1988 48' North Sea Cutter

[mollymark]

Greetings all,
My wife and I are considering an 88 48' North Sea cutter. We are concerned with some old stories about the
quality control of Taiwan yards in the 1980s. Anyone have some thoughts on the subject? We have been told Albin only made this model for a very brief time. Was there a problem with the design?
Thank you for any help, Mollymark

[jleonard]

I don't know that boat, however a Mainship friend of mine used to be a boat broker back in that era and did some serious looking at the Taiwan yards at that time as he was considering taking them on in his business. This is what I remember that he told me when I was looking at Albins.
He said there were 2 basic yards that built most of the boats. The big boats, 40 and over, were built in the Kaushing (I know my spelling is off) yard mainly because the beam was larger and the path to the ships for transport allowed the larger boats.
This was on average the better of the two yards for whatever reason. Supposedly there were "crews" made up mainly of family members that would build the entire boat. So if they happened to excell at woodworking, then that boat would have really nice woodwork, it would be well sealed, etc.
Some crews were excellent overall, and some were so so.
Hence, some boats were excellent, some were so so.

[RicM]

There were only 9 made. The boat was an attempt at collaboration between Ray Hunt (Hunt Yachts) and Fred Peters (Albin). It turned out poorly from a business respect. The original boats were said to have many quality control issues, the most apparent was the seating of window glass that allowed water to leak in and ruin the lovely woodwork on the interior.

The specifics below are 2nd or 3d hand, but from reliable sources. The two boats of that vintage that are currently on the market have other issues that put both in the category of "project boats". The Vermont boat is on Lake Champlain and has been on the hard for 3 years. At that point it's a crap shoot as to whether the boat actually runs or not. Diesels do not take well to sitting idle. Getting that boat in the water and running well enough to do a sea (lake) trial could end up being rather costly. If it does not run and you can buy it cheaply "as is" you've still got to get it somewhere to work on it, a costly and complicated undertaking. While there are no doubt good diesel mechanics in the North Woods of Vermont, this is not a project that most would be familiar with. It will be an expensive learning curve for both of you. All systems in a boat deteriorate rapidly when unused. Mice eat the wiring, hoses dry out and crack, and all things metal seem to continue their slow evolution into oxide at a faster pace. The word I heard is that the family of the (deceased) owner thinks it's worth a lot more than it actually is as it sits. If you could buy it for $50-60K and were willing to put a year and $100K into it you'd have a pretty nice boat for short money. A first class renovation would be more expensive.

The boat in CT has some similar problems, I have heard. It was (is) Fred Peters' personal yacht and has been badly neglected for some time. It may have been run more recently and it is, of course, closer to major boating centers were you could find folks more familiar with this type of project to work on it. It is, unfortunately, listed with <>Yacht Sales and the listing broker Bob Milano, is somewhat notorious on this forum. I will not say anything further on that topic, but I highly recommend that you do a search on this forum for those 2 names and read up on other people's experiences with them.

On first glance both boats appear to offer a lot for the asking price. The issue is that a 48' boat is a very expensive undertaking even if it's in pretty good shape, which by all reports neither of these are. You have to look deeply into your pocket book and your soul and be very honest with yourself about your ability to absorb pain and part with dollars.

[mollymark]

Ric M:

Many thanks for your input...you have saved us alot of mileage with your sage advice. Just had a nice lunch in Wickford coming back from looking at a boat in Westerly...what a lovely town. Molly