The issue of marketing and the capability of new owners is not unique to any
one brand or type of boat.  It is an issue with purchasers of both new and
used boats.  There are new owners who focus on knowing as much as possible and
who are very willing and capable learners even if they are not highly skilled at
the beginning.  There are others that you wonder why they bought the boat in
the first place.  I meet and hear about many Nordic Tug owners.  By and large
they are appropriately matched to their boats and the expected use in spite of
some of them having a lot to learn.  They quietly and capably learn.
However, over the years, there are also owners that truly make you wonder and whose
skills and capabilities make me cringe as they reflect poorly on all owners of
the brand.  They ignore basic rules of the road and common courtesy on the
water.  They ignore charts and run aground again and again, sometimes with
damage.  There are some that Nordic Tug owners talking among themselves conclude
that they wish that the dealer hadn't sold THAT boat to THAT person!  We know as
owners, we have no say in who the dealer sells to and the dealer must sell to
stay in business.  Luckily, in most of those cases, these owners, which from
my perspective, are inappropriate owners, soon move on, generally before doing
too much damage.  There are probably more boaters out there who are poorly
prepared and whose capabilities are not up to the level desirable for their boat.
This is a problem across all brands.

Jim

(Jim & Mim McCrea, mcc272@aol.com Nordic Tug 32-154 "North Star" Home Port
Norwalk, CT)

Jim, re: "There are probably more boaters out there who are poorly prepared
and whose capabilities are not up to the level desirable for their boat.
This is a problem across all brands."  TRUE but Nordic Tug, Bayridian, and
Sea Ray aren't pitching ocean-going passage-making.  They know the design
limitations of their boats and would not propose a rally whose demands
exceed the capabilities of their boats, owners and crews.  In my view that's
a big difference between them and Nordhavn.

Bob Peterson
47' Lien Hwa CMY
"Lopaka Nane"
San Francisco

-----Original Message-----
From: McC272@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 5:19 PM
To: trawlers-and-trawlering@lists.samurai.com
Subject: Re: Boat Marketing was T&T: Nordhavn Marketing

The issue of marketing and the capability of new owners is not unique to any
one brand or type of boat.

Jim

I'm going to omit boat type, manufacturer, etc. because I am going to relate
some facts that don't reflect well on the owner and the vendors who took
advantage of him. Some of you will recall the boat I have been so
enthusiastic about.

The owner is a fine man with tangible lifetime achievements to include
professional fixed and rotary wing pilot, six-pack USCG license, and a
second career on the water.

But, lesson number one - he is a liveaboard who rarely leaves the dock. In 5
1/2 years, the boat has accumulated 60 hours. A significant amount of money
has been spent to make this boat a home, especially if you like being
plugged into 220V 50AMP marinas and having a 110/220V 12.5 KW generator
which is only taxed if you are running all 37,000BTUs of A/C, cooking on
your electric stove and oven and doing your laundry. This vessel has a $1500
electric power cord reel - just an indication. The vessel's reputation for
excellent maintenance is based upon how much money he has paid local
vendors. He had the aft cockpit teak "fixed" by paying someone $2000 to take
a deck 15 feet by ~6 feet and remove the gray and put on a coat or two of
Semco.

The local diesel repair shop made two recent repairs which failed as we left
the slip. The smartest thing I did was to hire a Cummins company mechanic
from their nearby service facility. I requested the oldest mechanic they had
(almost) and one familiar with Cummins VT555mc 320HP engines. They sent such
a man and he was quite impressive with old school politeness. One
superficial example might serve to best communicate the situation. Every
year the local shop changes his Racor 1000 filters. His on engine spin on
oil and coolant filters have been untouched since 1998 and 2000 respectively
on both engines. The oil filter is rusted and the gasket is leaking. An
interested person could/should do this himself rather than pay someone $80
an hour to do it. The water circulating pump on the port engine was rebuilt.
Then why is it spraying coolant out the weep hole as well as black grease?
The pump uses sealed bearings and a carbon gasket - no grease. The starboard
engine has a riser hose replaced and the connecting "things were not cleaned
and there was evidenic of galvanic corrosion. Please don't ask, there are
dissimilar metals involved and there is a right way and a wrong way to
connect them.

The engines might be making 250 to 270 out of 320HP. Why? There is a "PT"
pump which supplies fuel to the fuel injection system. The mechanic wasn't
thrilled by my calling it the high pressure pump - but, close enough. One
was 100psi low and the other was at the minimum acceptable psi - which in
fact is not enough to cause the engine to develop the rated horsepower.
Instead of 2800 to 3000rpm, the engines could only make 2600 rpm at WOT.
When we left the slip for the "sea trial" the trim tabs were angled down and
the running gear barnacle encrusted. After quick haul and cleaning, we used
the trim tabs properly and our top speed was 12.25 knots. Comparable boats
with similar engines run at 16 to 20 knots WOT. Letters (dated 1987) to the
factory from the original owner complained of low speed. The vessel is
running 22x22 4 blade props. Jim Alexander's identical boat had 26x28 props.
There are a pair of OEM props in a storage locker - wanna bet their size?

