Considering MT 40

[PNW_Steve]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to the forum. My wife and I are looking for a good candidate for a Great Loop boat and have been talking about sail vs trawler. We have limited experience with trawlers and hope you all can give us a bit of guidance.

We came across an MT 40 that caught our attention. The layout and accommodations look fantastic for our wants. It has a single Ford Lehman (120hp?) With about 1000 hours.
The broker tells me that the stringers under the engine were replaced but there is some evidence of rot further aft. His claim is that replacing the remainder would be a moderately challenging task. Also, there is some evidence of leaking at the bottom of some of the Windows.

I have done a fair amount of boat repair & maintenance as well as building furniture & cabinets. I would welcome a boat that is enough of a project to keep me entertained. What I don't want is a crumbling money pit.

Any thoughts on how serious an issue this would likely be? The broker tells me tba the stringers aft of the engine "are not structural". I am not sure I buy that.

Another question regarding Lehman equipped trawlers of this size: I have been told that this boat will likely burn less than 1gph @ 5kts and less than 3gph @ 8kts. Is that realistic?

Thank you all for your input.

Steve

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard. What year is this vessel. Is it posted on any brokers website? Would you be willing to divulge that information? Reason is: If there are pictures it might be a lot easier for members to give specific opinions rather than general speculation. If you don't care to show your hand....no problem with that either.

 

[psneeld]

Good luck as there's always a few hidden items that you and the surveyor miss...just hope they are small.

I wasn't crazy about the MT-40 layout but that's just me...but they were certainly on my list to look at for awhile.

The GPH numbers and knots seem correct I get 3.3 NMPG at 6.3 knots and 1.9GPH fuel burn with my 40 Albin.

I paid a little over $50 K for a newer engine (abut 200 hrs and 2 yrs old) but the rest of the boat was in medium to bad shape. Good ones were almost 40K more and those they wanted 30-50 for were wrecks....so look around and get the target groups...if you are paying more than 60K for one with known rot in the stringers and rot below windows...plan on finding more and I wouldn't go above 60K...more likely much closer to 50K.

 

[PNW_Steve]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard. What year is this vessel. Is it posted on any brokers website? Would you be willing to divulge that information? Reason is: If there are pictures it might be a lot easier for members to give specific opinions rather than general speculation. If you don't care to show your hand....no problem with that either.

1975 Marine Trader Trawler Double Cabin Power Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

 

[Ronald]

Steve, i spent a couple of years looking at all brands of trawlers before I bought. Here are a couple of things I learned. Brand name does not mean a whole lot when it comes to used boats. Buy the boat not the name. Teak decks leak on most brands, windows leak on most brands. Engines are usually Lehmans , Perkins , or Cats on most brands . You get the point. I discovered that trawlers under $50,000.00 were usually in very bad shape. When I looked at $75,000 plus trawlers , better shape, but still some dogs. In the $100,000.00 range same thing. Most Boat brokers amazed me with their lack of knowledge, arrogance, and laziness. Do your own research . There are a few good brokers out there, find them. Joining this blog site was the right step. Someone on this site once mentioned that often a live aboard boat is a good used boat. I found that to be true. I bought a boat that was previously owned by a great guy who lived aboard and really took care of her. It showed. It is 1989 Marine Trader 38 that had factory fiberglass decks, twin 135 Lehmans , fuel tanks were in good shape, a was well equipped. Best part , my wife loved it. Good luck Steve, looking for boats can be fun. Ron

 

[captainoftrasea]

Thought of a Bruce Roberts Ty43 , a perfect vessel and all steel, 30 tons gross with unrestricted sailing. Mine has a 210 HP DEUTZ and cruises at 7.5 knots using a litre per mile. Drop it back to 5.0 knots and saves another 40%

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Welcome aboard.

 

[awpptdt]

The stringers are hollow boxes capped with a 3" piece of mahogany. The fiberglass provides the strength. Take the top off pour in structual foam and cap with 3" of wood them glass it in. I only use epoxy as it sticks to everything, dries slow and it is easy to work with. Here is a supplier, jgreer.com for foam and epoxy. American diesel is the go to for Lehman parts.
Fuel burn 2.5 gallons at 8 knots and 3 with the gen. running.
Good luck and have fun don't make it a chore work at a relaxed pace keeps the stress down. J.Ted Duncan

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. awp. Even though you have the same model, it could be in name only. Could be a radically different boat.
Mr. PNW. She shows well depending on the age of the pictures. I think the early MT's, at least some of them, had plywood houses covered with a thinnish layer of FRP. Leaky windows? Some of that ply may be gone. The price seems low but I have no idea what the market is currently doing. I'd say she's definitely worth a look. But of course a survey is needed particularly with the known problems of window leaks and stringer repair. You never know unless you look. Make the run from the PNW to NC a mini-vacation but bring your parkas.....

