Offshoreonly.com - Report on trip to see 336

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Report on trip to see 336

I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to attend due to work issues, but finally got things worked out so I caught a red eye Thursday night and got to the dealer by 9:30 the next morning. I was too excited to sleep on the plane, so I ended up pulling over twice on the way to the marina to catch a couple of cat naps.

The surveyor had just finished the exterior hull inspection when I arrived, and he reported that it was in excellent condition. He found one small 3/4" long chip that should be filled, but that was it. There are a couple of minor scratches in the blue part of the graphics, but far less than you would expect from a 9 year old boat. It looks like they could be easily touched up, and if so the boat would look new from the outside. The gelcoat still has like-new shine.

The silent thunder box is leaking at the transom, mostly on the starboard side. He also found evidence of the exhaust ports on the starboard side having gotten hot and melted some of the plastic at the opening.

He checked the outdrives and found very little play in them...good news; I was expecting issues given the number of hours on the boat. He discovered a stick wedged in the exhaust port of one of the drives, which isn't used anyway, but it's something I never would have found. Getting it out may require some disassembly.

He checked all stringers and bulkheads, and found just one area where standing water had seeped into a bulkhead, just under the step at the entrance to the cabin. The bulkhead passed him hammer test, but he suggested drilling a hole in it to check the exact condition. Given where it was, I decided not to do it. I'll at least wait until the area is drained and completely dry. He hasn't seen many Formulas, and commented on how well made this one is. He was very impressed with the general build quality.

The cabin looks like it was barely used; not a mark on the upholstery anywhere. The ultra leather that Formula uses is incredibly soft to the touch...I spent some time just sitting in there and reading while he was checking the boat over.

He began a visual check of the engines, and found nothing of any note, other than a broken resistor on one of the alternators. The gaskets throughout the exhaust system look in good shape, and no evidence of any water leaks.

The bolsters and the rear bench are in great shape, and don't look like they've had the amount of wear I would have expected. The biggest negative of the boat is the upholstery on the sun pad and on the top of the rear seat headrests. There are a couple of 3-4 inch long tears along the stitching on the sunpad, and the horizontal surfaces of the head rests are discolored pretty badly.

Cosmetically, the boat would look new again with some touch up of the graphics and reupholstering of the sun pad.

I'm sure I'm missing some things, but still tired from the trip.

Next, it was time for the sea trial. They backed the boat down into the water, and both engines fired up within a couple seconds and idled smoothly. I LOVE the sound of those big blocks! The silent thunder is actually starting to grow on me. I like the deep rumble sound at idle, and although they are rather quiet at speed, my wife will like it. Contrary to our Malibu, which is ultra quiet at idle, but almost unbearable at >4000 RPM.

I almost forgot...getting the boat out of the shop and into the bright sunlight makes the graphics really come alive. None of the pictures will do the colors justice. This day was bright blue sunshine, and the large blue area of the graphics almost matched the sky. Also, what I thought was black was really a deep purple, which is a great complement to the blue. I almost closed the deal on the spot just seeing it in the sunlight.

After warming the engines up we headed out into the lake. Although the salesman and the surveyor complained about the cool temperatures, I thought that 45 felt great, but then again I spend much of my time in Colorado.

The salesman has been great to work with, and has bent over backwards to take pictures of the boat, pull service records, etc., but he admitted he isn't an expert performance boat driver. He had difficulty getting the boat to perform, so we went back and picked up another salesman who was supposedly their expert. He dialed the boat in pretty quickly, and we saw 71.5 mph on my handheld GPS. I was thrilled, because with the number of hours on the 502's I thought they would be doing well to get the boat near 70. BTW, this was with 4 good sized adults on board at 900' altitude. When I get the boat to LOTO, I think I should be able to see at least 72-73 by myself at the 660' elevation there. Based on the results, I'm not sure if I will spend money on the compression test, since I plan to rebuild for more power in a seaon or two anyway.

There weren't many boats out, and there was very little wind so we had to generate our own waves to see how it rode in some chop. It's pretty tough to do; for a boat of this size and weight it actually puts out very little wake. What we managed to generate didn't even affect the boat...it just plowed right through the waves.

The only other downside of the deal is the trailer that comes with the boat. It's all aluminum, but that's about the only good part of it. The wheels are galvanized steel and ugly, the tires are dry rotted, and there are brakes on only 1 axle. It's not a big issue since I'll sell it once I get to LOTO (the boat will be on a lift under a covered dock), but I had hoped to be able to get some reasonable money for it, and based on its condition I'm not expecting much.

This must be pretty long by now, and I've left out a lot, so I'll add some pictures in the next few posts...