Princess V40 - Refurb - Advice on Costs please

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DazzyWoo

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I’m looking at a shortlist of boats in Europe with shaft drives. One of the boats is a 1997 V40 on shafts based in the South of France. Tbh - it is a bit of a state! Following numerous conversations with the broker – below is a list of work required to bring it up to scratch; with some guestimates on costs.

Q1 – can anyone refine these estimates in light of recent experience?

Q2. – once sorted, an in the UK, what might the boat be worth ?

List of work includes:
1 Fitting bow-thruster £1k
2 Fit fake teak decking £3k
3 New covers £3.5k
4 New cockpit upholstery £5K (include fixing helm chair)
5 New navigation equipment £1k
6 Fix interior ripped panel, new carpet, reupholster sofa.
£1k
7 Remove antifoul and re anti foul £3k
8 Clean and polish £2k
9 Transport £5k
10 Tender, Outboard, Davits £3k
11 Contingency £5k
12 Total £32.5k

Thanks
DW
 
I suspect you can at least double some of those costs, a bow thruster supplied and fitted, I'd be allowing £2.5K at least. And Nav gear, you might get something basic for £1K but again for supply and fitting just a basic chart plotter, maybe, but if you want radar then again at least double that. And fake teak decking, depending on area, £3K again seems a bit light. As does the estimate for tender, o/b and Davies. But some of these additional costs could be covered by your contingency fund.
As to the remainder of your list, I'm sure others will be able to help. Good luck with it all!
 
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LJS has it about right for the BT. Nav is what you make of it. you can get a plotter and radar for £1,000 if you go second hand classic raymarine stuff.

If you want new stuff then as has been said, double it.

As to what a 1997 V40 on shafts is worth? Another thing is which version is it? they did two, one with a really nice cockpit and one with a smaller cockpit and a garage/sunpad. I guess since to mention davits its likely to be the cockpit/non-garage version? These are more desirable in the UK, but the shaft drive boats are less desirable and harder to sell. Assuming the boat has a gloss cherry interior and not the burr maple or burr walnut then a realistic UK value is probably £85k assuming its in nice condition. I would be wary about spending anywhere close to 30k on a 20 year old boat - you will only see about 20% of it back if that.

There are some places you can save money on your costs. you can get decent 2nd hand tenders for around £1000-£1200 (I have one which will be for sale at some point, but right now its in Spain so not really practical but it gives you an idea. Avon 310 Rib with 9.9Hp motor from 2007). I would be bother with davits - they are ugly for a start and actually not that practical. Look at a swim platform launcinh system like the one from Hurley Davits - about £400-£600 second hand

I wouldn't re-trim the sofa. OK, I wouldn't choose dark blue but it looks in good condition. Do you really need cockpit upholstery redoing? It was done in 2012 - I know we have discussed the flat profile of the bases but perhaps get these re-done. Should be more like £1500 if you work with the good that is already there (though on a boat of this age id leave it as is because it looks nice and actually I think will be fine to sit on.

Bow thruster. Really? Its got twin shafts.... And it will be a lot more than £1000 unless you already have the actual thruster, and even then to get a good pro job you be really pushing it

Teak in the cockpit - I reckon you are about right with £3k. Gives you the option to go modern with a light caulk etc

Covers. from the pictures on YW they look serviceable. Your price is about right but I wouldn't rush to change these until you have a change to see how good/bad they really are. You might find yo can get away with refurbing panels as the fabric is likely ok

Transport sounds a bi light. You can save money by getting a European company to just do the French transport and drop it in that side of the channel
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Supply and fit bow thruster assuming - recent enquiry by a friend came up with £5k to £8k budget.
 
Thanks LongJohnSilver, Whitelighter and Martyn G.

Re: cockpit layout - It’s the non-garage version.

Re:Shafts are less popular? Is this because of purchase costs / fuel costs / speed – or are there other reasons?

Generally -I agree that not all of this may need doing, or at least may not need doing urgently. Also - trying to weigh up what I’m prepared to offer on it. I thought it would realistically sell for £80k - £85, but that assumes most of this is done (excluding bowthruster - see below!)

