Oh my goodness went to the Jenneau display at Middle Harbour yacht club today. What absolute rubbish! 349 and 410 on display as well as a racing boat. The 349 was 3 years old and The Laminex strips on the edges of the ply bulkheads were already peeling off! The Chromed dog larches on the companionway stairs/ motor access panel were already pitted through as were some fittings in the head. All the supporting timber holding up the floor and side lockers was ply with absolutely no cover or treatment on the edges much as you would find on the invisible surfaces of IKEA furniture. In fact the whole fit out looks like IKEA. If you ever got water in your boat for any reason you would have to throw out the whole interior bulkheads and all. The chain plates were secured to the top sides and did not penetrate the deck which at first might seems like a good idea except that I couldn't really find anything particularly substantial when looking at the insides of these areas. Certainly no substantial knee in the traditional sense.
The 349 already had substantial rust stains around the keel bolts!

Both pulpits were very insubstantial... horrified! I presume that Bavarias and Beneteaus would be the same. Give me an older boat anyday even if they weren't cheaper.

I agree wholeheartedly Jules. Lots of bling with little substance to support them. I was also disappointed by the lack of smaller yachts. Plenty of power boats but nothing under 30 feet. And only two in the 30s I think.
underwhelmed

Yes prior posts have mentioned Bruynzeel website indicting 2 coats of epoxy resin sealer on marine ply edges. Another good post here;

blog.plyco.com.au/how-to-prepare-your-marine-plywood-for-outdoor-and-exterior-use#:~:text=For%20doing%20this%20you're,it%20to%20stand%20and%20dry!

There are some 2/5 reviews on the 349 here including note of shoddy woodwork as you have observed.

feedback.jeanneau.com/page-4/sun-odyssey/sun-odyssey-349

If the keel bolts are not 316 and in the Bumax A4 grade 8.8 strength, and very properly protected by good keel to hull bonding, and torqued up properly including anti-thread galling compound, then that is a worry. 3 years and substantial rust stains.....diabolical.

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r13 said..
Yes prior posts have mentioned Bruynzeel website indicting 2 coats of epoxy resin sealer on marine ply edges. Another good post here;

blog.plyco.com.au/how-to-prepare-your-marine-plywood-for-outdoor-and-exterior-use#:~:text=For%20doing%20this%20you're,it%20to%20stand%20and%20dry!

There are some 2/5 reviews on the 349 here including note of shoddy woodwork as you have observed.

feedback.jeanneau.com/page-4/sun-odyssey/sun-odyssey-349

If the keel bolts are not 316 and in the Bumax A4 grade 8.8 strength, and very properly protected by good keel to hull bonding, and torqued up properly including anti-thread galling compound, then that is a worry. 3 years and substantial rust stains.....diabolical.

That link is worth following. But of the 17 Jeanneau 349 reviews, only one is 2 stars. The other 16 are 4-5 stars. The 2 star review is in German which Google translates to "Unfortunately, a lot of things are too weakly dimensioned and only weakly assembled. Sailing performance is very good."

My own 349 is seven years old and I have no complaints. It is raced hard and shows no signs of weakness or corrosion having been regularly serviced and properly maintained. Happy to take julesmoto or r13 for a sail any day.

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Gravy7 said..

r13 said..
Yes prior posts have mentioned Bruynzeel website indicting 2 coats of epoxy resin sealer on marine ply edges. Another good post here;

blog.plyco.com.au/how-to-prepare-your-marine-plywood-for-outdoor-and-exterior-use#:~:text=For%20doing%20this%20you're,it%20to%20stand%20and%20dry!

There are some 2/5 reviews on the 349 here including note of shoddy woodwork as you have observed.

feedback.jeanneau.com/page-4/sun-odyssey/sun-odyssey-349

If the keel bolts are not 316 and in the Bumax A4 grade 8.8 strength, and very properly protected by good keel to hull bonding, and torqued up properly including anti-thread galling compound, then that is a worry. 3 years and substantial rust stains.....diabolical.

That link is worth following. But of the 17 Jeanneau 349 reviews, only one is 2 stars. The other 16 are 4-5 stars. The 2 star review is in German which Google translates to "Unfortunately, a lot of things are too weakly dimensioned and only weakly assembled. Sailing performance is very good."

