New Viking Factory Inspection

In light of the booby trap (supposedly a 3X Viking owners) fishing experience with their new 68 Viking which is being aired out on social media I would pay a surveyor to survey. Who knows what the whole truth is but he has significant complaints not just with the MTUs but with the boat itself. Some of these complaints are documented with unflattering pictures. The most troubling aspect is Viking’s non response. To me it does not reflect well on Viking.

It started on FB and then has showed up on some boating forums. I think you will find it if you search Bobby trap fishing. I don’t think you will find it a waste of time but you might not agree with my assessment.

How far out from delivery are you?
I would have a surveyor involved sooner than later.
Do not fall for the "take delivery now, and we will take care of the punch list at our warranty facility in WPB"
Better to delay delivery and have it right.
Do not ask your broker for surveyor suggestions, if you do, use as a list of who not to use.

thinking back, wonder how many Bertram owners had pre-delivery surveys completed when Bertram had their delamination issues,

just because it's a new build alleviating any issues prior to taking delivery can remedy minor/major problems that may arise, thus the recommendation of a survey

I’ve been following and am interested in the Booby trap issue. Seems strange about the lack of response from Viking and also so publicly airing the grievances, which is going to make selling this difficult. There’s also must be something happening behind the scenes that’s making this more difficult. Reminds me of both the Bad Company drama and then a 60’ Midnight Express owner.

It does seem like booby trap is dramatizing the situation by saying he is going to release more details in the future and just the tone and tenor of his posts is off putting. If you have the details now just disclose them. A little click baity. But then again the pictures and Viking’s apparent silence is not a good luck either. Do the next generation of Healys not have the same business model as the previous generation?

I’ve seen this happen to a customer of Winter before. There are probably a couple scenarios I can imagine here. One being that these folks were probably making a major fuss and being rude to the Viking folks, burned the bridge, and now Viking is doing the bare minimum per their warranty process.

The other is this boat may have had specifics caveats tied to it. This was an in stock boat at HMY that they bought “new” but was a 2025 which means they likely got it in 2024. This was probably a demo, maybe had known issues, etc. I could also imagine that they got a specific deal with these in mind that may have been appropriately disclosed to them. Some of the issues, like the MTU, would be outside of the scope but the others less so.

a HMY stock Viking surely took up some dockspace @ the FLIBS ~ maybe even consecutive years