Anybody own a Jeanneau Prestige 34?

[AdeOlly]

Currently looking at an immaculate sport top variant with KAD300s; seriously tempted. Would be keen to hear any owner experiences around practicality, construction, problem areas, etc, and especially how they behave in head sea. The MBM report didn't rate it's ride at all in this respect. This was attributed to the highly flared bows, but I also note all the examples I've looked at are deviod of trim tabs.

 

[Nautibusiness]

Not an owner, but i've put iro of 100 hours on the 34 in it's various guises as a dealer / broker.


Kad300s will give her 37.5 knots trimmed out in fine conditions with a normal load.
She'll enjoy cruising at up to 25 knots

GREAT in a following sea, just trim out the legs to about +4 and enjoy the ride.
BUT, she is very beamy and shares most of her hull shape with the flybridge P32.

The huge beam compared with some of the competition does mean that in a head sea you will either need to slow down considerably OR fit trim tabs, trim right in and tabs down, prepare for a wettish ride and only slow down a little.

She's a fabulous cruiser with really (no REALLY) frugal cruising considering her sporty abilities. At about 22 knots she only uses about 60% more fuel in total than my own Merry Fisher 695 does at 17 knots.

Deal with the head sea issue with tabs and she will only be marginally compromised here..

Downsides:
The hardtop roof always breaks on every 34 I have come across. But, onec it has broken once, the fix does seem to be far better than the original and they don't seem to do it twice.
Treat yours like you are an 18 your old lad on an 18 foot ski boat and you will end up replacing the mirror in the forward cabin.
The headlining is held on with velcro tabs and if you drive as described above you may find they fall down from time to time.
Transom door catch is junk and corrodes easily.
Porthole surrounds can peel a little.
Other faults will not be particular to the 34, but things to look out for on a boat in general so a surveyor is always still a good idea.

She really is very easy boat to own and use and if you want a fast cruiser that can still put a huge grin on your face in the right weather then you can't go too far wrong. I had one here out of Poole and we played alongside one of my bosses other company boats, "Shockwave" the big charter jet boat that runs from the pier in Bournemouth and she easily kept with that when doing doughnuts and turns etc. Then back at the marina, her wide set engines make her feel almost like handling shafts, but with added steerage.

Great value for money boat if you get a good one.

 

[AdeOlly]

Nautibusiness - thanks that's really useful info.

I did think that the addition of trim tabs would help the upwind ride - don't know why they aren't standard as they are on most similarly sized stern drive boats. They are somehwhat essential to correct the boat heeling into the wind if nothing else. An easy and economical 25 knot cruise is perfect for us.

The boat ticks more boxes than anything else we've looked at whilst being 'economical' on length (thinking berthing fees), though in truth an extra 18" of cabin space would make it better still.

 

[Nautibusiness]

Nautibusiness - thanks that's really useful info.

I did think that the addition of trim tabs would help the upwind ride - don't know why they aren't standard as they are on most similarly sized stern drive boats. They are somehwhat essential to correct the boat heeling into the wind if nothing else. An easy and economical 25 knot cruise is perfect for us.

The boat ticks more boxes than anything else we've looked at whilst being 'economical' on length (thinking berthing fees), though in truth an extra 18" of cabin space would make it better still.

They are standard on some of the competition as they heel a hell of a lot more with wind or load.
The 34 really does not need them from a side to side perspective, you will only use them for trimming the bow down from time to time. If you ever get any heel into wind, bring one of the outdrives out another point or two.

If you want big... different kettle of fish, but we have a tidy (if in need of a clean) Bavaria 37 here in Poole on our books. T'is soft top flavour though.
Don't want to do the selling job on here, but if you want to PM me an email address I can send a spec over to you to talk privately offline.

 

[AdeOlly]

They are standard on some of the competition as they heel a hell of a lot more with wind or load.
The 34 really does not need them from a side to side perspective, you will only use them for trimming the bow down from time to time. If you ever get any heel into wind, bring one of the outdrives out another point or two.

If you want big... different kettle of fish, but we have a tidy (if in need of a clean) Bavaria 37 here in Poole on our books. T'is soft top flavour though.
Don't want to do the selling job on here, but if you want to PM me an email address I can send a spec over to you to talk privately offline.

Interesting the 34 does not heel much.. very different to my Seawings then which needs plenty of tab in a crosswind.

Ref the Bav; having enjoyed the benefits of an HT, we're not interested in regressing (dons tin hat) to a soft top, though the 37 is a lovely boat with oodles of space.

