Pershing 46 - buying used boat

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mornar1969

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I've just received an interesting offer, while hunting for Targa 47, SS Portofino 47, Princess V48.
What can I say? For the price of 2008 Targa/SS/V48, I can also get Pershing 46 (2006/2007).
Reliability? Quality? Driving in heavy seas?
 
Quality very high. Reliabilty very good. Never driven the 46, but the old 54, 48, 52, 65, 73 62 and newer 50 are super fast sea boats. Pershing are also a couple of tons heavier to the above on length basis so that helps too.
The 46 was stopped in production last year, and was the only shaft driven boat they had in the line up. It is also nice because it has a three cabin head layout, altough one of them is a children cabin aft. Its real overall length is actually 50 feet.
As a yacht broker I also sold a few Pershings, and surveys on the ones I sold always turned out to be very good and problem free. Considering they are fast boats thats a very good result.
 
PowerYachtBlog said:
The 46 was stopped in production last year, and was the only shaft driven boat they had in the line up.
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Well, not really. There was also an option on Pershing 50: ARNESON or. SHAFT.

Anyway: the question I'm dealing with is - should I choose:
- Targa 47 '2009 with Volvo Penta 575 HP (50 hours)
- SS Portofino '47 with Volvo Penta IPS (50 hours)
- Pershing 46 '2007 with MAN 800 HP (180 hours)
 
IMHO the Pershing is of lower build quality than the other three. With poor quality stainless steel and gelcoat. Yes they go fast but at a big cost. We have many customers with many different boats and the Pershing that we maintain causes us alot more problems. So far all automatic bilge pump and shower sump box switches have failed, the old-fashioned deep sea shaft seal have failed, the shafts have extensive pitting, the gelcoat quickly loses it's shine, all stainless deck fittings need constant attention to prevent corrosion, and the list goes on. We don't have this kind of problems with the sunseekers, fairlines and princesses.

I would spend my money on the Fairline. IMHO.....
 
aquatom said:
IMHO the Pershing is of lower build quality than the other three. With poor quality stainless steel and gelcoat. Yes they go fast but at a big cost. We have many customers with many different boats and the Pershing that we maintain causes us alot more problems. So far all automatic bilge pump and shower sump box switches have failed, the old-fashioned deep sea shaft seal have failed, the shafts have extensive pitting, the gelcoat quickly loses it's shine, all stainless deck fittings need constant attention to prevent corrosion, and the list goes on. We don't have this kind of problems with the sunseekers, fairlines and princesses.

I would spend my money on the Fairline. IMHO.....
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This is all so untrue. First of all the blue or color of Pershing is not gel but is Awlgrip or similar and after ten years its stays the same. My friends Fairline, SS and Princess here in Malta have all needed a respray in aft corners after sanding and polishing. And the Pershing gel is usually spot less in my experience. A friend of myn has a 62 dark black and grey gel topsided and after 4 years it definily is still like new. The stainless steel corroding, this is a joke as I think the stainless is of higher quality on a Pershing. We can ask Deleted User here who has a Ferretti same stainless, and you dont see a screw on the deck....
Shaft seals many Pershing have Arneson drives, but I dealt with shaft drive Pershings too, a 43 from 2002 (same hull as 46 but shorter, an old 54 from 1995, and a 45 from 2001) and never had this problem. The bilge pumps and water pumps might have been an unlucky stock from the supplier, so I beleive you cannot really blame them.
The 50 and 46 are a different boat. The shaft drive of the 50 was produced later to make it more competitive in price. The 50 has been changed to 50.1 this year and has been the best selling model for Pershing in the last years. The 50 has three cabins two heads and they are all to fore, with an option of a crew berth aft.
I can tell some stories on all brands but definitly doing it here on a forum is not healty for everyone so I better stop.
 
I agree with you. The Pershing is in a different class to Fairlines, Princesses and Sunseekers and has way more marina cred. I've looked at a few myself and always been impressed by the quality; I dont know for sure but if they built like Ferrettis, then there shouldn't be much to complain about. Also they are supposed to be v good sea boats. I agree with you also on the blue hull colour; older Pershings I've seen still look good after a few years in the Med whereas the blue gelcoat on the others, particularly Sunseekers, can fade badly
For me, the stand out feature is the aft cabin which makes the boat a genuine 3 cabin boat and the OP has to decide how important that is compared to the others which AFAIK are all 2 cabin boats. For me the Pershing would be a very serious contender especially in the Med
 
aquatom said:
It must just be this 46 here thats falling apart then!
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Ah so u visit one Pershing and out of one u make a full assumption of the brand. Thats very clever. I recently saw a new 3 months old Fairline 50ft plus falling apart (and this is not just 2 broken pumps) but I would never say a Fairline is a bad boat....
Mornar is buying used so one of the advantages he has is that he can instruct a survey
 
aquatom said:
It must just be this 46 here thats falling apart then!
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Possibly. Of course nobody around here can argue that there isn't a P46 falling apart somewhere on this planet.
But when you said that "the gelcoat quickly loses it's shine... We don't have this kind of problems with the sunseekers" you didn't give your own viewpoint a lot of credibility.
As many of us know, there's a forumite who has a legal claim going on with S/skr on this specific point, and on an almost brand new boat.
And I'm afraid that those of us who have actually seen his Predator could only laugh at your statement above.
 
MapisM said:
As many of us know, there's a forumite who has a legal claim going on with S/skr on this specific point, and on an almost brand new boat.
And I'm afraid that those of us who have actually seen his Predator could only laugh at your statement above.
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I don't suppose thats about gelcoat issues, is it? Can't be of course because we know that Sunseekers never have gelcoat problems
 
Ok maybe the Sunseeker gelcoat is worse especially the black ones. But I still stand by the rest of my comments. My views are not just based on the one that we maintain but also based on others that we have been asked to work on.

Have a look at the photo of the shaft corrosion. I know of three Pershings here with this problem and have never seen it on any other boats. And yes these three boats have had anodes replaced regually.

You just have to remove a few pannels and have a look at the electrics to see what I'm saying about the quality. I will post more pictures of this to prove my point.
 
Never seen this on any Pershing I inspected before, and Mornar can come inspect the Pershings which I know if in Italy and Malta. From gelcoat to furniture fittings, and stainless steel.
These pics obviously refer to some bad anti corrosional system which needs inspection from start to end. Have seen this happen in some new boats, obviously if you don't do nothing about it this will be the result. Can we have better picture of the boat, as I am sure I can go down to a yard today and bring a dozen pictures like that, and say this belongs to make X.
Some few years ago I used to take care of a new 2003 Fariline and had the same problem, the propellers where all pitted and with holes up to 3mms, and the shafts had small corrosion stains. I solved the problem immediatly but the Fline dealer did not change the props for us and we had to go the repair root a season later.
 
I will see if I can get some pics of the boat tomorrow. Theres another one we work on with the same problem but the boat is away at the moment having the integral fuel tanks repaired.

The only anticorrosion system these boats have is anodes mounted on the hull, rudders, prop nuts and trim tabs.
 
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