Do new boat builders get off too easy?

There was another thread recently about reasons for deciding between a new or used boat, and how almost every new boat came with teething pains which would often get sorted out by the time it was sold to a new owner. I was reminded of that while reading a story in the current "PassageMaker" about a couple from New Zealand who took delivery of a new Nordhavn N51, a builder who I have always thought of as producing very high quality.
I should say, though, that I have never bought a new boat, only used, so I can't compare their experience with my own, but in their place I would have been pretty p_____ off.
I don't know exactly what they paid, but my understanding is that the N51 is somewhere above $1.5 million, and is designed to be a production model, delivered complete with everything, so as to reduce delays and costs associated with customizing other Nordies.
Among other things, during the first weeks sailing from the factory in Turkey a cooling water pump was the wrong capacity and had to be replaced, and the engines came loose from their mounts! There were also issues with the stabilizer pumps losing fluid and the wet exhaust not operating properly. And these were just the ones included in the article.
All the problems were taken care of by Nordhavn, but that meant unplanned stops in strange ports, and delays waiting for things to get done.
The company I worked for over many years built a lot of different cooling, refrigeration, and cooking equipment, none of which cost 1/100th of a N51, but every single one was run under user conditions, and tested to insure it produced what the spec's said it should, before it was delivered to the customer.
Shouldn't buyers demand the same from a new boat? We wouldn't dream of buying a used boat without thorough surveys and sea trials, and it seems to me that the builder should make sure everything is right before delivering their boat to the new owner. At some point everything on a boat requires maintenance, and things break, but I think boat builders get away with poor quality control that we would never accept from a new house, or a new car.
Maybe my expectations are too high?

Peter

Absolutely correct, when building in a country with cheap labour a surveyor should be used to verify construction at various stages and sign it off. Then you have grounds to claim against the builder.
Its not to be vindictive but to make the builder concentrate on quality control, after all they are making a big enough comission.

You have never bought a new house. If you had you would realize that builders are even worse. The real difference is that Nordhavn took care of the issues. New home builders rarely fix their mistakes.

As a 2023 buyer of a new boat I feel compelled to respond.

There is an awful lot to unpack in the overall observation and opinion.

Let’s begin with: you are correct. Buyers have a reasonable right to expect reasonable quality relative to the quality goals of the make. Let’s also face it, that some production builders do not set high standards, while others do or aspire to. Buyers need due diligence in advance to understand what they are buying into.

I have had one issue that is material. A Simrad autopilot pump generally considered to be among the best was defective out of the box. Leaked fluid out of the pump housing. Not an installation issue. The odds of that were low, but low odds are never zero. I blame no one, but nonetheless I had to deal with it with assistance from both installer and builder. That’s all I can ask of either.

Some recent boats with Cummins QSB engines have had defective fuel pumps. The QSB is reasonably well regarded. No fault on the builder for specifying that. Builder jumped in to assist resolution. Again low probability isn’t zero.

Builders build the hull and cabinetry but install the machinery and electronics built by others. If they are using well regarded gear you would consider yourself, but it arrives defective, it’s a bitch but carries no blame.

Yeah, a Nordhavn and some other brands should not have that scale of issues. They better get on it.

And agree on the house comment. Having built twice on a custom basis and twice early on buying tract houses. The difference in quality can be startling. And cost difference between custom and tract houses is equally startling. The quality is expensive.

Buyer due diligence plays a role. Just saying.

But builder complacency does too.

You think boats have issues?

Peruse YouTube on how NO RV made recently has even marginal quality. To the degree year old models are being scrapped as worthless. Costing hundreds of thousands when new a year ago. Busted frames etc. No dealer or manufacturer support.

I've inspected well over a hundred new vessels in my career, from a wide range of builders, building in the US, Asia, Europe, South America and Africa. I have yet to encounter one with no issue and most have scores (the average number of observations on a report is about 125). Quality from every country runs the gamut, from horrible to outstanding. Just because an insurer or lender doesn't require a survey on a new vessel doesn't mean you shouldn't have one done, it's your last chance to leverage the builder to correct issues. For some builders that leverage isn't necessary, they step up and do the right thing regardless, however, as a previous post points out, finding the problems on your own after you start cruising can be a pain.

