The most interesting part of this is the obvious design flaw… they placed the air-cooled compressor in a small cubby with no air circulation and get this, it’s underneath the refrigerator… so the heat from the unit heats up the very box it’s trying to cool down!
Not exactly the German Engineering I’m familiar with!
But wait, it gets better… one day, my wife picks up the top access fridge cover and the entire thing comes crashing down on the countertop… the undersized screws obviously didn’t provide enough of a grip and the adhesive they had used to compensate, had failed… we now have two chips in the countertop that they say they can’t fix without making it look worse and a cabinet door with dents in it from where the fridge cover bounced up and dinged it… which once again they say can’t be fixed… gee, thanks!
Lets talk about safety… picture this:
We're out in 15-20 kts and 4-6 ft. seas... I'm working my way back from the foredeck after freeing up the roller furler that jams just often enough... our Hanse is pitching like crazy and I'm grabbing on to the lifeline just forward of the cockpit when she pitches again and instead of a nice secure hold, I pitch up myself, hanging on to a stanchion that's broken loose!
A subsequent inspection of the other stanchions shows that 4 out of the 14 bolts holding them down are missing!
Let me do the math for you... almost 30% of the stanchions are not fastened to the boat!
At first I was annoyed thinking they were set screws that had worked loose because of poor installation / lack of Loctite, etc. then I removed one so that I could search for replacements and realized they were well over an inch long and difficult as all heck to get out... that left only one conclusion absolute negligence on the part of those that installed the stanchions, the quality control folks that inspected the boat and Sail yard itself that should have gone over the boat before it left their yard.
Lets see, what else…
·By the time we hit Marathon, the contents of the holding tank was backing up into the bowl on a regular basis… turns out the joker valve was shot after only a few months… no problems since it was replace.
The swim platform was not properly secured. If I’m not mistaken only 1 of 8 bolts had a nut on it!
·The Anchor Windlass is close to worthless… Lewmar requires a minimum of 12” from the bottom of the windlass to the top of the chain pile… Lewmar goes on to say “There must be sufficient vertical fall for the chain or rope, even with a full locker; to draw the rode from the gypsy when hauling in.”
Hanse has left less than 12” between the bottom of the windlass and the bottom of the locker… so the chain bunches up under the windlass after every 5-10 feet!
Try holding open the cover to the chain locker with your hip, the windlass controls in your left hand while reaching down underneath the windlass with your right hand to pull out the chain before it jams all the while keeping an eye out and providing the person at the helm with instructions using hand signals… oh wait, you don’t have any free hands for hand signals do you?
Another great example of German Engineering?
· Not only am I missing a good number of manuals… (e.g. I don't have any info on the fuel/water separator, but the manual for the boat itself is completely off!
Our manual states that our water tanks are in the salon, while in fact they are in the v-berth, tankage volumes for fuel and water are off, we have no info whatsoever on parts, fuses, plumbing, etc. On the other hand, the manuals for my lowly, inferior Catalina lists every single part and has detailed diagrams which come in very handy when you need to fix something.
· They had to replace the water heater, because "rusty" sediment was still coming out of the system… turns out the darn thing had steel fittings and the entire tank was rusting away… they did replace it with a proper all stainless marine water heater.
· The fresh water system pump "spurts" more or less constantly making a real mess… they replaced it with a slightly better variable speed pump that seems to be working fine at this point… we’ll see.
· Various oxidizing components… from fasteners, to stanchions to the shrouds… the response? “It’s stainless, not stainFREE” All I can say here is that my 1981 Catalina looks better than my brand new Hanse 400e… guess they used better quality materials back then!
· And last, but not least, the quality of the finish around the various teak inserts in the cockpit leaves a lot to be desired… again, perhaps I wouldn’t be making such a big deal about it if I had purchased a Bavaria or a Beneteau (no offense intended), but I purchased a Hanse… I expected better… now I know better!
