Good update Dave. Amazingly there is a thread about this exact topic over on Sailing Anarchy. SA is racing focused, so Hunters don't normally get much attention there. This guy seems to know what hes talking about as well.
QUOTE---
Someone should contact Dave Eck and see if he'll talk.
The story on the JY/Hunter boats goes way back. First,
ACP refers to the process, not the plastic. JY had issues
with plastic from the get go. Dow was supplying the plastic
for the boats(around the first 400 JY-15s) at the beginning.
However, something was wrong with the plastic, and the boats
began to peel and become "lumpy". Dave successfully threatened
Dow. Dow agreed to replace the boats for anyone that wanted
a new one. The deal was like give us $ 400 and we'll give you
a new boat, including sails. At that point in time a new
set of sails cost $ 400. The "lumpy bumpys" were sorted out, and
those that could still be safely used were given or sold to
community sailing programs. The worst were destroyed.
JY began using some other company's plastic, which I'm pretty
sure was BASF. And for a long time things went well. They
brought out the JY-14, the JY 9, and eventually the Hunter
designed H-170 and the H-219(?). During this time, JY also
experimented with plastic from other sources including GE. So
there is a long run of JY-15s, JY-14/H-140s, JY-9/H-90, H170s, and
H-219s that did not and will not have the problem mentioned above.
I have no idea what serial numbers I'd be looking for to find these
"good" boats.
Not sure exactly when, but shortly after JY moved into a larger
facility, and around the time Hunter became more involved, the
hull cracking that people are talking about began to show up.
By this time the company was also producing the H-146 and H-216.
My understanding is that JY had the plastic tested and it did not
meet spec. BASF agreed to sort of take responsibility for this,
but not to the extent that DOW had when they had their problem.
Then Hunter bought the place entirely. And the person running
the place for Hunter was not cooperating at all on the warranty
issues and basically denying that it was happening.
I'm not sure what happened next and when, but eventually Hunter moved
the equipment to make the boats to Florida. Not sure if they took
plastic product with them or even at that point knew themselves what
the issue was, or possibly just continued to purchase the same junk
from BASF.
Eventually, and from what I understand Hunter changed to building
the boats out of fiberglass because their people were more familiar
with the process, and it is much cheaper to build a new model beginning
with the typical fiberglass process than what you need for an
ACP (stands for Advanced Composite Process-a company named Advanced
patented the process)boat.
So the long and the short, is that if you are hunting for a target to
go after, I would look at BASF. They have deep pockets, were aware
that they were supplying the wrong product and agreed to take some
responsibility for it previously.
QUOUE---
The whole thread is here.
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=130155