Home builder here. Same deal with houses and boats: find a quality builder who stands behind their work. Even car manufacturers can't achieve zero defect builds. Homes and boats are much more complex with lower volume. A quality builder will not cut corners on stuff that matters, and will stick around to fix defects that do occur.

There are two types of boat builders: One who sells you a boat; and one who sells a box-o-parts. The former [mostly] takes responsibility for the entire boat. The latter shunts-off responsibility to the OEM for each component. Finger-pointing at it's best. Best I can tell, PAE/Nordhavn is better than most at striving to be the former. That said, boats have a remarkable number of issues right out of the box.

I understand it's a similar issue in the RV business.

Peter

When our DeFever was new the punch list was surprisingly short. Excellent access to all systems and only proven equipment was installed. Luck and builders skill plays a role.

I am in the Aerospace business and one of the prime engine mfg's got tired of receiving items built a the end of the month. The mindset at the supplier level was "deliver it to the customer and they will tell us what is wrong with it". Engine mfg'r got tired of this nonsense and started fining the suppliers $10,000 per defect. No issue the following month and since then.
The moral of the story is that a lot of companies feel that inspections and verifications are Non Value added. Got to hit them where it hurts.

I have bought new boats and a lot of used boats. The new boats did indeed have some issues and the old boats had fantastically more issues, mostly due to the PO poor quality fixes. If I were in the market for an expensive new boat I would absolutely have a survey done. Before I buy a boat I like to spend about a day poking around on it. I have had 2 surveyors ask me why I am not a surveyor because when they went to check a system I would tell them it was or wasn’t functional. But if I were laying out a million plus, I wish, I would not trust myself. Actually I think that new boats are better than new RVs. There are million dollar RVs that are coming out with many, many defects like screws sticking out of the roof because the worker used too long screws.

Whenever you are dealing with something that is as complex as a large boat there are going to be issues. If you were to buy a new boat and take off on a long delivery trip without doing some fairly extensive shakedown and not expect to be doing repairs in some exotic locations then you are in for a rude awakening. I used to sell boats for a dealer part time. I had a new boater who wanted to buy a fairly large cruiser. The other dealers told him to buy a little boat first. I told him to buy the boat he wanted and then take the time to learn how to run it. We took his new boat to the lake where my boat was for several months. I taught him and we also shook the boat down. Then we took the boat back to the dealer with the list of needed repairs. After the repairs were done we towed the boat 500 miles to Lake Powell. He was an extremely satisfied customer. Because we met his needs.

In addition to getting a good survey done, new or used, always plan on "commissioning" any new-to-you vessel before taking off on any serious voyage. That means shake-down cruises, system checks, etc. Use a low-stakes cruise to find stuff that needs fixing before you are totally dependent on it.

I do this every year before cruising season, even on boats I've owned and maintained for years, because stuff breaks. This past spring, prior to heading north to the San Juans and Gulf Island, I took her out on the lake one afternoon to run the anchor down, warm up the generator, and haul the anchor back up.

Found a fuel leak. Had time to get it fixed before starting the cruise.

Year before that, the autopilot had somehow got its brains scrambled and had to be re-calibrated from dealer reset.

Ertyqway said:

Home builder here. Same deal with houses and boats: find a quality builder who stands behind their work. Even car manufacturers can't achieve zero defect builds. Homes and boats are much more complex with lower volume. A quality builder will not cut corners on stuff that matters, and will stick around to fix defects that do occur.

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are you a new home warranty builder? To be one here means you will stand behind your work or else you would not be one for long. The warranty outfit picks up the pieces.

A while ago I recall someone on here making a comment that a boat built in 2024 is not like a 2024 car, but more like a 1924 car. After experiencing owning 14 boats over 54 years, I completely agree with that observation.

Boat construction is largely done by hand, with each one somewhat unique in features, equipment, parts supplied by suppliers, and specifications. Unlike cars there are few regulations governing boat manufacture.The 1924 car analogy seems to be spot-on.

