Noble Boat <2yo Cracked and Sinking

[Crunchy]

Have you seen chris69 thread from last night? Perhaps that is common knowledge but it seems they are making a sub standard product on the good past name of Noble Boats

[TopBhoy]

Its good Grand_Marlin will help out but something is seriously wrong at Noble who have ignored all attempts thus far, to respond to a legitimate concern regarding their product. China shouldn't be seen as the panacea to easy profits, everything is a trade-off but a product quality and service commensurate with the purchase price, should still be expected. Certainly in this case, that has not happened.

I'd have thought that although its within the warranty and it is not 'brand new', a <2 year old boat with these faults isn't actually 'fit for purpose' and the seller, not the manufacturer, should be responsible to put things right, regardless if the are a current agent or not. This of course may also be a hard route to follow but it is another option.

Good luck to your little fella TREVELLY. I can appreciate your desire just to get the boat back on the water as quick as possible without getting bogged down and precious time being taken, in other less important areas of your life. Once you get embroiled in dealing with bureaucracy, protocols and procedures, it does sometimes sap your energy.

[JB]

I had a very simillar crack in my 2003 trailcraft and cudos to cunninghams marine and trailcraft it was fully redesigned / rewelded and painted. It could hold twice the hp now i rekon! (pity i cant afford twice the hp lol) . Terrible that you havent had a response yet.. feel for you mate. As others have said, if you can get a good builder like origin boats to repair / paint then send invoice to noble to pay that would be the go.. at least u have piece of mind when it comes to the quality of the repair. I think you have to go to small claims to get that approval thou?

If you want pics of my redesigned transom yell out... it is a brick shithouse now lol

[Keenfisho]

Trev..... this matter needs to be reported to ACCC as per Crunchy's post..... the manufacturer has to send a a product safety recall for all the possible unsafe Noble boats out there.... if they don't they could be in big trouble if someone gets injured/killed.

http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/in.../itemId/952401

http://www.recalls.gov.au/content/in.../itemId/986050

[Jarrah Jack]

Its no good Trev. I enjoyed reading your holiday report then to have this happen.

I think the value of secondhand China Noble's must be tumbling now as everyone will ask themselves what could be lurking under that bog and in places they can't get to. The worst thing is to lose faith in a boat, its happened to me.

Good luck with it.

[WalrusLike]

Mate if good wishes were dollars you'd be an instant millionaire. I share the other Ausfishers concern and good hopes for your future.

I know you have a lot on your plate but I agree with the earlier post that lives could be at risk on other boats...

I hope it's not difficult to do but I feel you need to contact ACCC and advise a recall is needed.

[Fed]

Did you find the leaks Trev?

[fishing111]

Looks like old Clive wants to emulate the Titanic right down to it's untimely demise, and appears to have chosen the right Country for the build, and needs no assistance from pesky ice-bergs

Can't believe this shit can happen in this day and age. Like others have said, what must the rest of the boat that you can't see be like?

[Axl]

Did you find the leaks Trev?

Yeah I must admit whilst I can clearly see that the crack that is on the motor mount, I dont understand how the amount of water you've mentioned went in through that crack.

It also seems a bit bizarre to me that a hull would be designed in such a way that if something should happen (as in a crack) you cant start a bilge pump to remove the water. Id be looking at putting pumps in these compartments. 20 minuets draining from one compartment and 10 from the other sounds like alot of water to me.

[TREVELLY]

Firstly guys - thanks for the good wishes with the young fella - he is first and foremost for us. I hope no one thinks I am seeking sympathy here - but rather seeing it keeps things in perspective for me.

I did buy this boat not just for fishing but also to take the family on family holidays just like the one we did and enjoyed at Humpy Island and for sure it really gets me that the first one i do in the near 2 years I have had the boat I am faced with this problem.

The wife is miffed about buying an $80K set up and not getting any reply in weeks to a clear and obvious fault. Me I am more upset that they were put at a heightened risk on our holiday return trip - but I don't make a big deal of that to them.

I have cleared out my inbox big time - sorry it was full for those that tried.

I have sent an email to Nobles with a link to this thread inviting them to put forward their reply.