 

[David of Essex]

Not an owner, but i've put iro of 100 hours on the 34 in it's various guises as a dealer / broker.


Kad300s will give her 37.5 knots trimmed out in fine conditions with a normal load.
She'll enjoy cruising at up to 25 knots

GREAT in a following sea, just trim out the legs to about +4 and enjoy the ride.
BUT, she is very beamy and shares most of her hull shape with the flybridge P32.

The huge beam compared with some of the competition does mean that in a head sea you will either need to slow down considerably OR fit trim tabs, trim right in and tabs down, prepare for a wettish ride and only slow down a little.

She's a fabulous cruiser with really (no REALLY) frugal cruising considering her sporty abilities. At about 22 knots she only uses about 60% more fuel in total than my own Merry Fisher 695 does at 17 knots.

Deal with the head sea issue with tabs and she will only be marginally compromised here..

Downsides:
The hardtop roof always breaks on every 34 I have come across. But, onec it has broken once, the fix does seem to be far better than the original and they don't seem to do it twice.
Treat yours like you are an 18 your old lad on an 18 foot ski boat and you will end up replacing the mirror in the forward cabin.
The headlining is held on with velcro tabs and if you drive as described above you may find they fall down from time to time.
Transom door catch is junk and corrodes easily.
Porthole surrounds can peel a little.
Other faults will not be particular to the 34, but things to look out for on a boat in general so a surveyor is always still a good idea.

She really is very easy boat to own and use and if you want a fast cruiser that can still put a huge grin on your face in the right weather then you can't go too far wrong. I had one here out of Poole and we played alongside one of my bosses other company boats, "Shockwave" the big charter jet boat that runs from the pier in Bournemouth and she easily kept with that when doing doughnuts and turns etc. Then back at the marina, her wide set engines make her feel almost like handling shafts, but with added steerage.

Great value for money boat if you get a good one.

Very good report back
David

 

[volvopaul]

It wont be built anything like your seawings, the last one I was present with Tony Staton-bevan a well known surveyor, just walked around it titting and smiling, then he showed me and the purchaser how poorly built it was and how thin at the bow it was, as the bowthruster tube was splitting away from the hull as it was actually stronger than the hull, I did the volvo side of the prepurchase and that didnt go well either looking at the install, plumbing and wiring etc.

That was 0ver 8 months ago and the boats still sat in Swanwick marina now for sale.

Ade you get what you pay for, they do look good and go well but they will as there so light.

There was another I did prepurchase on a 34 with twin d3s in, it was Ancasta PX, the survey brought up many flaws in the hull, hollow voids in areas that without stripping out the interior floor tray made it impossible to repair and address the areas to the correct layup strength.

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

MM very interesting VolvoPaul and that is quite a hard review considering I always heard good stuff about Prestige in general. But I never owned one and in Malta we dont have any Prestige altough we do have some Jeanneau power boats. The sailing are among the best value for money there is, and are also better build altough slower to a Bene.

Would be interesting to know if the bow thruster was factory fitted or an after purchase job.
A Prestige 34 actually has more weight then a Fl 34 Targa as they weight about 6.5 tons. If you can take anything from the weights on the brochure, as there is a lot of factors involved in all this. Does more weight means better build, a simple answer is yes but it is more then that too. And then even there you can go on and discuss forever, how higher it is wider etc etc
Yes they are a bit wider too and may be a bit longer as they measure 36 feet over all. The 34 Targa does about 40/42 knots with KAD300s.

 

[AdeOlly]

That's interesting Volvopaul. I hadn't thought that fixtures/fittings were of poor quality, or at least any worse than on comparably sized boats, but I have looked at one 34 where the forward bulkhead was cracked right the way through either side of the doorway about six inches above the sole.

According to the brochure I have the LOA is 34'6" and weight is ~6,000Kg. For comparison a Sealine S34 has near identical LOA weighs 5,800Kg, though the Jeanneau carries 30cm more beam and the weight of the hard top. Caveat is I don't know which engines are used for weight stats. Hmmmmm.

 

[Nautibusiness]

It wont be built anything like your seawings, the last one I was present with Tony Staton-bevan a well known surveyor, just walked around it titting and smiling, then he showed me and the purchaser how poorly built it was and how thin at the bow it was, as the bowthruster tube was splitting away from the hull as it was actually stronger than the hull, I did the volvo side of the prepurchase and that didnt go well either looking at the install, plumbing and wiring etc.

That was 0ver 8 months ago and the boats still sat in Swanwick marina now for sale.

Ade you get what you pay for, they do look good and go well but they will as there so light.