Re: Bowthruster – How much??!! At these estimates I will not be fitting one; I’ll spend a few hundred on a day’s training instead.

Re: Delivery – I should have said I would only plan to take it as far as Northern France.

Re:Interior / Re: Nav Gear / Interior / Covers –. The pics on the broker site (unsurprisingly) do not tell the whole story. I have a load more pics from last week. I’m trying to work out if it worth the trip to go and see it. I might well live with some of the stuff (at least for a while)

Re: Dingy / launch system – thanks, will definitely consider.

Thanks again
Regards
DW
 
I think if it needs all that stuff doing to make it nice I'd keep looking ... there are 30 odd V40s for sale on Yachtworld.co.uk and, except for a few silly UK asking prices, mostly reasonable.
 
I think your budget isn't too far out, some estimates low, some a bit high. However, I would be more concerned about the boats mechanicals and services, given the poor state of repair of the cosmetic items. If these have been maintained in the same way as the cosmetics, you could well have a basket case on your hands.
 
I'm presuming you'd plan to do all this work in the UK, not in SoF, is that correct?

Bowthruster must be £3k+, depending on installation details. The issue here is that much as you prob don't need one, when selling the boat on, with all other things being equal purchasers will favour the bowthruster boat over the non-bowthuster boat.

Teaking my bathing platform last year was about £900 supply and £600 to fit, for about 2m2, including consumables. Professional templating would have added £300 but I did that myself. You could probably extrapolate that to your cockpit area to get a goodish idea of costs (I'd guess slightly more than your estimate, assuming you're doing both cockpit and bathing platform, even allowing for the fact that you've specified fake teak instead of the real thing).

Covers - you might be slightly over on this one, I'd expect £2500-3000.

Cockpit upholstery - your estimate sounds heavy to me, I paid about £3k to completely redo my T40 cockpit including the helm seat and sunpads, but this was reusing the existing foam. Plus I did all the removal and refit myself.

Nav equipment - as others have said, this is a piece of string. I recently sold a 10-year-old C120 Classic for £550; by contrast I spent about £8k on a complete new Raymarine suite inc E125, digital radar, autopilot. That said, the new stuff is very, very nice by comparison to the old gear.

Interior panel has to be a diy job with a few quid on some replacement lining. Biggest difficulty will be matching the lining to existing. New carpet: depends on how much of the interior needs doing but you could spent your whole £1k just on this, if you're having it fitted by someone else. Unless the carpet is completely shot, the cost-effective middle ground here might be overcarpets. Cost of reupholstering your sofa will depend on materials, but I had a quote of £1500 to do the interior of the T40 in fabric (ie not leather).

Antifoul - allow £1k for hand scraping the old stuff off. I had this done and was very pleased with the result. New antifoul is down to personal choice of course, and whether or not you diy - but if you wanted to, you could make a saving on your budget here. (Note I wouldn't consider hand-scraping the old stuff off as a diy task, it is a truly horrible job and physically very tough).

Transport - actually, I don't think you're far out on this one, if you get a backload at the 'wrong' time of year then certainly £6k would get you back to Southampton.

Other interior upgrades to consider might be mattresses and av equipment.

The big thing you haven't mentioned through is mechanicals - what about engine refurb? Heat exchangers, hoses, clips etc? Cutless bearings on the shafts? Plus general servicing etc?
 
Thanks all . Jimmy – I have read your rebuild post a few times now (including bits on anti-foul, swim platform, et al). It’s a great thread.

I think if it needs all that stuff doing to make it nice I'd keep looking ... Yes, you might be right. It might be not all of this stuff needs doing, but some of the photos are suggest she is definitely in need of some tlc; which makes me think the worst.

…there are 30 odd V40s for sale on Yachtworld.co.uk… yes with legs though. Trying to avoid 10 yo legs

The big thing you haven't mentioned through is mechanicals / I would be more concerned about the boats mechanicals and services, given the poor state of repair of the cosmetic items Yes - I will definitely get these checked prior to agreeing any purchase

Presuming you'd plan to do all this work in the UK, not in SoF, is that correct? Yes

Re: Bowthruster – I agree re: desirability, but @ £3k, does not make sense as a retrofit IMHO. I’ll either need to accept not having one, or buy a boat with one fitted.