I could continue, but you get the picture… I purchased a Hanse 400e, I’m stuck with it and I’ll make the best of it, but I will not stand by and let someone else make the same mistake!
Not exactly the German Engineering I’m familiar with!
But wait, it gets better… one day, my wife picks up the top access fridge cover and the entire thing comes crashing down on the countertop… the undersized screws obviously didn’t provide enough of a grip and the adhesive they had used to compensate, had failed… we now have two chips in the countertop that they say they can’t fix without making it look worse and a cabinet door with dents in it from where the fridge cover bounced up and dinged it… which once again they say can’t be fixed… gee, thanks!
Lets talk about safety… picture this:
We're out in 15-20 kts and 4-6 ft. seas... I'm working my way back from the foredeck after freeing up the roller furler that jams just often enough... our Hanse is pitching like crazy and I'm grabbing on to the lifeline just forward of the cockpit when she pitches again and instead of a nice secure hold, I pitch up myself, hanging on to a stanchion that's broken loose!
A subsequent inspection of the other stanchions shows that 4 out of the 14 bolts holding them down are missing!
Let me do the math for you... almost 30% of the stanchions are not fastened to the boat!
At first I was annoyed thinking they were set screws that had worked loose because of poor installation / lack of Loctite, etc. then I removed one so that I could search for replacements and realized they were well over an inch long and difficult as all heck to get out... that left only one conclusion absolute negligence on the part of those that installed the stanchions, the quality control folks that inspected the boat and Sail yard itself that should have gone over the boat before it left their yard.
Lets see, what else…
·By the time we hit Marathon, the contents of the holding tank was backing up into the bowl on a regular basis… turns out the joker valve was shot after only a few months… no problems since it was replace.
The swim platform was not properly secured. If I’m not mistaken only 1 of 8 bolts had a nut on it!
·The Anchor Windlass is close to worthless… Lewmar requires a minimum of 12” from the bottom of the windlass to the top of the chain pile… Lewmar goes on to say “There must be sufficient vertical fall for the chain or rope, even with a full locker; to draw the rode from the gypsy when hauling in.”
Hanse has left less than 12” between the bottom of the windlass and the bottom of the locker… so the chain bunches up under the windlass after every 5-10 feet!
Try holding open the cover to the chain locker with your hip, the windlass controls in your left hand while reaching down underneath the windlass with your right hand to pull out the chain before it jams all the while keeping an eye out and providing the person at the helm with instructions using hand signals… oh wait, you don’t have any free hands for hand signals do you?
Another great example of German Engineering?
· Not only am I missing a good number of manuals… (e.g. I don't have any info on the fuel/water separator, but the manual for the boat itself is completely off!
Our manual states that our water tanks are in the salon, while in fact they are in the v-berth, tankage volumes for fuel and water are off, we have no info whatsoever on parts, fuses, plumbing, etc. On the other hand, the manuals for my lowly, inferior Catalina lists every single part and has detailed diagrams which come in very handy when you need to fix something.
· They had to replace the water heater, because "rusty" sediment was still coming out of the system… turns out the darn thing had steel fittings and the entire tank was rusting away… they did replace it with a proper all stainless marine water heater.
· The fresh water system pump "spurts" more or less constantly making a real mess… they replaced it with a slightly better variable speed pump that seems to be working fine at this point… we’ll see.
· Various oxidizing components… from fasteners, to stanchions to the shrouds… the response? “It’s stainless, not stainFREE” All I can say here is that my 1981 Catalina looks better than my brand new Hanse 400e… guess they used better quality materials back then!
· And last, but not least, the quality of the finish around the various teak inserts in the cockpit leaves a lot to be desired… again, perhaps I wouldn’t be making such a big deal about it if I had purchased a Bavaria or a Beneteau (no offense intended), but I purchased a Hanse… I expected better… now I know better!
I could continue, but you get the picture… I purchased a Hanse 400e, I’m stuck with it and I’ll make the best of it, but I will not stand by and let someone else make the same mistake!
Vastaukset
Vanhimmat
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