HELLO ALL!!!!!

[Moose]

Hello,
As you may or may not have noticed (most likley the latter) I have not been moaching around the forum in my usual Moose like way for the last 2-3 months, mainly because I had a bit of trouble on the employment side of things, that stopped us buying a boat.
However things are looking up, and we are getting back into looking for a boat again!!
Do you have any ideas on a Phantom 43/AC? (the ugly looking one with the aft cabin!)

 

[tcm]

Re: aargh 43ac

Be careful with the idea of buying one of these. It needs to be dead dead cheap - cos not many people likedem when they were new so f'line packed it in after only a year. It'll be a 97-98?

As u say, main prob is the blimmin ugliness. But althought getting on the boat will mean that you don't have to look at it, the idea of moving around the boat is quite frightening - esp if you dangle a tender over the back. Later ones and some earliers ones had better retrofitted grab handle affair that made it less likely to leave the crew in the lock at Porto Solente (portsmouth, sorry), where a bunch of these not-quite-med and not-quite-brit boats seemed to hang around. The front bedroom is a decent size and the back bedroom too, and that's the whole point of this boat. However, all the wifeswappers bought a two bed house instead, and even the shoeboxes in the brickyard opposite porchester castle are much better looking.

The semi-chrome internal light switches need a panscrub onnem to remove the rust after the first winter. This is possibly the very easiest of the maintenance jobs, but there's loads more. Try painting the back end a different colour to make it less ugly - they look better in grey. Otherwise you might like to try your luck making the boat rainproof, or finding an actual table top for the cockpit instead of the godawful rough-sawn teak shower tray thing supplied as standard.

New buyers in 1997ish could buy one of these or a targa 48 for almost the same money. Some people in PS had a look around our targa 48 when it was there- but then bought a 43AC. The reason being that if you and wife get given a torch, follow salesman up rickety stepladder, and look around a targa 48 up on dry land with its winter cover on and all the lights out on a cold winter day, and THEN look at a 43 AC still in the water with heating lights on nice and cosy ... er well you'd still have a targa 48. But then the salesman would knock 40grand off the 43 ac and announce that the waiting list was 19 years on the targa 48.

Top whack £155k imho - surely nobody paid full price so don't take any notice of any "list price" blarney. Expect the original bill of sale to be a bit unreadable from the salesman crying over it as he finally did the deal. The boat mags said it handled the sea ok.

 

[jfm]

Re: take care

Agree TCM's comments. You need big discount, these are known to be unpopular and therefore very difficult to sell. The few secondhand ones advertised have been for sale 12mths+ (eg the one in Ocean Village, blue hull and blue antifoul that unfortunately follows the chine curve upwards at the bow and so the blue paint curves out of the water, has been for sale since 2 yrs ago). Peters have one in Chi as their training charter boat so easy to get a demo on that. If massively cheap, could be a good buy though. Also ask Coliholic, there was one on the MBM cruise to Netherlands last year

 

[KevB]

Re: take care

The SeaTech Phantom 43ac in Chichester is up for sale (£165000), it's been in Peters yard for a couple of weeks having lots of TLC spent on it. Must be huge inside. Would love to go and have a look around. Personally I don't think they are that ugly.

Politically incorrect and proud of it.