UK builders buying advice needed

[aswade]

Hello All,

New participant here who's pleasantly surprised at the amount of useful info on these boards versus other boating boards and usenet. Would appreciate feedback on the following:

My employer is looking to purchase a new sixty to eighty foot flybridge motoryacht for use here in the United States. He and his wife have done the boat show thing, sea-trialed all the candidates, talked to current owners of said brands whenever possible etc. They have decided to go with a British built boat and I am looking for further feedback, pros/cons and advice on their behalf.

Builders and models being considered:

Sunseeker Manhattan 64 and 74, perhaps new model Yacht 80.

Viking Sport Cruiser (Princess) 61, 65 and new model 75 (called 23 Meter in Europe I believe.)

Fairline Squadron 62 and new model 74.

Private responses OK but replies here would be preferred so that the board at large might alert me to replies from anyone with an agenda, eg a poster who works for a Fairline dealer.

Thanks.

Cheers,

Alex

 

[jfm]

That's a big range, 60 to 80 feet, I mean cost wise and everything else. More than a x2 cost range. So I assume the buyers dont care too much about cost, in which case look at the Italian semi-custom stuff, Riva, Mangusta, Leopard, Ferretti, or even the production stuff like Azimut.

But if you want to stick to the list you posted, get the Manhattan 80, it is good build quality (even if not as good as Italian) and at sea there's no substitute for size. I would not buy a Fairline in that size range; take a trip round the factories - Fairline people do not know how to build that kind of boat - it will be unreliable and lots of bits will break IMHO.

One of the benefits of buying Italian is that you can have Arneson drives. None of the British boats you mention offer that.

 

[EME]

Not sure my information will help you particularly as my interest (and pocket) is a lot smaller but as I have spent the last year searching shows and marinas I can objectively comment on what I see.

There is no doubt that the British manufacturers are World Class. The names you mention are undoubtedly quality andmodelsare a matter of individual need and choice. I am surprised that you have excluded Princess from that list of UK manufactuers as I have always been impressed by their standards of finish.

Spending a lot of my time in France as I do I have been fortunate to visit and cruise on a few boats of this size. Frankly I am amazed by the quality of some of the Italian boats in particular. And 1 French boat. I would look closely at Ferretti, Pershing and Baia and for something from France, Leopard.

Without wishing to sound unpatriotic, Iam always amazed at the quality of the internal and external fit (but I am not a surveyor).

It's up to your boss and I'm sure you'll get more valuable advice from others who have bought rather than look.

Additionally we and you should consider mainland Europe boats as being 'cheap' at the moment. Howver i doubt if your boss is that worried about that !

Try www.ferretti-yacht.com and www.pershing.it for a flavour of what they offer.

 

[jfm]

Re: Viking = Princess

Learner, Princess were on his list, they are sold in the US under the Viking brand.

Leopards are Italian, not French - they are all sold thru the French distributor Rodriguez, but they are built at the Arno yard in Italy, in the centre of the boatbuilding universe, the Viareggio region. Mangusta likewise.

 

[EME]

Re: Viking = Princess

I need to learn to read ! Viking clearly stated , I also question whether the Pershing and Leopard range are really flybridge !!

Might take issue about whether Leopard and Managusta are Italian are French . My understanding is that while Arno and overmarine are clearly in Italy that design and manufacturing mangement is clearly Gallic. At least that's what my french wife says but then she is also convinced that Jerseyand Gurnsey are French as well.

 

[jfm]

Re: multicultural boats

Yes you're right, point taken. They're built in Italy but the customer service and styling is sorted out by the French. So, French style and Italian build - prob a perfick combination?!

 

[jfm]

Re: Italian boats

Aswade, suggest you get May2002 edition of the UK magazine Motor Boat and Yachting, picture of Targa52 on front cover. This has custom yachting feature, see for example the "cutlery" article by John Matthews (who posts on this board) about the "process" of buying/speccing an italian boat. Your boss will surely prefer that to the production line approach at Viking et al?

No doubt you can get hold of the mag but if not the US distributor is Eastern at 1-800-221-3148

 

[DavidP]

Hi
Sunseeker,
Not that i could ever aford one ,not even close to their smallest one in their current range ,But if i could it would surley be a Sunseeker .

