After some heavy negotiating, I got the guy down to $2500. Now is the time to make the big decision. Do I Buy It????
There are some people who say to walk away from the boat with out giving an explanation. I appreciate and respect everyones advice, but I really need the explanation in order to make an informative decision. Yes the needs to be fixed, but on Long Island there are not a lot of sailboats in the market that are less then 30 years old, so every boat is going to need some sort of repair.
OK I'll bite, and try and make this as fact-based as possible.
In the early 2000's Hunter bought a technology called Advanced Composite Process (ACP), along with the designs for some small daysailors from a small East-coast company. This APC process used a Luran-S thermoplastic based skin molded to a foam core and a thin fiberglass inner hull. The material was very clever, and was marketed as a tough, lightweight way to build an unsinkable daysailer. And all of that was true.
What was also sadly true; blamed on a change in Luran formulation that was not communicated to Hunter, many of the boats started to exhibit large cracks in the outer skin, unrelated to an impact. Often after while stored, and often in cold weather.
Sadly Hunter was never able to determine WHAT boats in the APC fleet (170, 216, 212, etc) would potentially be effected. That fact alone is troubling for several reasons. But the possible number of hulls was in the 1000s, and might have killed the company. So instead of a full-scale corrective effort, they would minimize financial exposure and swap out hulls if someone made enough noise. Or a discount on a new fiberglass boat. Crazy Dave will know more details. Some original owners were made close to whole.
The problem really got worse for the growing number of 2nd hand owners. Which most if not all are in the possession of now. Never an actual Hunter customer, Hunter had/has nothing for these owners, and many bought the boats not knowing of the potential program. Often a boat is fine, or fine for years. Then the cracks start to appear. Dave might know of one, but I've never seem one that started to crack that didn't develop more. Its a chronic problem, and some cracks end up being so structural that it is impossible to effect a safe repair.
What percentage of boats is effected? Impossible to know. But THAT one certainly is. Why buy THAT one? The bigger and harder question is if you should buy any APC boat at all. The cracking issue effects re-sale value on all the APC boats. It is possible that ALL of them might crack. Unlike fiberglass, which was studied for year by the US military before used in a pleasure craft, there was no way for anyone to do long term testing of the effects of time/age of APC.
Its sad. I personally really like the 216, and almost bought one awhile back.
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