True Kit Boats

[Thomas1985]

Bought a true kit Discovery 4.0 for part time tender use, part time camper trailer use, and part time general runabout at marina when not traveling.

Probably wee bit much for the tender duty, but it will be excellent for the other uses. Thing is yuuuuuge! We will probably by a small tender for dedicated tender use and a tiny outboard someday. Wait until we’re cruising more for that though…

True Kit customer service had been excellent. I assembled the boat when it arrived. It was easy and I’m impressed with quality.

Suzuki 20hp shows up today so we’ll get to use it this weekend. I’ll share my experiences, but so far I’m really impressed with these guys.

They even called after it was delivered to thank me for the business and confirm I was satisfied.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

Bought a true kit Discovery 4.0 for part time tender use, part time camper trailer use, and part time general runabout at marina when not traveling.

Probably wee bit much for the tender duty, but it will be excellent for the other uses. Thing is yuuuuuge! We will probably by a small tender for dedicated tender use and a tiny outboard someday. Wait until we’re cruising more for that though…

True Kit customer service had been excellent. I assembled the boat when it arrived. It was easy and I’m impressed with quality.

Suzuki 20hp shows up today so we’ll get to use it this weekend. I’ll share my experiences, but so far I’m really impressed with these guys.

They even called after it was delivered to thank me for the business and confirm I was satisfied.

Still love mine but build quality is not the best. After 2.5 years I have a slow leak in one of the tubes and a few straps and rings have simply unglued or ripped away under minimal stress, along with the cover for the floor which is coming away.


I also met another cruiser who did not have anything good to say about his, which at 2 years was really coming apart with multiple glue issues all over the tender - This started just after a year and true kit told him to just glue it all back, which he did but it has not lasted.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by UFO

Still love mine but build quality is not the best. After 2.5 years I have a slow leak in one of the tubes and a few straps and rings have simply unglued or ripped away under minimal stress, along with the cover for the floor which is coming away.


I also met another cruiser who did not have anything good to say about his, which at 2 years was really coming apart with multiple glue issues all over the tender - This started just after a year and true kit told him to just glue it all back, which he did but it has not lasted.

Thanks for this report. I was considering a TrueKit. Something to think about......

[Thomas1985]

Have you sprayed with soapy water to chase down the leak? It’s almost certainly a hole or loose valve as I believe all seams are thermo welded on these.

Out of curiosity do you deflate regularly? One of my initial thoughts was folding it up has to be stressful on the fabric, but I honestly don’t know.

[UFO]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

Have you sprayed with soapy water to chase down the leak? It’s almost certainly a hole or loose valve as I believe all seams are thermo welded on these.

Out of curiosity do you deflate regularly? One of my initial thoughts was folding it up has to be stressful on the fabric, but I honestly don’t know.

Not checked yet as literally happened 2 days ago and noticed it after a 3 day sail. No it has never been deflated.

[Thomas1985]

Hopefully you find a leak you can patch up easily.

Ours will probably be left out a lot in summer, but then packed around a lot in fall and winter for camping trips.

I’m pretty excited to see how it does long run. Really cool design.

If it goes 4 years in good shape I’ll be happy. Portability was a priority for us and I know it won’t age like a rigid hull.

[fxykty]

We have a True Kit Discovery 330 that is now 7 years old. We are just about to get our 3rd floor - due to their high pressure they are the weakest link and from what I can tell the main seam of the floor is glued, not welded and in our case developing multiple leaks. Otherwise, we are happy with the dinghy. We did get chaps made for it 2 years ago. The main seams are welded, but the interior divider between the front and rear chambers is glued - we heard it rip itself free one day when we were dealing with a leaking inflation fitting and the front chamber was empty and the rear chamber was near full.

35* C heat is hard on inflatable dinghies. We have had an oar lock and several rings peel away in the last few months - simply glue them back on using two-part PVC glue and they’re fine, at least for a while. Or use Sikaflex, which we’ve done for the oar lock and one of the ring bases since we’ve used up all of our PVC glue. We also keep it quite soft to prevent it getting too tight with the midday heat.

[Thomas1985]

How much did they charge for the replacement floor?

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

How much did they charge for the replacement floor?

NZD395, excluding GST.

We asked them to deliver it to friends who live in Auckland and who are coming to Bali for a vacation at the end of this month. Otherwise, the delivery fee would have been as much again.

[Thomas1985]

That’s not too bad of price at least. Thankfully there’s a Florida location now to avoid shipping from Auckland.

Motor arrived. Ya… this is going to be little heavy for a tender lol

But! It’s going to be totally awesome for runabout duty.

For a dedicated tender you would want to buy one small enough to run with a 6hp

[mvweebles]

My use-case is for a second, smaller dinghy. I have a AB 310 Aluminum RIB with Tohatsu 20hp. Nice setup, but difficult to pull up on a beach, bit awkward to launch from the boat deck of my trawler, and is a bit of a theft target in Central America. I used to have a small PoS PVC roll-up that was easy to inflate to run to a beach from anchorage so decided to get one (I still have the 3.3 Merc OB).

Having read this, I'll go with a small Achilles 260 hypalon with inflatable floor (Defender - HERE). . Not much more expensive ($2400 USD) and should out-last TrueKit or TakaCat by a decade or more

[Thomas1985]

That was our thought as well. Buy a tiny tender that can take a 2.5 hp and keep it in Davits.

Get us to and from the beach or dock.

This thing will be very hard to deploy directly from the boat.

[mvweebles]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

That was our thought as well. Buy a tiny tender that can take a 2.5 hp and keep it in Davits.

Get us to and from the beach or dock.

This thing will be very hard to deploy directly from the boat.

The small PVC one (el-cheapo West Marine roll-up floor) I had years ago was pretty easy to inflate and deploy - less than 10-minutes (kept it under a sunbrella 'shower cap' on the top deck). My Merc 3.3 is super lightweight and doesn't take much muscle to mount. But every boat is different. And that was 20+ years ago for me.

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Thomas1985

Bought a true kit Discovery 4.0 for part time tender use, part time camper trailer use ...
... Probably wee bit much for the tender duty, but it will be excellent for the other uses. Thing is yuuuuuge! We will probably by a small tender ...

No kidding: 13' 1" x 5' 11"

[Thomas1985]

We are going to use it most often as a runabout at the marina or boat for camping/ vacations.

It’ll be totally awesome to throw in truck bed deflated and take to keys this winter.

We knew it would be questionably large when pulling tender duty on a sailing trip, but we decided to prioritize the other uses. We also aren’t able to cruise right now for extended periods do to age/ work schedule. This summer, for example, it never would have been a problem.

We took a trip to Pentwater, but stayed at dock. There was a park right in front of our slip. So in that case we could have just carried the outboard to the grass and assembled on land. There was a zero depth entry dinghy beach adjacent.

It’ll be pretty rare we for next 5 years we actually deflate it, stow, and deploy at anchorage. Most often it be transported by vehicle to marina, on camper trip, vacations etc… By then the boat will be aging anyway.

I think we did well prioritizing todays needs instead of tomorrows. That said… I think I’ll buy a dedicated SV tender eventually. Small and light as I can stand to ride in.