David.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

Alex, firstly, I'm very interested to know why your boss has focused only UK boats because there are loads of builders offering models in this size range. If it was my money I would be looking at builders whose range starts at this sort of size level not ends at it, the reason being that if you buy somebody's top-of-the-range boat its not likely to be built any better or fitted out any better than their bog standard 40 footer whereas, if a builder is accustomed to building boats a lot bigger, then hopefully the level of build quality, style of fit out, after sales service etc which big boat customers get is likely to filter down to the smaller models. Its a case of better buy a cheap Mercedes than an expensive Ford. In this respect, I would agree with jfm that Fairline and Viking/Princess may not be the best choice although Sunseeker would rate a look but I would definitely be considering the Italian builders as well

 

[aswade]

Thanks for the comments

I will also try to address the replies from Learner and jfm here.

How they arrived at current options:

They will take delivery of the boat in Florida but it will eventually be based in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State.)
They are experienced boaters but have owned sailboats to date, up to 86 feet, and have many friends with highly customized megayachts, eg Feadships, Perini Navis etc.

They looked at builders in the Pacific Northwest like West Bay, but find the prevailing pilot-house styles not to their liking.

They like the European style motoryachts and pretty much eliminated all U.S. and Taiwan built production boats right away because they do prefer Ferrari/Jaguar to Ford or Nissan.

They also don't want the hassle of a fully custom build, at least not right now. Perhaps if they decide to go with a larger yacht in a few years they'll go the custom route.

Pershing and Leopard are express cruisers and not flybridge.

They like Ferretti Group products but West Coast service and support is non-existent.

They have a friend who's had warranty problems with an Azimut and they were not impressed with the build quality of the Azimuts they've been on.

Ergo, by process of elimination, they're left with the two Renwick Group companies and Sunseeker. The following are the pros and cons as they see it to date with the three British builders:

Sunseeker: Like the styling and build quality the best of the UK boats. West Coat service is spotty and they've gotten some bad feedback on the dealer from current and past Sunseeker owners.

Viking Sport Cruiser (Princess): Service situation is the best because of tie-in with U.S.-based Viking.

Fairline: West Coast dealer network is as good as Princess and much better than Sunseeker. Dealer also has guaranteed 100% trade-in value of the purchase price if you upgrade to a more expensive boat they sell (but Fairline 74 would be the most expensive boat they sell, so somewhat of a moot point.)

Good point about not buying the largest boat in the range. On a strictly emotional level, they would probably buy a Ferretti or other Italian boat, but the reality of the situation has them considering one of the three U.K. builders as a compromise between Italian style/quality with suspect service and U.S. blandness/so-so quality with easy service. One reason I am soliciting further opinions here is to help them address their uncertainties- who knows, they might say bugger all to the service and support issue and buy the Ferretti at the end of the day. I thought the readers here would be an informed source about the U.K. builders since you see so many Sunseekers, Princesses and Fairlines in your waters whilst they're relatively rare on this side of the pond.

I'm actually considering a low-hour pre-owned Sealine T47 for me and my family. The U.S.importer does a good job speccing out the Sealines they bring over here. What's the consensus on Sealine build quality etc.?

Cheers,

Alex

 

[tcm]

Re: not UK builder imho

Just back from an interesting two weeks amongst a whole load of 60-80 footers. Towards the top end, all these have skippers.

The skippers on the sunseekers are slightly nuts, or slightly head bowed in embarrassment of a flash-looking but ultimately crappy boat.

Jump on a sunseeker 80 and ask how many generators, how many aircon refirgeration plants for example, because a med holiday isn't a holiday when these break on a big boat. The answer is just one one a princess, sunseeker, fairline.

The answer is two on every italian-built boat I can think of.

Incidentally, Leopard and manugusta are unashamedly Italian. The Spanish guy (Mr Rodriguez) who owns the company won the exclusive distribution rights. Yes, Rodriguez is a french company, tho not yet met a french owner.

On the leopard, those holes for cointreau bottle on a shelf in the cockpit furniture were made after someone found out from the Bistro de Port restaurant what drinks Mrs tcm and I would have after dinner. The dashboard is entirely in english cos i'm english. The gin-bottle-shaped hole is a guess that uk types like gin and tonic. This might be Italian attention to detail or French service levels. It blimmin well doesn't *ever* happen on a UK boat.

That mega-cutlery with crystal glasses at 50 quid a pop is *in addition* to what Rodriguez calls "everyday" glasses (eg for the kids) all monogrammed with the word Leopard, supplied free. Sunseeker supply sunseeker-logo plates etc with a flourishing fanfare as though we'd be pleased with sunglasses in a car that say "Austin Metro". Fairline detail that plates are included on the larger boats whi h also have the one genny and one refrigerator option. Smaller Princesses eg 58 will charge it as a 4 grand option. I'm afraid that someone high up at Failine or sunseeker need to re-learn what "high quality manufacturing" actually means. But no quibbles that thir advertsing is top-notch, as evidenced here and elsewhere....