Why is the build quality of cats deteriorating ?

[benfairn]

It has certainly changed since 2000 when my 4500 was built. Albeit a leopard, its solid as a rock, and sails closer to the wind and faster than any of the similar sized new ones.
My recommendation is look for an older cat with good bones, and then refit it, youll be much happier.
We did the full solar on the hardtop with lithium and removed the genny, made it a bit lighter, did a wrap on the hull and had the deck gelcoated.Plans to do the kitchen counters, salon cushions new 12v fridge freezers and well be all set. All in all we'll have spent a 1/4 of what new or 45 ft charter buyouts cost and have a better boat. We wont be popping windows and bending sliding doors, a famous problem with all the new ones.

[barryglewis]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

I totally agree that modern construction methods, sailing aids, satellite technology and weather forecasting has improved and is still improving beyond all expectation. But, to believe this provides any guarantee of safety is the height of naivety.


It doesn't matter how careful you are, sailing in season, how good your communications are and how accurate weather forecasting is, there will be times, if you venture offshore, where you will need to relay on your boat and your seamanship skills.


Where true build quality matters is when the proverbial hits the fan, not because you were sailing out of season or ignored the forecast it just happens. This is when fancy electronics, trendy interior design, zoned media systems, sun decks and air conditioning become irrelevant. It will be down to the structural integrity of the vessel, the strength of the sail gear, the ease of operation and your ability to handle the boat.
..........

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Well said!

[Joli]

Mostly because they don't know or care about what junk they are buying. Just like the jerk on the FP that anchored 30' away from me today when the whole bay is wide open. They don't know what they bought or what they're doing.

We have a lot of friends on cats but there seem to be a whole lot of noobs who plunk down $1,000,000 on a cat with no clue. They give responsible sailors on cats a very bad look.

[Morph]

I agree with going with either privately built boats or home built (in most cases). My last two cats, one had the shell built professionally and was an amazing boat that flew. My latest boat, a smaller Pescott design is now 20 years old, built by a home builder in Queensland and we have sailed her 1300 miles down the Australian East coast in up to 40 knots-- 90% of the trip was on the nose as people on here had predicted. There is never a squeak, she is solid and thank god for daggerboards, as the 40 knots was hard on the nose trying to push us away from the Gold Coast entrance. I remember crawling over a lagoon at a boat show in 2004 and being horrified to see the bulkheads not even attached to the hull let alone tabbed-- there was a gap of 1-2cm in places so it was clearly deliberate. Both my cats have all bulkheads coved and glassed all around. Of course the price you pay is more money (or time if you are doing it yourself) but you get a damn good boat!

[Cloroxbottle]

Originally Posted by yeloya

I sadly see that the overall quality of every boat regardless the make and model are getting worse than ever over the last 2-3 years while the prices in euro term have increased at least by 30-40% for the same period..
As almost every factory are nowadays using vinylesther resin,we don't see osmosis on new boats but a lot of gelcoat problems, standing/running rigging problems, finishing issues, faulty cabling, etc..
We know that logistic problems after the Covid explains delayed deliveries but the underlying problem seems to be poor craftmanship. With exploding demand, all yacht makers are running out of skilled people and are in rush.

It's not just boats. The one thing that all manufacturers can do to maintain or increase profit margins is cut production costs by cutting quality. You see it in housing as well, aside from high end custom homes the quality of houses went down in 1996 and again in 2008.

But these are just symptoms. Apart from the financialization of the economy, things like the use of stock options taxed at long term capital gains levels in lieu of progressively taxed income have increased income inequality in our societies, layers of government regulation have decreased efficiency and increased compliance costs, and decades of deficit spending have dramatically weakened our currencies resulting in what is perceived as inflation. ZIRP and NIRP policies - driven by the desire to finance ever expanding national debt - have destroyed savers. Across the board our standard of living is trending downwards.

We've wallpapered over these changes with two income families and consumer debt but you can only do so much rationally.

[cwjohm]

As much as I respect Yeloya's opinion my experience is different.

Bought my first production cat in 2010, my second in 2014 and third in 2022. The increase in build quality has been significant. The proper introduction of ISO standards in the late 2000's has seen significant improvements.

Thus far after 2000 miles sailed including severe conditions in Bay of Biscay and down Atlantic west coast my latest boat (FP Tanna 47) has performed well and I currently have no warranty issues. Granted an additional 25% of cost was spend on significant upgrades to the boat.

All of these cats have been sailed in significant blue water conditions and performed well, but as I said build quality has increased markedly.

I have also owned a performance cat from a reputable builder and had significant issues. No generalisation from this but simply to say buying a performance cat does not give you guarantees.

