Seawind Catamarans Built in Vietnam - Build Quality vs Owner Quality

[Foreverclueless]

Folks, I'm in the market for a catamaran and heavily looking at a Seawind that was built at the Vietnam yard during the middle of Covid. I'm not looking to start any battles but I'm seeing some items that I'd like to sort out from either being the builder or the current owner.

If you have any first hand experience then please DM me. I don't want to poop on the brand or the current owner.

[DougM]

I own a vietnam built Seawind 1190 sport, delivered in 2020.

Everything Seawind built was exceptional. Fit and finish of the boat itself was absolutely top rate, and I'm very happy with the overall design, and the little things are very well thought out and executed.

But I did have some problems:

1. They did not properly winterize the boat before shipping it across the north atlantic in march. It went through a serious cold snap on the way, and as a result there was some freeze damage. They were extremely attentive about getting it rectified to my satisfaction. Also they had indepth conversations with me about what they were doing to address the issue so this doesn't happen to someone else.

2. two of the three heat exchangers in my hydronic heating system had defects from webasto. I wish they had caught them at the factory. Seems they were not particularly experienced at heating systems. But again it seems like they have a quality system and i'd expect from my conversations that they would address it.

My last area of concern is with electrical and electronic, and it's not seawind (installation and wiring is exceptionally neat, professional, and organized compared to most other boats i've owned or worked on. All the systems were well designed and integrated and performed great. But it is mastervolt B&G. I like the gear, but if you own anything of those brands, you are basically on your own. I've had trouble with the autopilot keypad (replaced once), and now, after several years, the autopilot just dies once in a while. Sucks on a zero visibility night watch. It comes back if i shut off power and restart (jeez, ya'd think it is microsoft ). I'm living with it, but it doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy about longer trips. Also, my mastervolt inverter charger just died. Just 'he's dead Jim ..' everything external to it is ok, such as voltages on terminals.

So these are B&G / Navico / Mastervolt issues, not seawind. I'm ok with electronics dying, **** happens, accept that i have to deal with it. The autopilot keypad happened on warranty period, Seawind just sent me a new one. Awesome service. But the rest is post warranty, and i've tried to deal with the manufacturers to get service. but as many forum members may know, they've all been bought up by an outfit called Brunswick (private equity rollup perhaps?) and there is essentially zero service. I've spent many hours on the phone, and sent 10's of emails ... nothing !

Conclusions - seawind veitnam has absolutely top quality, and my service experience has been great. But i would never buy anything from Brunswick if i had the choice. Their gear is fine but **** goes wrong and they are so just not there it amazed me. hope that changes, would buy there stuff again if they figured out service.

doug

[Back sailing]

Off topic a bit but still Seawind related. I bought a storm damaged 1000xl built in Ozzieland and as I've moved through the boat fixing most systems and rewiring I've gotten to thinking that I haven't noticed anywhere that the electrical system is grounded to the water. I may have missed this as I am still going through things but I wonder if anyone knows what the practice was for Seawind in grounding the 1000XL models. This little ship did not have 120V shorepower and what got me thinking about this was adding incoming power and contemplating grounding the 120V. I had the boat out of water for quite a while and I don't recall seeing any grounding plate below the waterline but, to tell the truth, I wasn't thinking about this at the time and might not have noticed. Anyway, any info on Seawind practice in grounding electrical and/or the rigging would be very helpful

[Foreverclueless]

In the 1260 the grounding plate is under the floor in the port aft head.

I recommend asking this question in the seawind facebook group. Took a few weeks to be added but there are several active owners.

[Foreverclueless]

Ended up buying this vessel and am currently going through each and every system. The prior owner did an ok job but like any boat it has its issues.

I determined that the biggest issues found during the survey were owner related and not craftsmanship from the builder. Nothing that isn’t manageable.

The one callout against seawind is the fuel tank inspection ports.

The poly fuel tanks have vetus inspection ports. Alone these ports do not seem cruiser worthy as they use the gasket to hold themselves in place. Google “vetus fuel tank cap” if you wish. It’s like a big cork on a fuel tank.

To stop the cork from popping out, seawind used a wedge that is braced against the bottom of the cabin floor.

To me, this is bananas and I guess someone at seawind thought so as well because they sent out replacement kits with proper inspection ports that had backing plates.

My vessel does not have this upgrade yet but soon will.