I have chartered Leopards quite often, most recently the new 40 for a month. Although I love the live-ability and creature comfort of these boats in sheltered waters I'd be reluctant to own one because, for me, the build quality is problematic.
During my month long charter of the under one year old Leopard we experienced an undue number of problems and watching the
repair process was quite informative. For example, one week into the charter a significant
cabin top leak developed above the aft starboard berth (see photo). I watched as the mechanics attempted to locate the leak and was somewhat shocked at what I saw. The water turned out to be coming in from the
cockpit steering station located immediately above this
cabin. They tried to remove the instrument panel but found this to be virtually impossible due to the manner in which the panel had been assembled at the factory so that the only way to actually free the panel would have been to cut fiberglass! Even to go as far as they did required cutting some
adhesive sealant. In the end, this 'repair' was accomplished by squirting an abundance of 5200 all around the perimeter of the panel. I pity the next guy who needs to access the back of this instrument panel.
Later one of the hatches snapped in two when one of my crew was opening it from the inside in the usual manner. They were not applying an undue amount to pressure, just the normal amount of force that one needs to push open a
hatch. (photo) Maybe this was just a fluke or manufacturing defect of the
hatch. However it left me feeling like the
hardware was of a lower quality than one would want in an ocean going boat.
A few days later the
refrigerator unit quit working (photo). I'm very familiar with this particular type of
refrigerator unit because it is the one currently provided on all the Leopard cats. I've found that it has what I consider to be a design flaw - again, just my opinion so please don't bash me too hard on this. I've found that the
compressor on these units is located inside a sealed cabinet space. The problem with this is that in order to cool a refrigerator/freezer you must remove heat and this 'heat' is released in the air by the fins on the
compressor. Therefore when you place a compressor into a poorly ventilated space the heat will not be removed in an efficient manner causing the unit to have to run more than is necessary - using valuable electricity.
We also had a couple of pieces of cabinet joinery give way and upon examination it was easy to see why. It looked like in both instances the joint was being held together by some form of glue, but because the 'wood' being held had a synthetic plastic surface the glue didn't hold. In both of these cases I believe that the joint should have been secured with fasteners in addition to the glue but they apparently took a shortcut and went with the glue alone.
I could go on with a number of other 'issues' I have with the construction/design but I think you get the idea. I think these boats are perfectly built for charter purposes, near coastal cruising and/or going from marina to marina but could prove unduly troublesome in the long run for
liveaboard cruisers who are in
remote locations where mechanical support is hard to find and costly.
)
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