I know of many may happy production boat owners who are sailing significant blue water passages or circumnavigating.

[Kinkircating]

Originally Posted by cwjohm

As much as I respect Yeloya's opinion my experience is different.

Bought my first production cat in 2010, my second in 2014 and third in 2022. The increase in build quality has been significant. The proper introduction of ISO standards in the late 2000's has seen significant improvements.

Thus far after 2000 miles sailed including severe conditions in Bay of Biscay and down Atlantic west coast my latest boat (FP Tanna 47) has performed well and I currently have no warranty issues. Granted an additional 25% of cost was spend on significant upgrades to the boat.

All of these cats have been sailed in significant blue water conditions and performed well, but as I said build quality has increased markedly.

I have also owned a performance cat from a reputable builder and had significant issues. No generalisation from this but simply to say buying a performance cat does not give you guarantees.

I know of many may happy production boat owners who are sailing significant blue water passages or circumnavigating.

There is definitely a certain level of advantage for production cats to have less first time quality issues than performance cats. They make 50 a year versus the 2 or 3 boutique custom cats builders do. Where the wheels start to fall off the wagon is as these boats age, they certainly don’t do it as gracefully as that built with higher quality materials. It’s all good though, people should get the boat they feel is right for them and not give a crap about what someone else thinks.

Yes you can absolutely safely sail around the world in an inexpensive polyester boat with wooden bulkheads glued in, others feel the only way to do it is in a full carbon fiber build and others aluminum. Whatever floats your boat, just get out there!

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by Kinkircating

There is definitely a certain level of advantage for production cats to have less first time quality issues than performance cats. They make 50 a year versus the 2 or 3 boutique custom cats builders do. Where the wheels start to fall off the wagon is as these boats age, they certainly don’t do it as gracefully as that built with higher quality materials. It’s all good though, people should get the boat they feel is right for them and not give a crap about what someone else thinks.

Yes you can absolutely safely sail around the world in an inexpensive polyester boat with wooden bulkheads glued in, others feel the only way to do it is in a full carbon fiber build and others aluminum. Whatever floats your boat, just get out there!

Well put.

[crayiii]

We deal with our share of gelcoat spiderwebs and faulty fixtures that need to be repaired and replaced on our Lagoon 42 but at over 21,000NM, she’s a great boat. We’ve spent $200,000 since new on upgrades getting her ready for full time cruising and circumnavigating but we do feel confident in her abilities.

Where people get into trouble is thinking they can buy a $750,000 cat and then sail off across the Pacific trouble free. There’s a reason these boats are over $250,000 less than a non-charter boat. They are built for week long cruising in the Caribbean.

Spend the money to set a boat up for what you plan to do with it and she’ll treat you right. You wouldn’t take a stock Porsche 911 off-road but once modified, they make great rally cars.

Also, I’ve seen several high end custom performance cats in yards with major structural issues.

[yeloya]

Originally Posted by cwjohm

As much as I respect Yeloya's opinion my experience is different.

Bought my first production cat in 2010, my second in 2014 and third in 2022. The increase in build quality has been significant. The proper introduction of ISO standards in the late 2000's has seen significant improvements.

Thus far after 2000 miles sailed including severe conditions in Bay of Biscay and down Atlantic west coast my latest boat (FP Tanna 47) has performed well and I currently have no warranty issues. Granted an additional 25% of cost was spend on significant upgrades to the boat.

All of these cats have been sailed in significant blue water conditions and performed well, but as I said build quality has increased markedly.

I have also owned a performance cat from a reputable builder and had significant issues. No generalisation from this but simply to say buying a performance cat does not give you guarantees.

I know of many may happy production boat owners who are sailing significant blue water passages or circumnavigating.

That's a good point.. I had two Orana's from FP (2007 an 2011) a Helia from 2013 an we do some warranty works for newer models of FP. If we leave aside the osmosis problem that almost every FP cats have suffered in the past, these older boats had some kind of small but embarassing issues; the doors wouldn't properly close, door handles would fall, saloon sliding door gets stucks, etc. We don't see these finishing errors anymore in newer boats, that's correct. But, more importantly I see a lot of gelcoat defects, lower quality of stainless, smaller windlasses and chains , smaller an weaker turnblocks to save money , etc. I am not against cost saving but this should't be on critical items and should be reflected on the prices which is not the case, just the opposite. I don't want to mention brands but in 3 months old catamaran 77 bubbles have been found on under water section. (not osmosis but poor quality of gelcoat not properly cured and adhered to the hulls) We had to sandblast entire under water section and recoat with epoxy. Many companies are using large side windows on the hulls, it look sexy but not a good idea. As the cats's hulls are concave and the hulls are moving differently on cats these windows are coming apart in 6 months and start taking water. A certain company is installing 1.000 W windlass and 8 mm chain on 46 ft, 18 tons cat !!!. End result, windlass has burned three times on the same boat and the company keeps on saying that this is the user's error.

