Mangusta 70 - 80ft (1996 - 2004) Advice

Hi,

a friend owns a 72 Mangusta so no personal experiance but may be helpful still.

Generelly a well/solid built boat but despite the size a dayboat really.
Arnesons need to have a solid service history, can get pricey very quickly. Also note that the prop is located virtually at the end of the swim platform in casee you are not aware. If you are not used to surface drives it is also worth considering if it is for you. A lot of the systems require the genset to run so generators have high hours and are apparently a pig to get to in case you need to swap one out. He's owned similarly sized boats and says this is the most expensive yacht to maintain yet.

Hope this helps

Hello
I own a 2003 Mangusta 80 and can give some basic idea of what I have been through in the past 5 years.
Age is the biggest factor here as you will have more things to look after if the boat is older. But I have also been told that the build quality of these boats has decreased from 2008/2010 onwards. So the earlier ones should be the best in that respect. And they are very well built, possibly some of the best actual yachts of these dimensions in their day. They were (and are) hand built as a single bespoke project each, and by the same families of boat builders (workers).
Overmarine (I think now it's called Mangusta Yachts) has a good customer service that will respond quickly if the requirement is urgent. But if not, they may take time to answer your queries given these are older boats. But they will follow up and support you.
Most of the maintenance costs have been related to the engines, and these are actually low hours MTU 2000 M91s. Peripherals such as exhaust elbows, crossover elbows, an exhaust turbine housing, intercoolers (cleaning or replacing), both engines' main raw water pumps, a BlueLine MCS control box, and we have now identified an oil leak on a ZF marine gear housing which we are addressing. Oil changes required every year if low sectors, or every two years if you use it for long sectors. And don't forget to change all the filters (oil and fuel).
The low pressure exhaust mufflers had to be replaced (by stainless steel units) due to heavy corrosion on the originals (galvanised), you can see them in the far end of the engine room against the transom and check if they are corroded from afar. And although it seems impossible to remove them, it's actually quite simple.
The boat's computerised control system (called VMS) can be a bit of a pain, but it works.
The Arneson surface drives (ASDs) have not been half as bad or expensive to maintain as you may read about, but you need to pay close attention to them so as to avoid uncontrolled degradation.
On the hydraulics, you may have an odd leak in some heat exchanger, some lines to replace (the underwater ASD lines every 2 years - but I guess that will depend on the waters you are in) but the BCS systems and the pumps are very robust and so far, so good.
Other than that, the air conditioning units have been great overall without issues, but the sea water pumps require attention (I am pretty sure any boat will be the same with the AC cooling pumps).
Some of the Miele household appliances may fail with time, and replacing the big ones is a fitting challenge.
Like any other boat you need to carefully look after the sea water valves, possibly clogged sea water pipes, get her out of the water once a year, pressure wash the Arnesons and the hull, apply antifouling and service the anodes. Unless you are navigating at least once every two weeks, the props will tend to gather marine growth, and you should have a diver clean them before setting off again or you may have difficulty in picking up speed. Alternatively, you can apply PropSpeed on the props and avoid calling the diver. But I am not sure about some possible performance loss caused by this coating if any (I am actually testing it now).
The rest is like any other boat IMO.
Good luck with your purchase.

Great post AGP. Thank you for detailing your experience!

Agreed, thank you AGP!