The options seem to be:
a. reduce the costs, and negotiate a great price
b. find another boat
Re: Find another boat – the main alternative for that are: Targa 43 or Sunseeker or RIVA. Personally I prefer the Princess , as I love the cockpit layout compared to T43, and think it is prettier than the Sunseeker (all IMHO).
 
It seems strange to find forum members saying a boat on legs is worth more than shafts when you see so many leg bashing threads on here.
I if I had a choice of the same boat on legs or shafts I think I'd chose the shafts purely for the simplicity (my boats on legs which I look after myself but I do tend to pamper the drives)
As for walking away from a boat because it needs lots of upgrades then again my thoughts would be most 10yo boats are going to be worn so why not buy one well worn& upgrade and personalise it to your own taste. Assuming the boat is priced accordingly then to me your on a winner because you end up with a boat that has been brought up to date to your own spec
The alternative is paying top dollar for a pristine boat (do they exist?) That either has 10 yo kit or has been upgraded to someone else's spec
Sorry I can't realy add much more to the cost estimates but personally if you can make the figures work then going for a tired boat you can upgrade to your own spec makes perfect sense
Obviously need to be sure the tiredness is only cosmetic
 
Beamishken said:
It seems strange to find forum members saying a boat on legs is worth more than shafts when you see so many leg bashing threads on here.
I if I had a choice of the same boat on legs or shafts I think I'd chose the shafts purely for the simplicity
Click to expand...

I agree but it's not a personal opinion it's how the market is. The vast majority (like 90%) of V40s came with stern drives and that's what the market expects. Call it expectation bias or whatever, but the shaft drive boats sit for ages. Even worse is a shaft drive boat with the garage option. Not saying it's a bad boat I'm just saying that's where the market is here.

The reason? Could be a number of things from fuel burn to performance to perceived expense of bigger lumps.
 
Whitelighter said:
I agree but it's not a personal opinion it's how the market is. The vast majority (like 90%) of V40s came with stern drives and that's what the market expects. Call it expectation bias or whatever, but the shaft drive boats sit for ages. Even worse is a shaft drive boat with the garage option. Not saying it's a bad boat I'm just saying that's where the market is here.

The reason? Could be a number of things from fuel burn to performance to perceived expense of bigger lumps.
Click to expand...

Have you got a link to the garage version? I have looked but failed.

Thanks
Lynall
 
lynall said:
Have you got a link to the garage version? I have looked but failed.

Thanks
Lynall
Click to expand...

Here is the layout pics for the V42 (the V40 was essentially the same) showing the cockpit options.

brochure-specifications-v-class-sports-yachts-6974_1b.jpg
 
DazzyWoo said:
Re: Bowthruster – I agree re: desirability, but @ £3k, does not make sense as a retrofit IMHO. I’ll either need to accept not having one, or buy a boat with one
Click to expand...

I don't follow your logic. If you plan to negotiate the price down for the other things that need doing, then why not just do the same with the bow thruster? It's one of the most common retrofit item on boats, so there are lots of people around who can fit one to a high standard.

I think a bow thruster is close to essential on a 40 foot boat.
 
Just remind us what you I tend to do/ use the boat for?
Madness In today's
MKT buying a project with outdrives., or any thing with a underpowered aged Volvo set up like Pronto.
20 knots cruise -come on !
Take this - tell me you want tp pay more for an older V40 on legs ? Madness
A deeper V will get you there in more comfort -undeowered boats have flatter aft sections to create lift .= slamming in a head sea .
http://www.inautia.it/barca-27240120150310054565252995452455.html

Then look @ Riviera 4000 , Itama 38's -Pershing 37 ,s cabin version ,Apeamare

Point is to enjoy boating -not stress out re mech issues or passage planning .
These 7-8 L lumps will sip diesel a D speed you can do 8-9 knots easy .
Where as with the VP powered outdrives you are looking at 5 knots or planning -sea state permitting ?
 
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Oh forgot to mention you do not have to fart around with davits ---
Bathing platform is of a suffient size to carry a tender ,and it gets better you can use the Passerelle as a crane to launch / recover .
All yours for £50K ( with bit off )
 
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