Models reviewed were 1997, 1998
& 1999.
We've often wondered why
U.S. boat builders have left the trawler style boat market to
the Taiwanese. Even the ones that come with US designer names
are still built in the orient. So it was a bit of a surprise when
this Mainship popped up a few years ago. Apparently it has caught
on well since we've surveyed three of them in the last year.
With a base sampling of three of this model,
including a brand new one contrasted with one that's four years
old, it's more than fair to say that Mainship should be able to
give the importers a serious challenge with this one. We are left
to wonder why more builders don't challenge this market niche.
As a low cost, price buster type vessel, it offers good value
for what you get. While it has the inevitable shortcomings, most
of the trade-offs made to keep the price down are fairly intelligent
and reasonable.
Most of the quality trade-offs that we observed
were not in the realm of seriously detrimental. For example, the
painted aluminum window frames appear to have been properly finished.
After four years, there was no corrosion appearing. On the other
hand, the sliding door had steel rollers on it that went kaput.
Further keeping the cost down are all aluminum hand railings and
an absolute minimum of hardware. That's fine with me. I'd rather
have no hardware than a bunch of plastic junk that will have to
be replaced in a few years. Give me a finger hole in a cabinet
door rather than a plastic latch. Having nothing is better than
having garbage. That seems to be the idea here, and it should
come strongly recommended.
Layout Besides being an economical single
engine trawler, that's what sells this boat. Very large bridge
with extended deck, large cockpit, fair sized salon, but slightly
cramped forward quarters. A good trade off here is a small stateroom
for a larger head area, and that's what you got here. It
is eminently useable without mashing your head or skinning elbows.
All fiberglass liner makes for easy cleaning and upkeep. The master
stateroom is a nicely decorated place to flop for the night, attached
to a cave style guest that is more or less a nighttime stowage
compartment for the kids. It extends back up under the galley
with plenty of bed space but little head room.
The salon has some teak veneered cabinets built
mainly within a fiberglass liner including the overhead. The wood
work is reasonably well done, and has more than one coat of varnish
on it. The lower helm is nice to have but quite cramped and a
whole lot better than nothing when it's nasty outside. With a
Princess III gas range for serious cooking beyond sandwich making,
counter space is a bit cramped, but you do get a good size sink
that one could actually wash something in. The only problem was
that there are fabric curtains hanging directly over the stove
top. Oops!
Lots of windows make it airy and bright with
overall excellent visibility for piloting from below. The extended
hardtop and large aft deck sacrifices salon space making her a
more outdoorsy type, particularly in conjunction with the large
platform extension and transom door. And with the very large bridge
deck, this makes for a good party boat, too. With six people on
board and a good traffic pattern, there was no cramping or problems
of someone always blocking a narrow passageway. There aren't any
narrow spaces.
The fiberglass molding work is good and bad.
In some places it's very nice, in others less good. The forward
cabin trunk is noticeably lumpy and there were obvious flaws in
the deck non-skid surfaces. It was also apparent that quite a
bit of gel coat break outs during demolding had occurred, resulting
in quite a bit of patchwork that was starting to show. Gel coat
damage fixes always age to show a different color and become obvious
over time. That's happening here, although not glaringly so. Also,
the bottom of the 1997 model was beginning to develop blisters.
Mechanical & Electrical The
systems are minimalist. There's little plumbing and fewer through
hulls. What you get is pretty good stuff and the installations
are relatively neat with few screwups. It was nice to note that
the DC system came with two 8D batteries and none of this car
battery stuff.
The electric panel is located all the way up
to the overhead, which is very nice. The only problem is that
it has no cover and the breakers can easily be inadvertently
switched by someone loosing their balance. It's a dual 30 amp
system with a dedicated air conditioning circuit. The 8 kw Onan
generator handled the load adequately, but this one is one of
those 3600 RPM engines like the Mouse That Roared. You gotta be
half deaf to be able to live with noise one of these things make.
One of our clients could not and he rejected the boat because
of it.
 |
| This is as far as the generator sound box
cover will open. |
Of course, with a single engine, engine access
is no problem. What is a problem though is the generator stuffed
under the cockpit deck in such way that it's hard to deal with.
In addition, it has a steel sound box that was already suffering
from an aft bilge section that did not have proper drainage. The
generator is mounted so low that the base is getting wet and rusting
badly. Of the three boats we looked at, this was the only one
with this poor arrangement. The others were different, so this
may have since been changed.
Another problem is that the engine and generator
exhaust, plus a number of through hull fittings under the starboard
side of the cockpit is completely unreachable. There is absolutely
no way to get at these things because extra large plastic water
tanks are installed. Basically, the cockpit deck hatch arrangement
is badly laid out and would benefit from redesign.
The Caterpillar 3116 engines continue to develop
problems and this one was no exception. Two of the last three
we looked at had problems of exhaust in the cooling system. Word
has it that the 31 series Cats have cylinder head design problems
and that Cat has declined to do a general recall. They don't offer
to fix it until it breaks, which leads you to wonder what they
say if the warranty runs out before it does. The Cummins 6BTA
engines are a better power choice.
We don't know if they're standard, but all three
boats had windlasses using rope anchor rodes when only a chain
rode will work with the type of windlass and the design of the
above deck chain locker. Rope will not feed through a chain gypsy,
and there is no provision for feeding a rope into the chain locker.
Performance Typical of these semi-displacement
style hulls, performance above its ten knot cruising speed is
just plain goofy. In all likelihood, the swim platform extension,
which is really a hull extension, causes the hull to squat and
throw a huge stern wave. The bottom of the platform profile does
not follow the hull contour, but angles upward from the point
of attachment. We don't know what the designers were thinking
here, but perhaps they weren't. In any case, the boat will do
up to 14 knots (totally empty), but basically one should conclude
that it is not intended to go that fast. It would be very uneconomical
and very hard on the engine, so figure this as a 10-11 knot boat.
Of course, that's what you'd expect it to be any way, so the platform
thing is irrelevant unless you are a speed demon who mistakenly
bought a trawler.
Sea Keeping We had nice four foot
seas in a good tide rip. Overall handling is ho-hum on all points
but following seas where you really get stuffed. It wallows and
is very hard to control. Typical of keel boats, it tracks a little
too well, so that pulling it off the course it wants to take requires
a lot of effort. A single rudder on the smallish side is
no help. It does not have the large trawler type rudder stepped
on a keel skeg like it should for a single screw boat. On the
other hand, heading up wind it was quite dry, as you would expect
it to be with all that bow flare. No doubt about it, this is basically
a fair weather sailor for which you'll have to pick and choose
your voyaging days.
Overall, we consider the 350 Trawler superior
to most Taiwan offerings in a variety of ways. This one achieves
lightness without major sacrifice in overall strength, low cost
without giving the appearance or feel of a floating camper. The
overall design and use of materials seems quite sensible to me.
I liked the fiberglass interior liners garnished with a moderate
amount of teak, mainly in the right places. You find sensible
type stuff like Corian style plastic counter tops up under the
opening forward windshield, as well as just the galley.
Nice hand holds here and there, along with other sensible touches.
It can be expected to hold up fairly well (Cat 3116's excluded)
as the clock keeps on ticking, and certainly won't take
a shop vacuum to your bank account year after year.
| These
are "reviews", not surveys, and bear no resemblance
to our survey reports.
We do not publish the results of the surveys that we perform.
Please note that the purpose of these reviews is educational,
to help you discern the differences in quality among boats generally.
They are not offered as a means to help you evaluate any particular
boat builder. We have no other reviews than those posted. |
Posted October 27, 1999