I also believe manufacturing and quality control standards across the industry have slipped in the past few years. The COVID pandemic increased demand for boats, while the fewer number of boat manufacturers (after many downsizing or going out of business in the 2008-2009 recession) decreased supply. In order to meet demand (and not wanting to give up on sales) I think many manufacturers increased production volume with a resulting decline in quality.

My own bottom line, unless you are spending literally multiple millions of dollars at a custom high-end builder like Lyman-Morse, I think any buyer of a new more-or-less 'production' boat should expect to spend time debugging it after the purchase. Having a surveyor do periodic inspections during construction would be ideal, but with a boat built overseas not always possible. I also think a thorough survey of any boat before acceptance, including a new boat, is wise.

I think planning on spending a season/year going through a new boat before making any long journeys, finding the little quirks and debugging things missed, would be realistic. Otherwise they'll crop up and cause frustrations when problems are discovered while underway. Best to find and address any issues before going offshore.

I know the channel of the couple that bought the first Nordhavn 51, I follow it with a lot of pleasure, they are sailing in the same area where I am sailing and indeed they basically film everything.
As I understand it, the N51 is a new model and this is the first of the line, so I do understand there are possibilities that things are not completely the way they should be. Also, this one is build in Turkey and even the Turkish builder stated that he found some things that were not 'correct'.

Having seen the videos I know that they had problems with time. The couple is from New Zealand, they can only spend 90 days in Turkey and 90 days in the EU. Having been in Turkey myself I know there is an additional problem and that is that Turkey demands that products leave Turkey within 90 days if you want to be able to get it tax free. So this basically became a mess, things had to be rushed, there was not really an elaborate testing program and the long distance sea trial became also the delivery trial. They went from Turkey, via a 2 day trip to Greece, then back to Turkey and then back to Greece. But every time the 90 day clock started running.
When all the problems surfaced the couple was already underway to 'the West', and knowing how difficult it is to get service anywhere in Greece I was impressed that they were able to get service. I have no idea who paid for the marina fees etc, I suspect that should be Nordhavn, but I have no info on that.

Some of the design features onboard I had my doubts about, I would have definitely done that different, but I guess that is the choice of the owner.
The last episode was published just a few days ago and they are thoroughly enjoying the boat, still getting to learn all the ins and outs. It is not completely clear to me how they want to get the boat to New Zealand. It is going to be a 5 year journey and somehow I have the idea that it is going to be by actually crossing the Atlantic.

The Nordhavn 51 is a two engine boat, it has 2 cummins qsm 11 engines, carries about 5500 liters of fuel, about 1400 liters of water, is stabilized underway (but not zero speed), looks to be sea worthy and by now they are on their way to Tunesia (again due to the 90 days in Schengen).
I can recommend everyone to follow their journey, they leave nothing out, also the dumb stuff is shown, basically daily life.

SteveK said:

are you a new home warranty builder? To be one here means you will stand behind your work or else you would not be one for long. The warranty outfit picks up the pieces.

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Yes. We build around a hundred homes a year right now, and have a dedicated in-house warranty department.

I have never bought a new boat myself, only bought used boats, but if I would be buying a new boat I think I would hammer out the required quality and standards in the contract. Most likely I would hire someone to do that for me. When I would spend 1.5 - 3 million for a new boat I would expect it to be in perfect condition, after all, am not buying a sandwich at Subway.
Some people may say that this would be overdoing, but at the sales price that I am paying the company is still making a profit. So if I don't get it sorted out it detail I would be paying for the repairs, changes or later discoveries, thereby increasing the acquisition price.
I know by now never to buy any boat from a Turkish yard, except perhaps Bering. Bering is fully open in their construction process, they won't fool around, they deliver what they say they will deliver. I have no opinion on what Nordhavn does, but I have seen many many yachts, build by Turkish yards, which I would not even take to sea. Having experienced the Turkish 'craftmanship' first hand I know that you have to be on top of them, if not you will be in a lot of trouble.

