Thanks for your concern on this, but the engines have some serious issues including bent push rods etc.
On the sea trial, I was going to walk away because the engines were making noises. The
broker, in an attempt to not watch a possible
sale go off into the horizon, contacted the owner and told him what I said. They talked for a minute or two and then he hung up and promptly told me that the owner would pay to have both engines rebuilt!
I thought that was a pretty good deal, because we were in a bind and needed a
boat pretty quickly and they were willing to put that promise in the sales
contract.. so the engines were taken out at Capital
Marine in Austin
Texas and shipped over to Top Cat
Marine somewhere around lake LBJ in
Texas. I live in
Florida so I kind of left everything up to them.
The engines were eventually rebuilt and reinstalled with a subsequent sea trial. I opted out of the sea trial because I live in Florida and that just would have been extra
money with what I expected to be two good engines performing flawlessly.
The sea trial was good, as I was told, and the
boat was subsequently shipped on a lowboy from Austin Texas to the
Cape Coral Florida area. When splashed, my wife came up to the fly bridge and told me that the engines were making all kinds of noises. I could not bring the boat back because there was another boat already on the sling waiting to be splashed with another one in line after that. I made it down to Wiggins pass having to shut down the starboard engine and run on just the port which was now missing and sputtering.
Upon calling Top cat Marine, they blamed the
installation over at Capitol Marine. Capital Marine blamed Top cat.. you can see where this was going. I could have taken
legal action but decided that I would need a lawyer to go between Florida and Texas, and even if I did win, there is no guarantee I would be collecting any kind of compensation. I'm spelling this out here because I want everybody to be careful in
purchasing a boat. I'm a marine
surveyor and I knew there were problems with the engines, but trusted that they would be rebuilt correctly. I saw the receipts and over $30,000 was spent on rebuilding the two crusader engines. I feel it's better to spend the
money on the engines to get them right then to take a gamble on a lawyer possibly losing a case and wasting money.
Down here in Naples everybody wants to charge money - 175 an hour from the time they leave their house is it going
price, some never showed up, some showed up only once and then never came back, I had one quit in the middle of rebuilding an engine, and various other issues with different mechanics.. eight in all I believe.
Okay this is getting long in the tooth, but suffice it to say be careful on
purchasing your vessels and
purchase close to home, and get a good
surveyor and if it's a
diesel engine, get an engine surveyor too. The problems are a little too difficult to solve via a forum, but again thank you for the offer. This long post is only for those to learn by.
Once we do get the engines operating - and that will happen - the
blue water is a very versatile boat. It's my second one, having owned a 51-footer for 10 years prior to this. Easy systems, crusaders are reliable engines, and a 2 ft
draft with very good seagoing abilities. I've had mine in the
Bahamas numerous times including having to handle three to five footers with surprisingly little problem.
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