brian eiland
Guru
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2013
- Messages
- 933
- Location
- USA & Thailand
- Vessel Name
- RunningTide
- Vessel Make
- 37 Louisiane catamaran
Ran across this today while I was looking up info on another Taiwan built trawler,....always respected this gentleman's submissions over on another boating forum
Bob Austin said:Kha Shing is an old and well respected Taiwan yard (They have built over 1500 boats from 40 to 140 feet in length. Names which they have built include:, Kha Shing (of course), Vista, Spendrift, Monte Fino--and a number of other boats just to certain dealer's "name" and specs.
As noted, there are problems with any of the Taiwan boats. If these are real teak decks, or if the boat had teak decks and they were replaced with plastic teak--run away. These boats did NOT have black iron tanks (although advertised as such) it was just sheet steel, and yes they need replacing at 20 to 25 years. The replacement is expensive and you have to cut up the saloon floor (or some take a hunk out of the side or bottom of the boat--no thanks!
The boat may go 10 knots--but that is not cruising speed. 8 knots is more like it. Once over 7 knots one starts using excessive amounts of fuel--and 10 knots is over the speed by LWL as noted above. The Cummins 150 is the B 5.9 block, rated at 115 hp NA and turboed up to 300 hp in some applications. 150 hp is a good rating and you should have no problem with parts.
If you consider this boat, have a good surveror look at it. Specificallly the decks for soft places and underlay rot. Cabin windows, and rot around the windows. Core rot under the deck house sides and cabin sides, as well as flying bridge. I think that there are some better buys than this out there, but if you like the layout, Kha Shing is a respected builder.