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One of the very first things you notice about this
1993 model 28'7" Express is the narrow beam of only 9'0"
which, we are told, is intended to make the boat trailerable, and
is precisely the reason why our client was looking at it. And while
there are superficial styling changes over the years, this is still
your basic 27/28/29 SeaRay Sundancer with the raised forward portion
of the cockpit, large bench helm seat, and cave man style "aft
cabin" where you can stow away a couple of youngsters if need
be.
Not much has changed over nearly 15 years of
production of this boat with the exception of the built-in swim
platform that, in our view, makes the cockpit area, as well as the
interior, unacceptably small. The trade-off for the swim platform
over the loss of two extra interior feet is not a good one. The
older models with the bolt-on platform make for a much roomier boat.
Combined with the narrow beam, the loss of the two feet makes this
one rather cramped, particularly when you open the fold-down aft
cockpit seat which is built into the transom.
There are some good things to be said about this
boat but, unfortunately, the negatives outweigh the strong points.
And there are so many of them that, well . . . . the good points
just get squeezed out by all the typing we have to do here.
From a surveyor's standpoint, it really gets
tiresome writing up one report after another describing the rotting
exterior upholstery that we find on so many boats, and this one
is no exception. In this one, nearly everything except the cockpit
deck is upholstered, and even though its been kept covered by the
owner ( he was taking the covers off when we arrived for the survey),
the vinyl and foam rubber upholstered plywood panels and seating
components were everywhere starting to rot. The usual green slime
was forming on the bottoms sides, and brown fluid weeping out of
all that nice looking stuff that belongs on the inside, not the
outside. If we had to take a guess, it would be that the replacement
cost of the cockpit upholstery runs somewhere around $5,000, and
that is one heck of a price to pay for having an upholstered exterior.
You'd think that over that length of time SeaRay
would have taken a little time to refine it into a superior product.
Nope. This boat is still fraught with infuriatingly silly design
faults. We can start with the fold-out aft deck seat where the hinges
are screwed into the plywood seat backing. Since the plywood is
rotting because the seats are saturated with water, and can never
dry out, the screws are all pulling loose from the hinge. Then there
are all those nice little plastic parts that are broken. Once we
got the seat pulled out, we could not get it back in place since
the whole silly affair was falling apart.
Once again we have a very poorly supported fore
deck which feels soft when you walk on it. And because of the deflection,
it will surely break open all the window frame and deck hatch seals
if one were to step down on it hard from a high dock at low tide.
Putting frames under decks just costs the builder more money.
In fact, thanks to El Nino -- which might more appropriately be
renamed El Largo -- there was a 6" rainfall two days prior
to our survey which left quite a few wet spots on the interior.
The aft cabin berth cushions were soaked on the starboard side,
as was the forward berth mattress. In the case of the former, the
leak was coming from the radar arch mount bolts which were not adequately
caulked. It will be necessary to remove the arch to repair the leak.
As with all these SeaRay cuddy cabin boats, where
the cabin sole is nearly on the bottom of the hull, we almost invariably
find wet carpeting and high bilge water marks, in this case 4"
above the sole. In earlier models there was no way to install a
bilge pump so that it would prevent the sole from flooding, but
SeaRay has somewhat corrected this problem by putting a little cofferdam
back there so that one could at least get a pump in there.
Problem is, the sole is still only a couple inches above the bilge.
(Notice the high water lines seen in the photo below.) It only takes
the pump float switch to stick once to get everything all wet. In
this boat, as in most others, they mounted the fresh water pump
right on the bottom of the hull (great thinking here), and we needn't
explain why this pump no longer works.
Cruising around various marine discussion group
web sites, we find a lot of complaints about wet and rotting fiberglass
over wood stringers. As we've said before, there's nothing wrong
with glass over wood stringers, if its done right. When it comes
to small boats, how rarely it is! The photos below reveal that not
only were there holes just partially cut through the hull stringers
that were never completed, but that these holes were letting water
into the plywood and causing it to rot. Looks like they started
to drill holes and then changed their mind about where to put them.
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These three
photos are different aspects of the same area of the starboard
hull stringer. The two holes at right are only partially
drilled into stringer where the plywood is rotting. Notice
the high water line in way of the top arrow. |
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This
oblong cut out in the stringer almost completely cuts the
stringer in half. The red arrows show areas of incomplete
fiberglassing, so that even if there weren't holes drilled
in it, the wood would still absorb water. |
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The
red arrow at bottom shows hole cut without sealing the wood.
Green arrows point to only two of numerous staples found in
the stringer, along with brown fluid weeping out. Blue arrow
points to a vertical fracture that is starting to develop.
At far right is the fresh water pump mounted directly on the
bottom of the hull, along with the wiring. |
Fifteen years ago, we noticed a trend by small
boat builders to start covering up the internal hulls of their boats.
This started with gluing that fuzzy stuff they call carpet or whatnot
all over the inside, and later progressed to just boxing the whole
interior in so that you can't see any thing. Today, that trend is
complete, as nearly all small boat builders to this. Why? We have
no doubt but that this is so that it covers up shoddy workmanship,
and so if anything is going wrong, if anything is coming apart,
you can't see it. Of course, covering up everything becomes difficult,
and us surveyors usually find a place or two to get a peek at what's
behind the pretty stuff that you can see.
Under the aft berths we get a look at the hull
stringers. They appear to be quite high here, maybe as much as a
foot. Despite the fact that everything is heavily painted over with
gel coat, its obvious that these stringers are only glassed about
half-way up. And on the upper half, we found what looked like a
lot of screwdriver stab marks. What, you say? Well, we thought that
because there are a lot of so-called surveyors out there who will
do things like this -- test something by stabbing it with a screwdriver
blade. We asked the owner if the boat had been surveyed before.