 

[PNW_Steve]

The stringers are hollow boxes capped with a 3" piece of mahogany. The fiberglass provides the strength. Take the top off pour in structual foam and cap with 3" of wood them glass it in. I only use epoxy as it sticks to everything, dries slow and it is easy to work with. Here is a supplier, jgreer.com for foam and epoxy. American diesel is the go to for Lehman parts.
Fuel burn 2.5 gallons at 8 knots and 3 with the gen. running.
Good luck and have fun don't make it a chore work at a relaxed pace keeps the stress down. J.Ted Duncan

Sounds easier than I would have expected. Also sounds like more fun than the bathroom remodel I am working on today...... well used waste plumbing yuk!

Thank you for the info

 

[PNW_Steve]

Greetings,
Mr. awp. Even though you have the same model, it could be in name only. Could be a radically different boat.
Mr. PNW. She shows well depending on the age of the pictures. I think the early MT's, at least some of them, had plywood houses covered with a thinnish layer of FRP. Leaky windows? Some of that ply may be gone. The price seems low but I have no idea what the market is currently doing. I'd say she's definitely worth a look. But of course a survey is needed particularly with the known problems of window leaks and stringer repair. You never know unless you look. Make the run from the PNW to NC a mini-vacation but bring your parkas.....

My understanding is that the pictures are a couple years old. From the sound of it the issues that it has wouldn't keep me off of the water and could be handled over a period of time.

As to the parkas..... We are finally back above freezing after a stretch of single digit to low teens weather. If it is any colder in NC I will have to send the Admiral and let her look at the boat I'll stay home and tend the fireplace.

 

[RT Firefly]

Greetings,
Mr. PNW. As I stated in post #9, the vessel you're looking at may be radically different than Mr. awp's so a stringer repair may be easier OR more difficult than what Mr. awp experienced. Maybe ask the broker for pictures of what was done and what has to be done if possible. Get some close-up shots of the interior "damage".
As I said, she shows nicely and doesn't appear to be a total wreck.
Just saw your post. New Bern got in the neighborhood of 10" of snow I understand.....I'm about done with this.

 

[Moonstruck]

I would check to see if that is a molded GRP deck house, or just fiberglass over plywood. With the signs of water under the windows glass over plywood can be big trouble.

 

[db2]

I recently passed on a Californian 43 CPMY with a rotted stringer but otherwise in good shape. The surveyor said about 30k to fix the stringer and I think he may have been low. It was a fresh water boat and the thinking was that when the trim tabs were screwed into the stringers it allowed fresh water to leak in and start the rot process. I spent several hours in the engine room with a ball peen hammer tapping the stringers for hollow sounds. The suspect stringer sounded hallow and I am sure that the wood was rotten from the engine, under the aft cabin and to the transom. The floor in the aft cabin showed some distortion. Think about this, it would not be an in the water repair and the boat would need to hauled out for quite some time to let things dry out, to destroy the sole in the aft cabin and to cut the stringer open to find god only knows what. The hull would need to be carefully supported on stands so that no preload was placed in the stringer area and so that the hull was back to as built shape. I did not walk away from this deal, I ran.

 

[psneeld]

Sorta depends....the assistance towing boat I run hasn't had any wood where it should be (stringers) for at least the last 5 years of hard use...planning hull, hard pounding and numerous groundings both fast and slow..including pounding the keel in small surf...

It's just the glass skin where the stringers are connecting to the transom now and there's no sign of stress cracking or anything.

These boats were built to standards that really weren't all that close on engineering tolerances that I can tell...hence the "overbuilt reputation" they have. Like my hull...a 5x6foot area had severe delamination half way through the layups and right under a fuel tank...not telling how long it had been like that before I bought her and she went on her bottom from Florida to Jersey in early spring.

I really think many boats can be repaired by owners doing some grunt work and calling in pros where they feel uncomfortable and the costs are 1/3 or less than yard estimates. Now if you have to rip apart interior joinery and expect t to look factory when done...yeah that's a different story...but rebuilding a stringer shouldn't be $30,000 unless tearing apart the interior to the point of massive rebuilding.