BTW, this is not only cats, on mono's it's the same thing, even worse; the riggings became smaller and weaker, the keels shorter, sail areas smaller, cockpits larger. Do they look better , absolutely and charter clients love it. The problem is that they are hardly moving under sail..

Cheers

Yeloya

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by Siberian Sea

Your absolutely correct. I work for a large Charter company and do vessel relocations/ delivering for them. 90% of these are Cats and without doubt they are overall poor design and construction. Lagoon and Bali being some of the worst. Bulkheads not properly glassed but rather just attached with epoxy puddy, port lights leaking, hatches that don’t secure, waist holding tanks that vent noxious gas and smells into vessel, under built rudder systems, cheap rigging.
It’s rather disappointing to say the least. Most cats today are constructed for the charter industry so the design leans heavy on comfort at the expense of vessel quality and longevity. I swear the builders just take the measurements of a king size bed and build a boat around that with little thoughts to appearance and performance. But then almost everyone who come to the Caribbean to go on a sailing charter is not really interested in the sailing aspects but rather where is the white sandy beaches, the cheap rum, boom boom music beach bars and maybe seeing a sea turtle. They don’t sail much they use the engines.

So what you are saying is that the vessel is built for its primary intended use and purpose so as to satisfy the market's needs and demand.

That being said, then the construction of Cats are not going to the Dogs.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by yeloya

That's a good point.. I had two Orana's from FP (2007 an 2011) a Helia from 2013 an we do some warranty works for newer models of FP. If we leave aside the osmosis problem that almost every FP cats have suffered in the past, these older boats had some kind of small but embarassing issues; the doors wouldn't properly close, door handles would fall, saloon sliding door gets stucks, etc. We don't see these finishing errors anymore in newer boats, that's correct. But, more importantly I see a lot of gelcoat defects, lower quality of stainless, smaller windlasses and chains , smaller an weaker turnblocks to save money , etc. I am not against cost saving but this should't be on critical items and should be reflected on the prices which is not the case, just the opposite. I don't want to mention brands but in 3 months old catamaran 77 bubbles have been found on under water section. (not osmosis but poor quality of gelcoat not properly cured and adhered to the hulls) We had to sandblast entire under water section and recoat with epoxy. Many companies are using large side windows on the hulls, it look sexy but not a good idea. As the cats's hulls are concave and the hulls are moving differently on cats these windows are coming apart in 6 months and start taking water. A certain company is installing 1.000 W windlass and 8 mm chain on 46 ft, 18 tons cat !!!. End result, windlass has burned three times on the same boat and the company keeps on saying that this is the user's error.



BTW, this is not only cats, on mono's it's the same thing, even worse; the riggings became smaller and weaker, the keels shorter, sail areas smaller, cockpits larger. Do they look better , absolutely and charter clients love it. The problem is that they are hardly moving under sail..



Cheers



Yeloya

I belong to the Outremer Catamaran Owners FB private group. There aren’t too many posts from owners of the first generation cats, but of the newer boats there seem to be a host of issues with the 49s and 51s and not as many but a few serious ones with the 52s and 55s.

Quality control seems to be poor and certainly owners seem to have the same issues dealing between dealers and the company when there are warranty issues or defects as for other companies mentioned in this thread.

If we were looking for a new cat we would not consider a new Outremer!

[crayiii]

Originally Posted by fxykty

I belong to the Outremer Catamaran Owners FB private group. There aren’t too many posts from owners of the first generation cats, but of the newer boats there seem to be a host of issues with the 49s and 51s and not as many but a few serious ones with the 52s and 55s.

Quality control seems to be poor and certainly owners seem to have the same issues dealing between dealers and the company when there are warranty issues or defects as for other companies mentioned in this thread.

If we were looking for a new cat we would not consider a new Outremer!

We were recently in a yard in Sint Marteen where a new Outremer had the rig down for repairs and they were trying to figure out how to deal with structural issues with one of the hulls. Seems poor quality is everywhere.

[Nautes]

It is not just cats, it is also part of pervasive plan of built-in obsolescence to "boost" the economy. Craftsmanship is all but dead. I can tell you first hand in the building construction industry things are done intentionally done poorly. Many construction firms have ephemeral life cycles only to reincarnate under different names to avoid liability. It will only get worse.

[Nautes]

Things were better and palpably so.