crmax

can anyone give me a history on the wellcraft excalibur?

puder

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.

C_Spray

iTrader: (2)

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...

crmax

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

puder

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.

FWK

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

crmax

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

delsol

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

pondrunner

I purchased a 26' 2001 excalibur with a 454Mag late last year. With two sunworshippers 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???

EX20

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.