So we have a minor mystery. Could an extra 200 to 300rpm (I'm shaving 3000
WOT to a max of 2900rpm owing to weight of vessel) allow the vessel to make
16 to 18 knots? Could that extra power use Jim Alexander's OEM 26x28 props?
Will I ever find diesel happiness? The current owner honestly doesn't
understand why I would want to fix this problem. He also had to replace a
turbo owing to cooling seawater backing down the jacketed riser - it cost
$3000 for the turbo. They converted the port exhaust to a dry riser so this
could not happen again. Guess what, the starboard engine remains the same
with a wet riser. Bad philosophy of maintenance - but not if you aren't
going anywhere. Unfortunately, I intend to do at least the Great Loop.

Most of the hull survey was what one might expect from a well-made 17 year
old fiberglass boat, except the original owner had replaced the original
black iron or fiberglass 200gal fuel tanks with aluminum ones at great
expense to include removing the engines to make the change - nice job.

Primary lesson learned $2500 later - be careful when buying a boat from a
person whose cruising and utilization goals are exactly opposite to yours.
Second lesson - bring in a competent "outsider" to examine the engines and
other major systems. Travel charges and rates be damned - it will likely pay
off. Can you imagine if I had used the guys that had done the work?

Lastly, listed electronics to include a Sitex loud hailer, a Northstar 951X
DGPS, and a Northstar 800X LORAN all had moisture inside their LCD displays.
They were on the bridge. The Sitex mike connector was badly corroded and the
off/volume switch could not be turned. If the owner never used them, he
couldn't know if they worked, but they were listed as working. The owner
just did not know. We were so tied up with discoveries that we forgot the
auto-pilot and the transmission oil. The owner had never used the auto
pilot.

I think he honestly thinks that he is selling a great condo and doesn't
understand why I'm concerned about any of these things.

What remains is to find out if he will either rectify mechanical problems or
make adequate price allowances to permit me to rectify the problems.
Finally, do I want to go down this path. Maybe boat searches should be for
competent cruising skippers who want to sell their boats or wealthy owners
who know how to spend their money WISELY. Don't forget, Jim Alexander's
first boat which was maintained by a "professional" captain who screwed up
most of the jobs he performed and the absentee West Coast owner was unaware

Wearily,
Ron Rogers

Ron Roger wrote:

-----Original Message-----
What remains is to find out if he will either rectify mechanical problems
or
make adequate price allowances to permit me to rectify the problems.
Finally, do I want to go down this path. Maybe boat searches should be for
competent cruising skippers who want to sell their boats or wealthy owners
who know how to spend their money WISELY. Don't forget, Jim Alexander's
first boat which was maintained by a "professional" captain who screwed up
most of the jobs he performed and the absentee West Coast owner was unaware

Ron, this sounds like one of those "if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is" scenarios.
My gut feeling is that you should walk away - from the problems you have
mentioned - spotty workmanship by local mechanics, corrosion, water in
displays, wrong props, etc - I suspect that you will end up putting a lot of
Boat Units into bringing the vessel up to a condition that you can trust,
and that you will be dissatisfied with your purchase in the long run.
Many years ago, my father had the opportunity to purchase a 5-year-old car
that was owned by an acquaintance - a widow in her 80's - who had "babied"
the car since she bought it.  It had less than 10,000 miles on it, appeared
in pristine condition, and she was quite willing to give him an excellent
price on it, significantly below the comparable retail prices on dealership
lots.  We had a relatively new car that met our needs, so Dad passed on the
offer with thanks - he didn't want the cost of maintaining two cars, and I
was a licensed driver, so the insurance costs would have been fairly high.
A family friend, who needed to replace his car took advantage of the offer
and bought it, paying more than she was asking because he did not want to
take advantage.  Two weeks later, the engine blew without warning while he
was driving my father from Toronto to Detroit, running about 70 mph.  When
the local dealer investigated, they determined that the previous owner had
not broken it in properly, and that the car had never been run over 30 to 40
mph.  The crankshaft failed, several rods were thrown, and he ended up
buying a new engine because the block was holed.
The boat you are looking at seems very similar to that car - low use,
significant periods of inactivity, and telltale signs of abuse, not from
overuse, but from shoddy workmanship and under-utilization.  The warning
signs are there.  IMHO, I'd walk away, real fast, and find another object
for my affection.
Bob Davies

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