Thru-hull tip for recent-ish Hanse owners

[ohthetrees]

Originally Posted by dhenline

Since I am somewhat new to this. If I understand this correctly, Hanse (a boat I am considering) uses a high quality through hull but a low quality valve on the inside which corrodes in about five years>. the only good news is it is easy to exchange out. My question would be could someone just have these done , exchanged out, before taking delivery? Or perhaps at the fist haul out.
Can it be changed in the water? probably pretty tricky

You have it right. They (on my boat anyway) used Tru Design skin fittings, which are good in my opinion. It’s worth a try to see if they would install the Tru Design valves (plus reinforcing collars, which are very cheap and easy to install at the same time). But I wouldn’t hold my breath. They are a production make, not custom. Maybe if you offered to supply the valves and collars at build time? Failing that, at a haul out in the first few years. It isn’t a hard project.

One gotcha is that true design uses NPS (non tapered threads) for skin fitting, valves, tail-pieces, everything. Most manufacturers use similarly use NPS for the skin fitting, but unlike tru design, they use tapered NPT for valves and tail pieces. That’s for USA threads, I don’t know anything about euro.

So if you want to use tru-design, you should use their tail-pieces too. It’s a very nice system, strong and not expensive, but it is not mix-and-match with “regular” fittings from a marine store.

[Jim Cate]

If necessary, you could do an in the water valve swap with the aid of a diver, who simply holds a "plumber's friend" or similar item over the outside of the through hull whilst you, inside, swap the valve. If well prepared, each valve should only take a few minutes, and so not too much diver time to pay for.

Jim

[MikeCondor]

"Happy as" now- I've had them all switched out to Tru-Design. A friend is buying a new Hanse 418. I suggested he ask that either they install Tru-Design from the start, or only put in the thru hulls, not the seacocks. The thru hulls on Hanse are synthetic, but removing the old metal seacocks damaged the thru hulls and required them to be replaced too.