A naval architect might also be consulted for a reasonable fee to see if the stringer could just be filled with structural foam added through some drilled holes and maybe another layer or two of glass...actually there several alternative that I think could be done and not necessarily break the bank.

If the rest of the boat was good...ONE bad stringer or short sections of 2 may not scare me...unless they were just the tip of the obvious iceberg.

 

[Datenight]

PNW Steve,

Stringers can be replaced. It just depends how much time you want to spend and how easy they are to get at. I replaced everything in the old boat except for the ones under the engine which were good. The rest were trashed.

182 Shows lazeret, fuel tanks port and stbd.
005 stringers cut out, sawzall was invaluable.
371 Stringers layed out in the yard.
373 Stringers fliped over, you can see how all the plywood was completly rotted. When I picked them up after cutting the wet wood just fell out.
014 Rounding over top edges of new main stringer.

Once the old stringers were cut out I laminated plywood to about 2.25 ". The pieces were all coated with vinylester before recoating and screwing together. The screws were just to clamp and keep the laminates in place.

The pieces were then bonded in place with vinylester bonding compound from Legnos in Groton, CT. Where the stringer met the hull I made a smooth radius with a soda bottle. Next step was three layers of fiberglass up and over the stringer which I had the yard do. The yard part was about a boat buck.

I think making the new stringers as wide as the old ones and of solid plywood was way overkill. But, it was cheap and easy. I spent less than a boat buck on materials and replaced much more than the pictures show. The whole job cost less than $2,000.00.

Having said all of that, psneeld's idea of drilling holes, adding foam and two layers of glass would have been a lot easier!

Rob

 

[CEC]

typically foam, balsa or ply

I know this is an old thread, but its topic is exactly something I'm looking at right now while searching in the forum. Some of the replies in this thread have confused me a little. Particularly the last line of Datenights reply, and awpptdt suggestion of foaming the stringers. In regard's to stringer cores on these boats were they typically foam, balsa or ply? Anyone know around how much of a % of the stringer structure strength is glass vs. core? It would seem to me if there was foam or balsa in the stringers after many years it would be doing very little to increase the strength.

I have a spot up towards the top side of one stringer where its seems hollow by tapping sound.. Someone before me had mounted something there, so I'm thinking some moist air ext. could have entered. Does the typical tapping on stringers in these boats provide any useful information if they are basically not really cored?

The outside of the stringer is real thick heavy duty layup and is very structurally sound. I'm considering opening up a small portion of the cap 6" or so and having a look in this one spot. Is it a bad idea to open them up in a spot and clean then re-foam a small spot (providing that's what's in there)? Seems like a cap patch could just make a weak spot, and after reading this thread, I don't want to do more harm then good in my quest for "fixing things" that are not really broken.

 

[jrockey]

The wife and I own an MT40 (1977) the stringer issue is common in these boats due to age especially under the single Lehman. He is correct I believe in the single engine model about the stringers in the rear not being structural the rear is recessed and supported differently according to an engineer I engaged to direct me in the engine stringer repair. The forward repair was accomplished with engine raised stringer saddled with a substantial aluminum casing and the hollow cavity filled with epoxy. The fuel burn is about 1 gph @1750 rpm produces 5 to 6 knots, @ 2000 rpm fuel burn 1.7 gph produces 7 to 8 knots (I consider this max speed) I do have a 30" prop custom made for the boat, the 1 knot difference in both cases is about the load carried. i.e. full fuel, water, etc. fuel tank cap 400 gal (2800 lb appx) 250 gal water (2000 lb appx) and of course waste water. We have traveled around 2800 miles on the Great Loop and side trips in 2 years stopping in winter and wherever else interests us in no hurry! We will depart Manistee, MI early June to head down the rivers to the Gulf. These are sturdy boats we have had few difficulties but there is always something to fix. The single engine is a little more challenging in the windy docking scenario but easily mastered with practice. If you have any other questions I will be glad to share my experience with this craft with you. Best of luck with whatever craft you land in. We are very pleased with our choice, we purchased the MT40 specifically for the loop and have no regrets to date.

 

[alormaria]

1975 Marine Trader Trawler Double Cabin Power Boat For Sale - www.yachtworld.com

That boat is a 34 not a 40.

There is a world of difference between an MT 34 and a MT 40.

 

[siestakey]

there is a MT for sale on FB trawlers forsale