4mulafastech

Wow, sorry to hear of your troubles, but you will have piece of mind that every inch of that hull has been gone through. That's great the stringers are solid, that would have really $ucked. Looking forward to seeing your custom 353 when completed! Sounds like it is going to be awesome.

racinfast002

I always felt like the hull layup and finish on the formulas was awesome, but this scares me. I guess every manufacture has an issue every now and then. Hopefully this was an exception not the norm.

Wally

iTrader: (1)

yea i wouldn't expect Formula to bend over backwards to help because of the age...but on the other hand it would be nice gesture for a customer service "good will" offer on their part considering the nature of the defect not being done right from the get-go .....we do that quite often here where i work if the customers are nice to us from the start.....like my wife says...kill them with kindness and they wont have any excuses to say no

badmonkey

Received a very prompt response from Scott Smith at Formula of the email I sent. Of course, his response says "that there is nothing he can do because of the boats age"...(already knew this)...He has sent all the photos to department supervisor and lamination specialist. He's not certain that the photos will conclusively prove our case. Department heads are out on the road presently and he will get back to me when he hears from them. Scott is stand up guy. I've never met him in person but since we found out about our boats issue, he has always been polite and prompt to stay in touch. Hoping for the best without expectation...

I want everyone to be very clear on what my intentions are for making this public....
1) I am NOT bad mouthing Formula.
2) I am merely trying to make Formula and the public aware of a problem that arose on our boat. Is this common across all 1999 353 Fastechs...definitely not.
3) I feel that not only Formula but all brands..(that are actually still in business) know of past issues, take a hard look at what caused the problem, make an effort to correct it in the best interest of not only their clients but the company.
4) I want all Formula owners to know what we are dealing with, how we've gone about researching the root cause, how we are dealing with it to make the proper repairs and most importantly educating ALL (owners and manufactures) of these type of events.

What I did not share with everyone is how Glassdave is repairing the boat. He's obviously removed all the bad "plexus" from the bilge area. He is making a custom hull liner that will fit tightly and correctly under the stringers....what the "plexus" was supposed to do. He also is engineering a custom one of a kind inner stringer that he will place inside the center stringer to add to the boats strength. As this area is where the boat has its most beating, he is now making this boat virtually indestructible...lol.....TBD, lets see how many beers "Chris" can have to break it again...just kidding.... . I hope that Dave has the time to chime in on this thread and share his expertise with what he's doing.

I feel rejuvenated. The excitement to have a totally custom one of a kind 353 Fastech is totally cool. Was never the original plan when we bought it from AXA but I guess all things happen for a reason....some day I'll find out what that reason is...lol . I look forward to sharing future photos with everyone and of course its new name. I look forward to folks seeing it at coming events and the feed back on the changes we made. I assure you of this...IT's GOIN TO BE KICKA$$.... Thought "Chillin" was blinged out....NOT even close...Sorry Big Brother (AXA)


Chris

formula223

I am not licensed to practice law in Maryland, but Maryland does have something called the discovery rule, which says the statute of limitations does not begin to run until the Plaintiff knows or should have known about the negligence. The other issue is something called the statute of repose, which after a certain time, in Texas for example 15 years, the claim is barred. If you are serious, and or it involved a lot of money, like more than $25K, you might contact a local attorney, also Formula is headquartered in Indiana so you might be able to apply their law if it is more favorable.

Wally

iTrader: (1)

I don't think any of the postings have alluded to bashing Formula in any way...at least nothing that i have taken away from any of the postings thus far.... There is no doubt that Formula builds some nice boats...i had the pleasure of getting a tour of their facility a number of years back, and it is impressive. Well worth it if anyone gets the opportunity.
That being said....if it were me running the show at formula i think that i would at least offer to pay for half of the repairs for that section of the boat that failed.....and i only say half because the boat did survive without any issues until this point so you cant directly say that any one thing caused the issues......could have been the driving styles and water conditions that caused the failure and it may have happened regardless of the plexus being there or not....any other mods you are doing would be on your dime....and i'd have you sign a release that nothing else would held against the company and that its not an admittance of fault etc....you know they typical lawyer stuff Not twisting any arms or guilting anyone into anything and of course its not my company.... just a keyboard jockey posting here

ALL_IN!

iTrader: (1)

Wow. At least you will be all fixed up soon!

MericaboaterSR1

For future owners of people who want to purchase older formulas, how do you spot this before buying the boat? Obviously you didnt use your boat much at all before it cracked.

badmonkey

It will be impossible to spot anything such as this. There we no signs anywhere visible...when we did the full walk thru, had it surveyed, brought it home from NY (boat went straight into indoor winter storage and spent all winter climbing thru the entire thing...every inch) or after the first 6 runs in the boat. This issue was manifesting itself for 15 years...then BOOM...shows up after the weekend in Cambridge. I wish I could specifically tell all what to look for. I assure all that the previous owner had this boat completely apart several times during all the updating that he had done and never once did he ever see any signs of issues. As like any used boat purchase, its a risk.

Chris

MericaboaterSR1

I will be in the market mid summer, (Formula 311). Reading your story is very scary. If you dont mind me asking, what does something like this cost to repair? Thanks for the quick answer!