My approach with my current boat was simple, I am buying a hull and a base which I can turn into something that works for us. Yes it costs money, no idea if I will ever see it back, but I know that when I am finished with the boat any potential buyer will recognize the benefits and thus be willing to at least pay me back some of the investment.

Mambo
The made in Turkey N51 is standard with JD4045s. You mentioned Cummins which may have been confused with the N54

sunchaser said:

Mambo
The made in Turkey N51 is standard with JD4045s. You mentioned Cummins which may have been confused with the N54

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Ok, is possibly my mistake. Thought that this was mentioned in the tour in one of the videos, but can be mistaken.
The one thing that I do see is that the ER space is adequate, but the space in the lazarette is just a crawl space, everything is difficult to reach.

I'll just add one point: new boats from in-demand builders like PAE are built to contract, so it's not really feasible to require a survey before purchase because every vessel is customized. If you don't like that, then Nordhavn (or whoever) will just sell to the next customer. That's for in-demand, semi-custom makes

But that doesn't mean NOT to get a survey -- definitely get one and use it to find issues faster, either before or very soon after delivery. But the crucial part is choosing a manufacturer in category #1 who will stand behind it and make it right when the inevitable problems crop up.

Whether you are buying new or used, hire Steve D’Antonio to inspect the boat before the final payment, or acceptance. He has saved me a lot of money and headaches.

I do know of one builder who uses a surveyor to survey all new builds as it is cheaper to fix the issues at the build yard, and the customer isn’t faced with as many issues.

Signing for Hull#1 of any well-established brand, and I place Helmsman in that category now, is saying that you're expecting a top quality build, and willing to put up with some (minor) manufacturing glitches, Every recreational vessel is hand built to varying degrees, and the first hull of a new series is a more like an experiment in design in many ways.
You might ask why I signed the PO to be the launch customer for Helmsman's new 46. Well, the short answer was the amazing experience with a new build H38E I bought a few years ago. On delivery, the H38E was as near perfect as you can wish for. I had hull 40 of the H38E series, so the crews that built her were very accomplished by that time. Yes, there were the few minor mechanical and electrical issues which came up over the time we enjoyed cruising in her, but none were serious or caused us to curtail our cruising. I also spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about the various systems on board and then did a lot of maintenance and servicing myself. In the end, I built a very practical operator's manual full of photos and how-to's, adding to what Helmsman supplied.
Fit and finish, quality construction, a well-managed factory, experienced craftsmen, and the pleasure of dealing with a very reputable and responsive Helmsman organization are all factors stepping up to the first H46. Weekly meetings to discuss design, modifications and construction techniques may not absolutely guarantee a perfect build but the attention I paid to every detail certainly conveyed the expectation of a top-class and high quality product. The H46 (Kiskadee) will be arriving in Everett WA in a few weeks and we are confident that we will be pleased and happy.

Maldwin said:

Whether you are buying new or used, hire Steve D’Antonio to inspect the boat before the final payment, or acceptance. He has saved me a lot of money and headaches.

I do know of one builder who uses a surveyor to survey all new builds as it is cheaper to fix the issues at the build yard, and the customer isn’t faced with as many issues.

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M
Suggest you go back and read post #5. Steve D is one of the top guys hired to follow new builds. He does far more than most surveyors due to his background and experience. There are some surveyors that are brand specific and well worth engaging not when the build is complete but during the build process.

True story - when we bought our vessel the top notch surveyor said to largely ignore his insurance focused boiler plate findings. He then pulled out his Colombo note pad and spent about ten minutes going down the real issues. He was spot on.

