Catastrophic delamination on a new Bertram 63'...

These are the yards that produce maybe a few hundred of the thousands of boats produced. There is enough money and professionalism involved that owners reps are generally involved from inception and one unhappy customer can hurt the yards reputation...and the yard cares about that for the last 50/100 years or more. It is the "plastic fantastic point and squirt boats" that are sold like cars that make up the majority of boats built. Many of these manufacturers who figured they could build boats since they can make bowling balls or other widgits and dealers consider them like cars and convince buyers they are like cars to be traded in every couple of years. Unlike cars though they can cost millions. Now that people aren't able to trade them in for 'just a few dollars more a month' maybe they'll realize that they've got a million dollar asset on their hands that needs to be looked on as such.

From my point of view, it always comes back to management. Taking a step back, boat companies are probably no worse than the average company. Look how badly run the consumer electronics companies and poor their products are. Not to mention most car companies and all the US car companies. All the average companies lack a passionate visionary for excellance. Apple is a great example of what happens with world class leadership.

While I think there are great boat companies out there, they are generally the custom builders. No surprise, by their nature, a custom builder will be run by a passionate owner.

I am amazed though, how even the best big production builders, always seem to get something very wrong.

The problem is that they are not your "average" product. You won't be down the block from a service station or sitting in your living room when it breaks down or catches fire. You can't just call customer service when the motors quit in 10' seas or say 'oops' when a through-hull fails. You get a different feeling when your boat starts peeling apart while you're underway than you get when the paint crinkles on your car. Boat builders used to be a proud bunch. Now they're financiers.

That's *exactly* why average management is producing sub-standard product in this industry!

Let me re-phrase that, yes in the plastic production yachts under 100'. Of course if we're speaking about all yacht builders, Azimut IMO doesn't even hold a candle to Hatteras and they both certainly don't hold a candle to Feadship, Luursen, and others....(but that's a whole different league)........but compared to Princess, Fairlane, Ferretti and others.....I would take an Azimut if it had to be a Italian production fiberglass boat. I ran a Fairlane today and was impressed with the interior wood and layout. But not much else.

As for the Azimut wiring, it's not as bad as some of the other Italian and European built productions. Try finding a breaker for a Viking Princess. Or accessing a lot of things on a Viking SC. I must say that Viking USA is pretty good on keeping parts for the Viking SC's.

I was on a 70' Technomarine that had 70 volts AC current throughout all of the bilges and nobody could find where it was coming from. LOL

IMHO, Hatteras is living on their reputation more than reality... somewhat like Ferretti. Your mileage my vary of course!

One surprising builder with their newer models is actually Marquis.

If this is the case, how would you explain then that Hatteras is currently offering a 10-year hull warranty on its current production?

Hi MedRascal and welcome back. Long time!

I think GoPlay is referring to the Hatteras lineage. The name is deep-seeded in yachting culture and in some cases, they sell boats on name alone. That's not a bad thing. It's a position most manufacturers long to achieve.

COMPETITION.

Exactly! Also a 10 year warranty is cheaper than cutting price.

Hi Carl! Thank you, its nice to be back into the discussions!

Well, might be for selling too, you are right there, but it could end up being a little expensive to have to repair all those hulls out there, if they would end up like the fellow Bertram 63.

Plus, then why aren't also other builders offering the 10yrs hull warrenty as well, if this would help selling?? Mmmhhhh ....

Manufacturers are worried about surviving this year. Tomorrow may never come if they don't,so what is to lose. Hopefully 8 or 9 years from now they will have sufficient capital to handle any claims. Or maybe they believe their boats are good enough to last that long. They did it before (made boats of that quality).

Warranty is like any other feature. A manufacturer decides how they want to compete and does a cost-benefit analysis. BMW offers free maintenance, Hyundai offers a 10 year warranty. Based on the above logic, we should be seeing cars with free maintenance, 10 year warranties, 0% interest, free sat radio.... wait a second, given the market conditions perhaps we will!!!

Perhaps we will indeed. Hyundai is now offering to buy back your car if you lose your job. The present is gone. We're now trying to sell the '07 inventory surplus for a loss just to get capital. So why not sell the future. This may need to go to a different thread though as it seems to be getting off topic. Admins?

Right.
Back to the main topic.
Rumors aswirl that Big Syd will soon be tooling around in a [envelope, please...]

70 Bertram

So nice to hear GOOD NEWS

Well considering the yard manager at one of the top yards in Broward county told me the '63 that came apart in the pictures here was his 2nd replacement boat. His first '63 had other major issues quote-un-quote.

The street here says Viking offered him a boat to use for the time it took to get his $, (so he could buy a Viking)- but Bertram did not want to do that (give him $) so they offered him a new boat. That's the dock talk here.