I have been away in Europe the past couple of weeks and what a pleasant surprise while driving across Holland & Germany to keep receiving emails and calls from Tartan 3700 owners. The buzz of the week was perhaps caused by the Tartan 3700 blog. It seems that at least one owner is seeing substantial progress in his unfortunate case.
How much progress? In one of the many ‘Tartan owner vs. Fairport Yachts’ cases the latter party has unilaterally withdrawn their “egregious demand” that the owner pay over $50,000 in repairs. All of a sudden Bill Ross is not only prepared to call and waive the previous demand before releasing the boat, but is also offering to return the owners boat halfway across the country!
Did this sudden offer to make the customer whole come out of the blue because Bill Ross and Fairport Yachts had a customer service epiphany? Could it be the case that the good people in Ohio woke up [since they started to review this blog!] and go, ‘you know, it is morally wrong to hold a client’s $300,000 boat for ransom’? Is there any connection with the owner about to get his boat back without having to pay $50,000 and a possible requirement to stop the news ‘leaks’ that could be bad for Tartan business?
Judging by the electronic traffic emanating from a certain town in Ohio and listening to owner’s stories an epiphany is far less likely than Bill Ross is now having to take build issues seriously as a result of recent market buzz that is definitely bad for business. As one owner indicated to me yesterday, 'without [the] Tartan 3700 blog we would never have had a call and a drop in the demand for payment'.
So this brings me to the thorny and often discussed topic of how much should you make public about your boat and your build issues? That is a matter for each owner and the amount they wish to share, however, this blog gives owners the ability to present their issues, get connected with other owners on a platform for change. Perhaps in its own small way this blog about our customer service nightmares and Fairport builds has started to make Fairport Yachts realize that they cannot keep treating owners as they have in the past. So keep the photos and issues coming in at mako3700@gmail.com and together we can help get results and get Tartan to address flawed processes that leave owners with failed hull lay-ups, faulty wiring, rudder failures, leaking gas hoses and many other potentially life-threatening build issues now on record across the fleet.
…and so to the photo above: This is of a late model Tartan 3700 keel showing the trailing edge ‘blown out’. Based on more evidence coming in regarding sail-drives and keel electrolysis issues I encourage all Tartan 3700 owners to haul earlier than planned to check:
- sail drive lower legs and
- sail drive zincs and
- the leading & trailing edges of your keel and
- get your 12v DC and 110v AC systems checked to ensure they meet ABYC build standards…
