What a Week for Tartan Fleet News

This week has been another solid week for discussions and interviews with other Tartan owners.

I was shocked to discover that the hull on a 3700 had split under the forward bulkhead while under way. The event occurred last December. The owner seems to be in a terrible position and is still without his boat. The parallel universes that so many owners seem to be in with these boats is amazing. To hear about the boat splitting wide open, the salvage vs towed legal issues, the repair nightmare and his ongoing horror story trying to get his boat back is gut-wrenching.

The data gathered to date by very generous, frustrated and concerned Tartan and C&C owners has helped me get a very clear picture of both random build issues and some that have patterns.

Here is one section of an email I received this week from an ex-Tartan dealer:

"Your problems with the Tartan product are alarming but not unusual. I certainly don't know the law, but I know that many owners have been driven to distraction by some of the manufacturing practices, many of the business practices, and all of the service practices of the company."

So I am left this Saturday asking myself this question: When will Yanmar USA and Bill Ross acknowledge the build issues in their product(s) and make things right - for this owner and all the Tartan/C&C owners on a pro active basis?

So here is what is puzzling to me as a businessman: I am discovering potentially life threatening build issues within the Tartan 3700 fleet that Fairport Yachts surely knows about. I have no doubt some of these issues may even run across the 3400, 3500, 4100, 4400 fleets and all the boats manufactured in OH. Yet to find out this week that a boat manufactured around the same time as MAKO had split open while at sea is surely news the 3700 owners should know about. If a hull splitting 30 inches long below the forward bulkhead (as reported to me by the owner) would have occurred on an aircraft in flight the FAA would be involved and the fleet would be grounded until such time as all the airframes have been inspected. The manufacturer certainly would be all over the defect. The FAA would issue an Airworthiness Directive (AD) and inspections and repairs would be paid for by the manufacturer. Now I don't know whether the boat involved was affected by a previous grounding, or if there are other such issues, but surely with the manufacturer knowing that at least one of their hulls has split below the waterline, surely an advisory notice to customers would be the least Bill Ross could pro actively send out. Surely as an attorney he knows the inherent liability Fairport Yachts has by failing to disclose issues with the hulls splitting and cracking, faulty hull-deck joints, faulty wiring, faulty sail drives, faulty stainless steel used with life-lines and other [significant] issues that are now being well documented.