The welds - I believe are not complete and just locating tack welds made in the jig as some have said. I would be concerned about QA missing something so crucial.

Does an error require a recall - I don't know - do others have same error? I hope not, but as it certainly looks like an error and as critical as it appears I would think an inspection of other boats would be a good idea.

Copper wire issue - yes I had the same - back in those days the boats were wired in OZ and local dealer was responsible - but now they are done in factory with tinned wire. My boat has copper wire and I have nearly completed rewiring it - I will rewire bilge pump as I need a new one breaking the old one removing it so will rewire this with tinned wire.

Did I find the leaks and look about the transom - yes I will this weekend as I grind back the bog and remove the fuel tank for reweld to be done - I will post pics of findings and progress. A lot of water for what does not look like big cracks - well they are big enough and remember I was offshore for 6 days and all that time these cracks were under water feeding into compartments that can not be either pumped or inspected - I will remedy that.

JB and GM thanks for offers to assist. GM I am not advocating a public execution and did try for weeks to get a response and even posted to them what I would do and gave them still a week to reply. I understand they may not be contactable but for weeks? If they have good reason I hope they at very least put things in place to remedy this such as visit their messages on phone, or read their emails (that can be done just about anywhere) or if not contactable at all for a duration put that message on phone so people know what they are working too. I tried all I could and have waited three weeks for zero reply - I want to go fishing

Do I want to chase them with legal process? I want it fixed and I want to go fishing.

Hope I answered just about all questions and points.

I have said many times over the near two years I have had this boat it is a great boat - now I will say it is a great boat design but I will be looking carefully and critically over it for a long time to come.

Will post pics of work and findings as it progresses.

And Marty - as I am ripping up the floor to remove the fuel tank I will replace with that Regupol rubber flooring to the rear half at least - it looks pretty good.

From my perspective - if they admitted a mistake, apologised and offered to repair the paint both from the fix up required and the blisters I would say fair enough.

But further I think it would be very good practice for them not to be either totally non-contactable for several weeks or ignore attempts to contact them.

As I said I do not know the relationship with Nobles and J&B Marine in recent times but their owner Bobby did say to me they had two paint claims come in for repair and Jason said to get two quotes - they did and then received no reply or response to phone calls and emails for the past six months. But J&B Marine also told me they haven't sold Noble boats for over one year - yet I still see them listed on the Noble Boats site as a QLD dealer.

Hence guys I am here fixing it myself. Well I am getting a good aluminium welder with decades of experience welding boats and citycats at Brendale to do the welding once I spend the weekend preparing it for safe repair.

[2IC]

Hi Trev,, mate just seen the post YUK If you need any advice or second opinion dave {riptide boats} is a good mate mine Icould set this up just pm me if you want. Cheers Bill

[moater]

Mate very sorry to hear of this, it would be heart breaking after shelling out your hard earned.... I do hope everything goes well and u get it fixed. A**holes for not getting in contact with u to sort this out

Regards boony

I've scratched this brand of boat from my future options.What a mongrel of a thing to have to go through.

[Dantren]

Mate you've probably already thought of this, but check your boat insurance PDS.
They may pay for rectification of the problem.
All the best.

[TREVELLY]

Mate you've probably already thought of this, but check your boat insurance PDS.
They may pay for rectification of the problem.
All the best.

I recently had a short in the line from the road to the house meter box - had to re-dig the line and lift 12m of concrete and pavers etc took me 6 days of hard work and cost over $2K. So I enquired of the insurance company and the answer was they insure events not workmanship or wear and tear - excuse the pun.

If we sank then yes a claim - thankfully we did not.

[tunaticer]

Just curious Trev, did you have those bungs out whilst it was stored at home during the wet season?
That amount of salt water entering through the cracks in the images beggars belief.
I would be checking for other places of water ingress if the boat was not exposed to the wet season. Do the bungs actually seal properly?
Is this a wet deck boat? If so I would be checking the floor at all possible places of entry. I would even go as far as blocking the scuppers and filling the cockpit with 3 inches of water and see if that gets into the chambers you drained.

Whilst the cracks in the transom are a bad fault and the internal design and welding is really bad, there is obviously somewhere else that is filling the boat with water.