He said no, so we went back and looked again. Staples. Driven by
a high-powered pneumatic gun. Near as we can tell, the stringers
are pieces of plywood stapled together because these deeply driven
staples are all over them. Gee, will that let water into the wood
to cause rot?
The answer is that the wood was all swollen, the
gel coat coating fractured and peeling, and brown fluid weeping
out. How did the water get there? Through all those leaks into the
aft cabin and the bilge pump that stopped working, as bilge pumps
are prone to do. Some of the high water marks are plainly evident
in the photos.
A plastic deck port is installed on the fore deck,
apparently for the purpose of retrieving the anchor rode, but how
anyone would make use of this is a bit of a mystery to us. What
it has done is to leak water into the wood deck core (we're
not sure what the material is, probably plywood because balsa does
not rot like this) where we found toad stools growing around the
cut-out where the core is exposed. And because it has some of the
original paint on it, we're sure that this was not an after purchase
add-on by the owner, but a port installed by the builder. If not
remedied, this is going to result in major damage to the deck
structure.
The engine compartment is neat but very cramped.
At least the deck has three hatch covers instead of one huge one,
making it much easier open things up. On the down side, the gutter
is very shallow so that if you use a hose on the deck, this will
surely get your engines wet. Never mind that the halon system, battery
charger and electrical junction boxes are located immediately under
the edge of the hatch opening. The oil filters are located up high,
front and center where you can reach them. But on the starboard
side, the engine fuel filter is burried under a maze of hoses. One
surely will not be able to change it without dumping gasoline in
the bilge. Behind and outboard of the engines, the trim pumps, blowers
and other steering apparatus are located, and which are almost impossible
to reach.
For a high production boat, we find it incomprehensible
that the systems installation is so helter-skelter. To get down
into the compartment to work on anything, you end up stepping all
over hoses and wiring, not to mention the occasional pump occupying
the only space available to put your foot. We could hardly even
carry out the inspection without causing damage. To top it off,
once you're down there, all you can do is just stand there because
you cannot bend over to reach anything. The systems were installed
in this compartment with a total disregard for servicing. Its not
as if there wasn't any other space available, because there was.
Very typical of SeaRay that they just don't care to provide their
customers with any convenience. Sure, surveyor's complain about
this sort of thing because they have to inspect and test this stuff.
But when you, the owner, have to pay to service things that can't
be reached . . . . well, the cost of service goes up dramatically.
Like a $300 labor bill to change oil, filters and spark plugs because
it took the mechanic half a day to reach these things.
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You can't get into this area without
stepping on stuff. At left is the battery charger sitting
flat on the deck that, of course will NEVER get wet. Will
it? Notice the duct take on the bottom of fuel tank. When
all else fails, use duct tape. Be fun reaching that sea
strainer down there, too. |
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There is room enough
to stand up in the center of this compartment, but then you
cannot bend over to reach anything. The only way to reach
the bilge pump or sea cocks or anything else down low is to
go down there head first. Cool. |
With a pair of Mercruiser 4.3LX V-6 engines rated
at 175 hp and stern drives, this boat is plenty fast. We didn't
measure the speed because we were too busy holding on for dear life
as the boat demonstrated a nasty tendency to lay over on one side
and stay there. Use the tabs to try to trim it out and it would
just flop over on the other side. Try the power trim, same thing.
We spent a half hour playing around with it, and when we could get
her to ride level, as soon as we made a turn it was the same thing
all over again. Why? Well, take stern drive power, a narrow beam
boat, and place the engines as close together as you possibly can,
and what you end up with is an unstable boat. Period. Then, even
jamming the throttles wide open, it was sluggish getting up on plane.
Again, you can blame the stern drives; those large diameter propeller
hubs are terribly inefficient.
Here's a few more gripes:
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Fuel lines are covered with a highly flammable
plastic conduit. We took a sample and tested it. Burns like
a banshee.
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Bilge pumps have discharge outlets only 6"
above the water line with no riser loop.
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Then there are those two tiny little
Rule 1000 bilge pumps that look like aquarium pumps. They say
they are rated at 1000 gallons per hour. We've tested those
things and find that they won't do 100 gallons, let alone 1,000.
A bit of hair or paper in the bilge and they are history. Perhaps
that's why there were high water lines 6" over the cabin
sole.
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The single lever gear/throttle controls functioned
poorly, causing gears to skip when shifting.
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Batteries sit in plastic trays that collect
water and do not drain. Where did the water come from? Remember
our comments about the hatch
gutter?
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Battery charger is also located directly under
lip of hatch and was rusting.
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As usual, the electric panel is located directly
under the cabin hatch/door where it can easily take a drink
of water.
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Main engines used wire reinforced automotive
radiator hoses. Wire reinforcement was completely wasted and
hoses "crunch" when we squeezed them.
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Swim platform deck is weak and deflects when
walked on. And the fold-up stainless steel swim ladder? We were
sure that it was going to pull the fasteners right through the
fiberglass when we tried to use to get on board after the haul
out, there is so much leverage on this poorly mounted affair.
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At the point where the fuel tanks are mounted
on some kind of deck, the gap between the tank and the deck
is covered over with duct tape (see photo above). Duct tape?
Is this a means of preventing water from getting under the tank
and corroding it? Has the boating industry reached the point
where duct tape is now a standard construction material?
This is yet another example of a boat that looks
great but the beauty is only skin deep. Looking good and being
good are entirely different matters. Four years later,
its selling for less than half its original price. How's that for
a return on investment? And this boat was about as well maintained
as you'll find.
With quality like this, is it any wonder why so
many of the products we buy bear the label "Made in Japan"?
Related Article: Sea
Ray Sundancer 290 Update
| 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. |
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