Then comes the payment schedule, shipping, commissioning and warranties with several suppliers well beyond that offered by the builder.

chanprr said:

Signing for Hull#1 of any well-established brand, and I place Helmsman in that category now, is saying that you're expecting a top quality build, and willing to put up with some (minor) manufacturing glitches, Every recreational vessel is hand built to varying degrees, and the first hull of a new series is a more like an experiment in design in many ways.
You might ask why I signed the PO to be the launch customer for Helmsman's new 46. Well, the short answer was the amazing experience with a new build H38E I bought a few years ago. On delivery, the H38E was as near perfect as you can wish for. I had hull 40 of the H38E series, so the crews that built her were very accomplished by that time. Yes, there were the few minor mechanical and electrical issues which came up over the time we enjoyed cruising in her, but none were serious or caused us to curtail our cruising. I also spent a lot of time learning as much as I could about the various systems on board and then did a lot of maintenance and servicing myself. In the end, I built a very practical operator's manual full of photos and how-to's, adding to what Helmsman supplied.
Fit and finish, quality construction, a well-managed factory, experienced craftsmen, and the pleasure of dealing with a very reputable and responsive Helmsman organization are all factors stepping up to the first H46. Weekly meetings to discuss design, modifications and construction techniques may not absolutely guarantee a perfect build but the attention I paid to every detail certainly conveyed the expectation of a top-class and high quality product. The H46 (Kiskadee) will be arriving in Everett WA in a few weeks and we are confident that we will be pleased and happy.

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A few weeks? That has to be exciting! Please post a lot of pics, looking forward to seeing that one!

I write from a little different perspective. My permanent slip is on a 40 slip dock completely leased by a dealer. All boats on the dock are new boats being prepped (electronics, canvas, varnish, and commissioning), brokerage boats or customers like me. New boats from quality manufacturers come in that need substantial remedial work. But the bottom line is that neither new nor brokerage boats leave the dock until they are perfect. When problems arise, the dealer fixes the problems. The dealer is based in South Carolina and I know of instances of their techs being sent to Michigan and Connecticut to correct problems. Boats will have issues but they are a whole lot easier to fix if the boat is bought through a dealer who stands behind their boats. Needless to say, a great number of their sales are to repeat customers.

Jklotz said:

A few weeks? That has to be exciting! Please post a lot of pics, looking forward to seeing that one!

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Yes, I will!!

I know it's a yacht but the latest video on a Rapido 60 with mast step (mast base) issues by some well known You Tubers will give pause for thought. I think the have also replaced the main engine fairly early on. With hindsight whether Rapido might have preferred to have that build delivered to less well known customers.

sjisailor said:

I'll just add one point: new boats from in-demand builders like PAE are built to contract, so it's not really feasible to require a survey before purchase because every vessel is customized. If you don't like that, then Nordhavn (or whoever) will just sell to the next customer. That's for in-demand, semi-custom makes

But that doesn't mean NOT to get a survey -- definitely get one and use it to find issues faster, either before or very soon after delivery. But the crucial part is choosing a manufacturer in category #1 who will stand behind it and make it right when the inevitable problems crop up.

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I routinely carry out in progress build inspections at the various yards, as well as pre-acceptance inspections, for Nordhavns, and other builders in Asia, Europe and South America (I returned from a round of inspections in Taiwan, visiting the Fleming and Kadey Krogen yards last week). Identifying issues at the yard is by far the most desirable approach, because no one is better suited to making corrections than the yard, and they can do it most cost effectively, which means they are far more likely to agree to make corrections, as opposed to after the vessel is delivered to North America or Europe, where labor cost is far higher.

Yup.

We had a series of quality improvement classes when I was working a production job. The big take out I got was;

"Why is there never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over"

When the costs are compared the do it over is like 10X the do it right the first time.

Steve DAntonio said:

I routinely carry out in progress build inspections at the various yards, as well as pre-acceptance inspections, for Nordhavns, and other builders in Asia, Europe and South America (I returned from a round of inspections in Taiwan, visiting the Fleming and Kadey Krogen yards last week). Identifying issues at the yard is by far the most desirable approach, because no one is better suited to making corrections than the yard, and they can do it most cost effectively, which means they are far more likely to agree to make corrections, as opposed to after the vessel is delivered to North America or Europe, where labor cost is far higher.

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Agreed! My comment was just to say that an earlier post's suggestion that one should get a survey before purchase (as opposed to delivery) is not reasonable. The manufacturer will require a purchase contract to begin building. Then a survey at any time may be reasonable -- during the build, or before delivery, and/or after delivery. Thanks for the clarification.