wellcraft excalibur
 

can anyone give me a history on the wellcraft excalibur?

the 42'

a few members have them. Big heavy boats Not to fast but ride like a cadillac in the rough stuff. I think they were origonally designed by excalibur but wellcraft produced they from thier molds then they eventually bough the molds outright. Something wierd like that (memory is lil foggy). There was thread a month or two back about it. I think the thread was started by Del Sol.

I was onboard a 45 (1999 model) this past summer. The guy who owned it told me that his was built by Excalibur in Australia and marketed by Wellcraft in the US. It had no markings on it whatsoever. Nice layout( 2 staterooms and standup headroom), and very much a "Sport Yacht", although the fit/finish and materials could stand to be a little more luxurious. The owner also said that it would run close to 50 with 502 Mags (now 496HO's). Now, it's listed on Wellcraft's web site as a 47, and I believe that they are made here in the good ole US of A. You can get diesel stern drives, too. There are a bunch for sale on TraderOnline.com. Very intriguing boat, but I'm not ready for one yet...

I just bought a 20' 1999 in aug, any good or bad feedback on this size?

ah you mean the new excalibur express cruisers not the big ole offshore boats. They made an axcalibur that was basicallya bigger scarab a while ago. Neat boat but heavy.

If you are talking about how wellcraft came to own excalibur, here is what I know. Excalibur had a lot of high profile clientele Frank Borman, James Caan, Circus Circus to name a few. The company was owned by a man named Bill Farmer. The Fountains original hull design was the 32 excalibur, the 32 chris craft stinger also came from this mold. In the early 80's Mr. Farmer got the company in trouble (great boat builder poor management this is what I was told)(he was always available to talk to when I called) and sold out to Wellcraft who produced his original line from the 27 tall deck up to the 42 eagle and hawk. One flat deck and one was a tall deck. The flat deck is a beautiful boat. The flat deck was a much lighter boat than the tall deck. It took big pwer to get them to run but it took big power to get any boat of that size to run hard back then, it a 38' pleasure boat would do 70+ he was a big dog. Also big power is not what it is today. The big engine guys were Hawk and Ferarra and 750hp was about it. I think they dropped the whole line in 1988. Excalibur did not build everything heavy as my 27 wieghs 3500 #s wet and with the stock 330 it ran 68mph on radar.
He was ahead of his time in many things they had excalibur get togethers and a quarterly paper that went out to the owners with articles from owners on unique trips the they had used theit boats for and to update owners on what was new to the line. I have all of the literature from back then but it is in our storage room with all of our old papers and I have not been able to find them. Forrest

whats with all the new excaliburs from wellcraft? are they made by wellcraft and not even close to the old excalibur?

Unfortunately Puder, I didn't start the thread, but am still curious how closely tied the 40 scarab--actually a 38 hull with a 40 deck--and the excalibur were back in 86'
also, are there any horror stories about these boats?? or why are they so relatively cheap for a big boat??? -realizing that they're a tad bit slower :rolleyes:

I purchased a 26' 2001 excalibur with a 454Mag late last year. With two sunworshippers:cool::cool: and a quarter tank I was able to get 61mph on gps. That was new and tight. The quality for the money I thought was about right, a few corners cut here and there and some cheap materials out of sight, but when compared to the nearest competitors price, $15k more for 270 checkmate or $10k for 25 Baja outlaw, choice was obvious. Had a 22' scarab before and loved it ,so stuck with wellcraft. Plan to do the EFI upgrade kit and Imco exhaust( should net 4-6mph) That puts it faster than competitors for less and it rides very well. Any other comments about the new excaliburs out there???:D

I have a 2000 20' Excalibur. Here's the deal. The 1999 and later 20' thru 26' Excalibur's were replacements for the previous sub 29ft Scarabs. Ever notice there were no Scarabs under 29ft after 1998? They made the cabins (deck) taller and more freeboard. More user friendly. Still made like Scarabs (hull layup, microballon filled strakes and so on). 2001 was the last year of the 20ft Excalibur as I have and as crmax has. The new 2002 19ft and 21ft Excaliburs are run-of-the mill Wellcraft family boats, and built that way with the VEC technology. It still pisses me off that they call them Excalibur's. It was nice that all the smaller Excaliburs were mini-Scarabs at one time. This name was revived due to the connection that Wellcraft had with the offshore Excalibur's of the 80's, from what I understand. The name is the only common thing here.

