New boats seem cheaply made.

[tpenfield]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

BTW - The 2012 Pursuit ST310 that I was drooling over . . . it has a fair amount of wood in its structure . . . mostly bulkheads, but wood nonetheless. I was a bit surprised . . . .

 

[Mischief Managed]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

BTW - The 2012 Pursuit ST310 that I was drooling over . . . it has a fair amount of wood in its structure . . . mostly bulkheads, but wood nonetheless. I was a bit surprised . . . .

No one has ever invented a better material than wood for sound/vibration damping and handling repeated bending stress. Man-made materials tend to degrade from constant bending, wood is built for it (watch trees sway in the wind). When constructed properly, there's nothing wrong with with using wood in a fiberglass boat. That said, my money-is-no-object favorite boat is made entirely of welded aluminum and is outrageously stiff. It's not really designed to flex, so there's no degradation of the material in use. http://setsail.com/fpb-64-structure/ Got a couple of million kicking around?

 

[gobbler boat]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Let's see, what is in my glove box? A map of Lake of the Ozarks I don't look at; the receipt from my registration for my local lake that I don't need (once they get my $$); my whistle which I hope I never use; and, I don't think I would buy a boat if the radio was in it! I bought a leather cigarette case in the Ozarks for $8 that very nicely holds my cell phone, ipod, billfold, and condo key that I put in my drink holder, on my dashboard, or in the little suction cup holder I bought at West Marine.

 

[gobbler boat]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Couldn't agree more. Again, "Words from the President" of Ebbtide boats talks very matter of fact that wood is still the best material from which to begin to build a boat.

 

[hostage]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

OK, I went to the boat show today and took pictures of various boat's glove boxes . . . I believe that some of the sales staff though I was a bit weird taking pictures of the glove box instead of something more exciting, like the instrument panel, but no worries.

Overall, I was OK with the quality on display - the boats - not just the glove boxes. I went through the place a couple of times and did not see Larson, Regal or Tahoe . . . I was dying to take a picture of the Tahoe glove box.

Anyway, one take-away from the show that I noticed was that the seats on the boats are getting smaller . . . this is at a time where the American population is generally getting larger . . . the seats are getting smaller. It seems to me that this may be a way of having the boats 'look' bigger, by making the seats smaller.

Anyway, here are the glove boxes in the attachments, some were pretty good and others not as good. Judge for yourself. Most of the boats had a molded in glove box, not a separate fastened in style. Some did not have a strut or anything to hold it open . . . I guess they save the $25 on that hardware.

View attachment 132520View attachment 132521View attachment 132522View attachment 132523View attachment 132524

Some are give-aways, but others might be harder to guess.

You found the glove box cover I was complaining about, it is the second from the left. The chrome painted plastic was the cheap part I was complaining about. Seems like it would break and then all your stuff would come flying out of the glove box. Plus they did put the radio in that glove box for some reason.

Also I am very impressed you took the time to take all these pictures of glove boxes.

I understand everyone's about economy of scale of using the same cheap glove box in many boats. I would agree with you guys, though until I felt how flimsy that thing was. Again I would rather have no glove box cover than one that is going to break so easily and look bad.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

From looking at the boats currently being rehabbed in the Resto section here, I would argue that boats have ALWAYS been cheaply made (except the the very high end).

 

[ricohman]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

From looking at the boats currently being rehabbed in the Resto section here, I would argue that boats have ALWAYS been cheaply made (except the the very high end).

I completely agree. Boats, RV's, travel trailers have always been made to a cost point.
I was amazed at how little attention was paid when they built my new travel trailer and that they used such cheap materials and parts. Even the bearings in the hubs were the cheap made in china variety.

 

[jkust]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

From looking at the boats currently being rehabbed in the Resto section here, I would argue that boats have ALWAYS been cheaply made (except the the very high end).

