Epic fail

[Swindells]

Hi all, as i mentioned last week, my brother mike purchased a 5.3 cruiscraft with a 90 mercury last week and we took it out in the bay on the weekend for it's first real testing... here's how we went.

Conditions on Sunday were perfect, i'm sure you all took advantage also... we launched from cleveland at about 6 and all went well, the boat is suprisingly easy to launch on the aluminium tilt trailer, and away we went... until the sounder packed it in :-[ great we thought, ok pull out the beacon to beacon and stick to the main channels, so we thought we'd play it easy until we got a feel for the boat and motored over to Peel, the 2-stroke outboard performed like a dream and after adjusting the tilt we were full throttle very comfortably.

Wet a line at peel just seeing what was around with some squid on light gear and whole pillies on 30pd braid on my 15kg stick just for wishful thinking. got a few squire, reefies and grinner as expected, packed up and headed for Atkinsons to join the masses with some small success, a few decent squire and entertainment by the local dollies.

We weren't all that happy without a sounder for finding structure so we started back to the ramp drifing over a couple of sandbanks and picking up 5 flathead on the way (not a fan of flatties for the table so they all went back)

Here's where the fun starts, pulled it out no problems but when we released the bung for the below the deck approx 15 ltrs of water came gushing out "where the hell did that come from" so we took it home and sure enough there is a 60mm crack at the bow below the waterline. the previous owner had just painted over it for quick sale >:( .

Not happy with that at all, i work in boatbuilding so fixing the hull won't be an issue but this is what gets me, now we've lost confidence in the hulls integrity, i can fix these issues easy enough IF i know about them, the hull is freshly painted so now i'm wondering what other suprises are instore for me.

From experience I can tell the crack is not a new one, and the previous owner wouldn't be dumb enough to think a coat of paint would fix it, i'm left wondering what the previous owner had thought would happen if we took it out in rough conditions and that crack became much worse. Duty of care??

Has anyone esle experienced anything like this?

Cheers

Swindells

[kokomo]

you should contact him

[tinman42]

I agree with Kokomo, I don't know what official recourse you have to the seller,
but he certainly has a moral obligation.
I would be ringing him and asking him to come to the party with at least some, if not all of the repair costs.
If he is suffering from 'short arms/long pocket' syndrome them see if he will at least verify the hulls integrity for any other faults.
Good luck and don't be too put off, experience in the boat will build confidence

Bob

[Swindells]

Thanks fellas, Unfortunetly the guy is in hospital more often then not with a fairly serious illness, he was selling the boat for medical expenses which has hit my soft spot so i don't think i'll make him come to the table with repair costs, but maybe approaching him for info on the rest of the hull would be a smart course.

Many thanks.

Swindells

[Wahoo]

if he really knew about it, then i would race up the hospital and pull his pain killer drip out and and feed him something not so pleasant


Daz

[Mossy247]

hahaha saltwater in his IV... LoL I guess its abit of buyer beware I feel your pain swindells it was prob another reason he got rid of it. But seriously that isn't cool not like you can park on the side of the road and call RACQ if something goes wrong on the bay.

[kokomo]

contact him and discuss

[bennykenny]

i would tend to think that the buyer has the responsibility to get the boat checked out before he buys it, the seller wants the most money he can get for the boat, hes not going to say oh yeah theres a dirty big crack in the hull. he is not responsible for it after he sells it, imagine if that was the case with used cars,how many car yards would go out of business

[Swindells]

Bennykenny, i think theres a big difference between failing to tell the buyer theres a crack in the hull and painting over it so it can't be seen. though both are dodgy when lives are at risk.