht? Instead of having to break every case open and having a 1000 loose bottles of water rolling around in storage areas. There's a ton of storage areas under the seats on them, but usable for what since there is no height to the storage areas.

My question is, at what point are the Euro builders going to EVOLVE ? U.S. builders have had air conditioning on the flybridges since the late 90's. It's like the Euro designers design yachts, but have never used a yacht or done a week long trip on one!

So what does that have to do with the things I've mentioned. Storage, air conditioning on flybridge, etc. Beam difference between the Euro boats and hatteras is .5 meter or less.

No, it's not. It's the same market and same LOA. You really have to care about LOA as that is what drives most all owners when purchasing. Owners here don't care about how the beam fits into slips (provided we're not talking about catamarans). All of them you mentioned. They're all a motoryacht, all cruise at 25 knots +/-, all have 4 guest cabins, all have flybridges. They're all flybridge planing hulled motoryachts. We're not comparing to semi displacement flemings, or displacement speed outer reefs or some other category. And yes, Here a buyer of a 75' Sunseeker is also looking at a 75' Hatteras as well as a 72' Ocean Alexander as well as an Azimut and the others mentioned. But here, the buyers are looking at all of the brands mentioned and then narrowing it down as all choices are within 100s of feet of each other at FLIBS.

I have 2 new Princess owners that had/have boats less than 3 years old. One traded the Princess on a new Hatteras. The other is looking to get out of a Princess and considering 2 boats, a 76' Sunseeker and a 75' Hatteras. The latter specifically asked me about a dozen brands to start with and had 2 questions for me. Which boat is the highest quality and which boat has the fewest amount of problems. My answer was Hatteras and Sunseeker a far 2nd.

Dozens and dozens of Hatteras' have shipped to the Hatteras dealer in Italy. I start talking about why the Euro builders can't improve their designs to match the markets they're selling in and compare it to their U.S. competition, and somehow you go on and on about dockage?

Honestly, what does that have to do with raising the seating height a mere 4" on the FB and Salon so you can actually store stuff IN the storage compartments. And, for someone that's over 6', doesn't feel like you're sitting on the floor or on seating made for children. Or giving the option of putting air conditioning/heat on the flybridge (which would also require the storage under the seats to be 4" higher). Or any other creature comforts that make yachting more enjoyable and also extend peoples usage. Or princess that makes crew mattresses in all over their yachts 70' and under......3/4 of the width of a twin bed that no adult male over 5'5 can comfortably sleep on.

Your statement left me wondering where exactly they shipped those boats, 'cause I'm not aware of ANY Italian Hatteras dealer.
So, I just checked their website, and if you select "find a dealer", and then "Italy", the website points to Ekka, a Greek dealer based in Athens and with a subsidiary in Cyprus.
And I very much doubt that anyone in Italy ever heard of them.
Aside from Ferretti Group probably, because most of their brands (in order of appearance: Ferretti, Riva, Pershing, Custom Line - plus Pardo) are what you see if you check out the homepage of the Ekka website.

With all due respect for Hatt, I can't imagine any Italian builder following them in the foreseeable future.
If anything, I think it's Hatt that is trying to follow some Italian builders.
I'm referring to the MYs, of course. SFs are very marginal, around here.

SNO Yachts was a Hatteras dealer for 2 decades +/-, up until a year or two ago. I used Hatteras as a comparison. Not saying that they need to follow each other. My argument is WHY they don't make their yachts more usable for what you use a yacht for.