There is no real connection to Wellcraft's big express cruiser's except the name. The 38ft and 45ft cruiser's were US built as I understand it. I was down at the Miami show last week and the rep told me the 45 is discontinued and the new 47 for this year is Australian built.

ex20, are the excaliburs hull made the same as the smaller scarabs?

ex20, what do you have in your boat, how fast, what prop and does it chine walk

crmax,

The hulls are supposed to be the same as the older smaller Scarabs. The small delta pad of the keel on our boats may not have been on the older Scarabs. I think they were but don't quote me on that. I need to look at more pictures of the early and mid-nineties 23 and 26ft Scarabs.

My boat has a stock 310hp 7.4L MPI motor with a Corsa thru-hull eaxhaust turning a 23 pitch Mirage Plus at about 4500-4600 RPM. It runs 61-63mph on GPS. That's with two people and about a half tank of gas.

It chinewalks like you wouldn't believe to get that speed. I was told to try a four-blade Bravo One prop to get the stern farther out of the water so I don't have to trim as far up. I have to use almost full trim right now and that's not right. The angle the boat is running is what is causing the chinewalk......I think? I've been told I should not need more than about half of the full trim range to run top speed.

Any suggestions or advice out there?

do you have trim tabs? I have the same setup except for the corsa exhaust ( picking up quick & quiet 2 this week) mine chine walks also and so does another on this board, all at the same speed. trim tabs seem to help me but I need more seat time to tell how much.

I don't have trim tabs. I was told that they help but I am not interested in putting them on just yet. I am going to try a different prop first.

Wellcraft has replaced
Scarabs with the Excaliber
Boats, Some say they used
the Scarab molds but they
say no.
All I can say is WHY is
the Excaliber even on a
Scarab Page.
Mike J.

Wow, great input to this thread from Mike J. Everyone else agree. Actually, I don't think that any of the factory reps, salesmen or Wellcraft mechanics I've spoken to would agree. I guess myself and all other Excalibur owners should not post in this area. Sorry. I guess we just don't belong.

The Excalibur's and Scarab's are even featured in the same dealer brochure.

Check out this article. Is Eric Colby wrong?
http://www.boatingmag.com/boattests/...html?BTestID=8

I cant see how they could use the same molds I think the excaliburs beam is wider. as far as posting to the scarab page being that wellcraft does not make a scarab under 29' I guess the only new wellcraft perfomance boat owners that would post here make alot more money than I do, maybe I should have bought a baja

I'm not sure if they make the 18 or the 22 anymore????

Don't buy a Baja !!!!



:D :D

when I bought my boat there was a 29' scarab for I think 38,000 very nice boat, but out of my price range , with 2 young kids a house and 2 cars on one income Ill have to hope I can upgrade later

The molds are not exactly the same, but I think the Excalibur is based on the Scarab mold. A pad was added and the beam is only slightly wider. The construction however is fairly close. No one is saying that these boats are exact replica's from Scarab molds.

And actually they are better than the small Scarabs from a few years ago. The 19, 22, 26ft Scarabs barely had a cabin. The 22 and smaller weren't even cabins. They had storage crawl spaces.

I would think the scarabs would be lighter and a hair faster but Ill give up a couple mph for a cabin

wellcraft could have called them scarab's they went for a differnt name because they were trying to get some interest in a new boat

crmax,
I was told by my salesman that Larry Smith (he built the first Scarab's in the 70's) owns the trademark name "Scarab" and now gets money for every Scarab sold. He gets a percentage of each boat's cost or a flat rate, I'm not sure which. This is no big deal to a buyer when your buying a $125,000+ boat, but adds an unnecessary cost to the smaller pricepoint boats like ours. That's part of the reason for changing the name, plus like you said it's nice having more headroom in the cabin with a taller deck. These boat's are not meant to be offshore boat's but a more user friendly all around good boat.