My own 349 is seven years old and I have no complaints. It is raced hard and shows no signs of weakness or corrosion having been regularly serviced and properly maintained. Happy to take julesmoto or r13 for a sail any day.

I'm pleased to hear that your boat has been good to you but that first picture I posted showing the unprotected end of a piece of ply is a vertical transverse floor in a shallow bilge forward which supports a floor panel that I pulled up. The bilge was quite wide and shallow as I would expect in a relatively flat bottomed boat so even marginal heel would put any water in that bilge up over that piece of ply and onto the end grain. That bilge did not have any water in it but the one above the Keel did and was almost as shallow and much wider so I can't see any way how that unprotected and not very dense looking ply end grain would not get wet.

Not sure what kind of sailing you plan to do but I've raced inshore and offshore for seven seasons in winds up to 40 knots and seas over 3m and never had any water in the bilge to the degree that the floor would get wet other than some rain through the companionway.

The 349 is Jeanneau's most popular model an has sold 800 units worldwide and 50 in Australia alone. One has just completed the Pacific Cup race from San Francisco to Hawaii. But like any production boat, it is built to a price and any boat that is not cared for is going to show wear like the shared ownership model you inspected.

BTW I can't recognise where the second photo was taken. Perhaps it was aboard the 'racing' Sun Fast 3300 and not the 349?

The invitation to come for a sail still stands.

Jeannuea 42 DS was always on my wish list however I'm so glad I went with the Aussie made Bluewater 42 DS. She maybe a bit heavier than Jeannuea due to the solid handcrafted shipwright timber fitout but that's the compromise I took. Was there any Bluewater yachts at the show?

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southace said..
Jeannuea 42 DS was always on my wish list however I'm so glad I went with the Aussie made Bluewater 42 DS. She maybe a bit heavier than Jeanneau due to the solid handcrafted shipwright timber fitout but that's the compromise I took. Was there any Bluewater yachts at the show?

Yours sounds good :). No just a 349 and a 410 plus a racer I didn't look at. This was not the Sydney boat show just Jeanneau at MHYC. They also had rather more power boats on display across the road at the Spit Bridge Marina but I didn't go there. Presumably they didn't want to stump up with whatever the Sydney Boat Show was asking for display rights. Nice other attendees (only about 6 while we were there including a couple who were awaiting delivery of the first Oz 380 next week sight unseen) and free champagne and nice food and no crowds plus of course nice setting :-)

There were three production yachts at the Sanctuary Cove boat show earlier this year that I looked at, Hanse, Jenneau and Beneteau, all three looked like they fitted out by a Swedish manufacturer...... not Hallberg Rassey or Najad though.

I guess this is what sells boats now but they all seemed to be doing their best to disguise the fact they were sailing boats by hiding the sailing systems as much as possible. Self tacking jibs with one line to the cockpit, no traveller for the main or tracks for head sail sheets, all lines hidden under the deck. There was nothing to hold onto if going forward, particulary forward of the mast, huge open areas with nothing but flush deck, even down below there were minimal hand holds in huge open saloons. They don't seemed to be built with sailing as the first priority.

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southace said..
Jeannuea 42 DS was always on my wish list however I'm so glad I went with the Aussie made Bluewater 42 DS. She maybe a bit heavier than Jeannuea due to the solid handcrafted shipwright timber fitout but that's the compromise I took. Was there any Bluewater yachts at the show?

SA, can't seem to find a Bluewater 42DS on their website, does it masquerade as another description? Really, really like Bluewater yachts, particularly the 42's with their own in-house made hard dodger/bimini option.

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GKandCC said..

southace said..
Jeannuea 42 DS was always on my wish list however I'm so glad I went with the Aussie made Bluewater 42 DS. She maybe a bit heavier than Jeannuea due to the solid handcrafted shipwright timber fitout but that's the compromise I took. Was there any Bluewater yachts at the show?

SA, can't seem to find a Bluewater 42DS on their website, does it masquerade as another description? Really, really like Bluewater yachts, particularly the 42's with their own in-house made hard dodger/bimini option.

Sorry my bad , they call it a raised saloon. That is RS Bluewater 420 there currently was a nice one on the market.