There was another I did prepurchase on a 34 with twin d3s in, it was Ancasta PX, the survey brought up many flaws in the hull, hollow voids in areas that without stripping out the interior floor tray made it impossible to repair and address the areas to the correct layup strength.

Unlikely to have had 2 x D3s as they only fitted D4 260's in later 34's with earlier ones having Kad43s or 300s.
Also they are hardly light at just under 6.5 tonnes... about the going rate for any 34' sports cruiser.

I suspect your friendly surveyor got out of bed on the wrong side and yes, you had one with a bu@@ered bow thruster fittout. I've seen that on many boats, not just "Eaus". Like all boats, you will get a worse one than another and it is possible you had one of those. I do agree that Jeanneau wiring can leave something to be desired though...

They are a "get what you pay for" boat, but you get a hell of a lot with them.

 

[PowerYachtBlog]

I was very interested and close to a Prestige 34 before purchasing my current boat, and the surveyors friends I asked information about them never told me bad things about them. And I do thrust some of my pals, having worked with them on some deals in the past. Obviously if someone goes out full speed ahead you are going to have someting breaking.
A friend of myn had a Fline 37 Targa and once going to Sicily he drove quite hard in Force 4 seas (about 3 to 5 feet waves), and the results was a cracked forward bulkhead, and falling furniture in forward cabin. Does it mean she is a bad boat. Definitly not! But if does not sound good it normally is not! OTOH the Prestige 34 you visited may be a crop of mill bad boat....

The reason why Prestige 34 will top about 37 knots with KAD300s is because they have the extended plane hull, an invention of Gobbi (my current and previous boat had ext plan) which keeps a lower more to forward center of gravity for a stern drive boat but creates extra drag when speed is above 30 knots. But the advantage is that you plane at about 14/15 knots which is god send if you find some nasty seas infront, and that is why they don't have trim tabs as standard. You don't need them to plane and the extended plan also increases lateral stability. Beneteau also uses the extended plane on MC now renamed Flyer range.

 

[AdeOlly]

Thanks for the replies.
Useful info on the hiull shape PY. Ability to plane as low as 14 knots useful; mine starts ploughing a huge trough much below 18.

Yes they are a get what you pay for boat, and whilst they are by no means perfect, (wtf is the calorifier doing eating valuable galley storage under the sink?), they are mostly thoughfully designed to make maximum use of space, and to be safe and usable too. Lots of plus points. I wouldn't expect the build to be mega, I'm more concerned that it's fit for the purpose we'll put it to, and that its condition can be maintained. With two young kids normally on board, we take a fairly cautious approach with the weather. We'll probably keep the boat at most for five years.

I've looked at two 2004 boats with similar hours that couldn't be more different. The one I'm considering is a well specced mint example and has obviously been cherished. Hard to spot a fault at all (though no doubt a surveyor would). The other had obviously been used and abused. I won't list all the faults, but as well as the damage mentioned above there was plenty more, and when you see lots of corrosion on dials and controls that are simply as a result of not wiping salt water off, it's not hard to deduce little care was taken.

Watch this space!

 

[A_8]

I have done around 13,000 nm in my 2003 P34 and most of the time on open sea and longer passages with very varying and sometimes really bad weather conditions. I have no gel coat cracks (yet) due to excessive hull flexing which I have seen on many other so called quality brands.
Simply put, I don't think the boat will break unless you abuse it. Regarding the engine, vvs and electrical installations it is actually one of the better installations however I have been told the Prestige36 was bad in this respect so maybe that's what is to referred to earlier.

Even though it needs tabs less than other boats it will still benefit from them.
With them you can actually get the boat level at 10-12 knots and take really heavy sea head on without slamming in the hull.
Use the tabs to push the bow down and settle at 17-18 knots and the flared bow will eat the waves head-on in reasonable comfort.
Without tabs and at higher speed it is not a nice ride in head seas. It is however great in bow and following seas.
In general it's not a "fast" hull and we tend to cruise around 19-24 knots.

Compared to other well known Swedish brands and similar sized boats the hull is as good or even better than some that seem highly regarded in this respect around the world.
It does have an inner lining though which is always a problem if you get structural problems.
It is very differentiated in terms of hull thickness, the thickest parts are around 8 cm and some are less the a cm. This does not have to be bad provided of course that the designers know what they are doing and I think this is a development that we will see more of.

Beyond the value for money aspect and the other things that have been mentioned I think one of its bigger benefits is the easy and safe movement on the deck as well as the access. I can easily manage it on my own and kids/people who are not that used to boats can move around with ease.

Hope it helps and good luck!