Yachting and Boating World forums: A sad tale and a hello from a newbie

We have lots of sea miles under our belts, but we hadn't dipped our toe in the boat ownership experience until recently.

Now we are sorry we did.

We viewed a Powercat 525 at Margam boat show in Summer 2007 and then read their website. I did look to see if there were any negative reviews about them online - but nothing.

They made all the right noises and the demonstrator boat we trialled was great - stable, responsive and smart.

We told them we needed a boat for the Ionian as that was where we were going to live and they said it would be suitable.

In Feb 2008 we picked the boat up from Powercats of Redruth, Cornwall, having paid our life savings of £37,000 + for it.

Cutting a long story short ( you can read it in full if you can bear it on my blog which is linked to from my signature) we had to employ a marine surveyor to check out why we had suffered a total electrical failure in the dark, in a busy traffic area and close crossing with huge bulk carrier, only just avoiding a collision!

The report condemned the 'craft' as being 'unfit for purpose' and having numerous dangerous defects and flaws and design, material, and safety defects.

The report is now with Cornwall Trading Standards as we await further developments.

If you have time to look at my blog it would be appreciated. The experience has shaken us badly and we are left without a usable boat and with a village of Greek fishermen who think we are idiots for having bought a British boat in the first place.

Have to say we do feel like fools and much poorer ones as well.

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Powercat 525 - a new powerboat owner's experience - http://powercats.blog.co.uk/

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