Ha, I still have one of the dreaded 84 Bayliner Capri's which I think is used as the baseline for cheaply built. That said she's still 100% original and the interior is 90% as good as new (maybe higher). Even a pos can be kept nice with the slightest effort.

 

[CC245]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

I want to know what is in Hostage's glove box! I must be real important to need such a robust glove box door!
Maybe he has the answer to the question "Is it better to keep the fuel tank full or empty for winter storage" in that glove box of his.

 

[hostage]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

I want to know what is in Hostage's glove box! I must be real important to need such a robust glove box door!
Maybe he has the answer to the question "Is it better to keep the fuel tank full or empty for winter storage" in that glove box of his.

My driving gloves and Pandora's box.

In all honesty I don't have one, or you could say mine is so large it takes up the whole bow (cuddy cabin). My g/f likes the cuddy as it is a great place and a semi-safe place store things. (Locks keep people honest.) Also she likes the changing room.

I was trying to show her that there are a lot of safe and good places to store her purse and our other gear. The only problem is that some of the manufactures weren't giving me a good argument.

-Hostage

 

[Philster]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Wood is the number one core material in composite construction.

.

 

[jkust]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

You found the glove box cover I was complaining about, it is the second from the left. The chrome painted plastic was the cheap part I was complaining about. Seems like it would break and then all your stuff would come flying out of the glove box. Plus they did put the radio in that glove box for some reason.

Also I am very impressed you took the time to take all these pictures of glove boxes.

I understand everyone's about economy of scale of using the same cheap glove box in many boats. I would agree with you guys, though until I felt how flimsy that thing was. Again I would rather have no glove box cover than one that is going to break so easily and look bad.

I like the one with the french stitching. It's funny the things we each perceive as quality indicators. My question then is would you take an optional mpi engine on say a Tahoe or a the base carb engine of the same displacement on a better quality boat if those were your choices.

 

[ma glastron]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Tpenfield I was there yesterday myself. There was one larson under the restaurants and both near the glastrons. Any way what I noticed was they all seen to have the same helm seat except bayliners witch seamed like nice seats till you put the cheap bolsters up. I also notice that bayliner seems like they are better built now than 2 yrs ago.

 

[hostage]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Right now I have a carb 4.3L @ 190, compared to 220hp MPI option. Currently 190hp is great for what I use it for and from what I hear Mercrusier underates their carb engines to sell more MPI. Though that aside I do prefer the simplicity of a carb engine compared to FI for my boat. In any case my g/f complaining kicks in far before any governed. So my speed is more limited by my fiance, than my engine.

So to answer your question I would rather go with nice boat and smaller engine. We do spend a lot more time relaxing in the boat in the middle of the lake, instead of cruising around. Though there is a difference between quality/durability and ruggedness. As I have stated before I would rather have them save $5 more dollars and not bother having a glove box, then something that is cheap and will break and not look good after it does break.

 

[tpenfield]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

You found the glove box cover I was complaining about, it is the second from the left. The chrome painted plastic was the cheap part I was complaining about. Seems like it would break and then all your stuff would come flying out of the glove box. Plus they did put the radio in that glove box for some reason.

Also I am very impressed you took the time to take all these pictures of glove boxes.

I understand everyone's about economy of scale of using the same cheap glove box in many boats. I would agree with you guys, though until I felt how flimsy that thing was. Again I would rather have no glove box cover than one that is going to break so easily and look bad.

Yes, the second from the left (Glastron, iirc) was interesting. It was a bit tricky to put down, as the strut was actually just a spring, in order to put it down you had to 'buckle' the spring. My crew would never be able to figure that out.

 

[hostage]

Re: New boats seem cheaply made.

Yes, the second from the left (Glastron, iirc) was interesting. It was a bit tricky to put down, as the strut was actually just a spring, in order to put it down you had to 'buckle' the spring. My crew would never be able to figure that out.

I too had difficulty figuring that glove box out and the vendor showed me. Granted I wasn't given much time to figure out, maybe he figured I would break the glove box before I could figure out how to close it.