Neel Trimaran doesn't look so good.

Yep another French builder.

I was looking at some new Jeanneaus at one of their shows the year before last and couldn't believe how crappy their construction was.

No tabbing just gluing and exposed chipboard ends with no treatment under the floorboards.

A recent purchaser with a boat 9 months old had left his there as part of their display and all the fittings in the head including the taps and shower hinges were blooming through the cheap chrome already.

I would certainly never buy a boat relying on glue rather than tabbing. With mass produced production boats that means you have to buy one pre 2010 or maybe even a little earlier especially if you go French.

I would expect lots more stories like this in the coming years when people wise up and the boats get a little more miles under the keel.

As for criminality it is definitely criminal and I would hope to see some executives in jail eventually.

One of my customers is a Shipwright company on the GC, they were telling me lots of repairs on new (less than 10 years) productions boats.
Mostly French catamarans but also some mono's, they recently had a Keel grid separate from the hull on a not old Beneteau, the thing is it wasn't the result of a grounding, it resulted just from coming off the back of a wave.

I have heard similar from a delivery skipper. Twisting, groaning, falling apart generally.
But there's little about it elsewhere (laggons aside..and the above).

Wow, looks like he's paying his myself for the repairs? I reckon there'd have to be a lawsuit coming. The cracks aren't really the problem, it's just the paint cracking. They do show though that there is way more movement going on than there should be and a serous lack of fibreglass tabbing. If these French production boats were built properly they'd be a ton heavier and cost $100k more.

Your making me feel better about owning a 1980's Australian built boat.

70s even better !!
Mason

Select to expand quote

Madmouse said..
I have heard similar from a delivery skipper. Twisting, groaning, falling apart generally.
But there's little about it elsewhere (laggons aside..and the above).

I think a lot of people assume creaking and groaning is normal. Wapiti has circumnavigated once already and she does not make a sound. She is Aust designed and Aust built by the guy who sailed her around the world.

I know custom yachts are harder to sell but they are often far better built than production and often much cheaper.

Select to expand quote

Dexport said..
Wow, looks like he's paying his myself for the repairs? I reckon there'd have to be a lawsuit coming. The cracks aren't really the problem, it's just the paint cracking. They do show though that there is way more movement going on than there should be and a serous lack of fibreglass tabbing. If these French production boats were built properly they'd be a ton heavier and cost $100k more.

Don't agree at all - the cracks are not just paint - the guy can slip a knife under the bulkheads which means the glue cove has totally sheared off the hull. Also it is usually just gelcoat cracks that you can not worry about - in a higher performance boat withouth gelcoat you should not ge any cracks. Tabbing won't add much weight. The standard of the gluing shows that weight is not a worry for the builders. Putting tabbing over the filler would be about 400gm wet out for every metre of tab (440gm db 200mm wide and wet out), so to do it properly would have weighed the boat maybe about 20-30kg to tab every thing - twice. No, this is really dodgy and anyone who built this boat should be ashamed, it is gross incompetence.

There are couple of Neel 45s for sale locally (one in Vic and one in NZ) ATM so be interesting to see how long they take to sell.

Even if rosy-eyed cashed up buyers are unaware of the necessity to tab things one would hope that their surveyors/insurers would be. I have never bought a large new boat but perhaps people don't bother with surveyors if new and anyway the glue looks nice to uneducated inspection at that stage when it hasn't undergone any stress.

I suppose it's easy to fall for the line that tabbing is old technology and glues have come a long way now and are used by most manufacturers.

I loosely follow some of the popular multi-hull youtube channels a number of which have recently made expensive new catamaran/ trimaran purchases but I have never seen this critical aspect of construction mentioned. I have even watched Neel reviews at boat shows by youtubers and I think even a trans Atlantic sail by one and all I have stored in my memory is that one of them said fit and finish was towards the lower end and another I think more recent one said that it has improved. They are obviously aware that there has been a quality issue although I think one excused the finish by saying that it was a new model rushed to the boat show. Just shows you how skin deep these channels are.

Meanwhile second hand Lagoons seem to sell well and the prices seem to hold up despite massive adverse publicity on the internet.

There are of course IT experts paid by these large firms to exploit the search engines and bury the adverse reports. It is also not in the owners interests to publicly bag their boats. Furthermore the insidious non-disclosure clause would undoubtedly accompany any offer for help from manufacturers however meagre and late that assistance may be.

I was surprised by the sloppy work in general, ignoring the obvious lack of tabbing. Even I can do a neater job than that.