What is a TT? Thread hijack split

[twiisted71]

LOL Luciano, you've been the victim of a common occurrence here. Sorry for the hijack.

FF what is a TT?

Living in the Keys reinforced a common thread my wife and I subscribe to...I live here (on the water). I can wait until I like the forecast to untie. I don't need a Force 10 rated North sea yacht. Something that can COMFORTABLY deal with 5'ers without active fin stabilizers will be a welcome change. And yes a 44'er designed for 100 HP or less is very attractive. A good sailing vessel is completely off the table for my wife. Cave dwelling is not in the cards for her!

 

[FF]

FF what is a TT?

Well the PC owners prefer to call them Taiwan Trawlers.

The brokers , yard workers and repair folks think Taiwan Tubs in their slang.

The TT improved a great deal back when the US yacht market was destroyed by congress , and the market for these boats went to Europe , that required a far higher standard to sell at any price.

Today's boats are far better than the 60's and 70's creations , but few are suitable for ocean use, or offshore passage making.

Volume and price is still the sales point. AS that is what 99+% of the market will pay for.

True Offshore may be $$$ 300% higher ,(for the required scantlings,) and volume constrained by internal tankage etc. Price a Deerfoot.

 

[twiisted71]

Hmmm TT = Taiwan Trawler = bad. Nordhavn = good = can go out when TT looks for more line to lash itself to pilings.

The following I just seconds ago copy/pasted from Nordhavn's website.


"While most of the Nordhavn buyers see their new boat for the first time when it arrives for commissioning, some do elect to make the trip to our Taiwan or China factories."

Using TT in that sense in a Nordhavn thread is akin to saying Jap crap standing in a Lexus or Infinity showroom!

 

[sunchaser]

twisted71 posted:

"While most of the Nordhavn buyers see their new boat for the first time when it arrives for commissioning, some do elect to make the trip to our Taiwan or China factories."



Ditto some other very nice vessels:

• Fleming
• Outer Reef
• Marlow
• Grand Banks
• Kadey Krogen
• Ocean Alexander
• DeFever

All of these brands have a very high non Chinese content for electricals, plumbing and mechanicals. Plus the NA company reps are ever present.

But problems persist, even with the above, keeping the NA commissioning yards busy. Some current Chinese builders (not listed above) have a very bad record. The same can be said for many non Chinese builders.

 

[FF]

some do elect to make the trip to our Taiwan or China factories."

Ditto some other very nice vessels:

• Fleming
• Outer Reef
• Marlow
• Grand Banks
• Kadey Krogen
• Ocean Alexander
• DeFever

Agree, But when Taiwan started the TT term was used for sail boats.

As far as I can research the first production was a splashed SEA WOLF.

An owner was offered a #1 paint job if he would allow a mold to be splashed from his boat.

He did get a great looking boat and a good paint job , as usual the NA designer of the boat got the Chinese Finger , nothing ,for his design and all the knock offs produced .

The big problem then was sailing was illegal there (those nasty Red Chinese were across the straight) so the choice of fittings and most parts was what someone knocked off.

Didn't take long and owners were specifying US marine hardware , and eventually would take an allowance of a few hundred and pass on the spruce mast , and have the boat rigged with a US mast and US rigging wire.

The term TT stuck when "trawlers" were imported years later.

Today every level of boating has its price point boats (like a Bayliner) and really nice world class yachts.

Few can go to De Vris or Abeking & Rasmussen to have their dream boat built , so with reasonable production standards a stock boat can be grand. Especially if open ocean passages are not contemplated.

MY only sadness is even today first buyers do not demand Fire Retardant resin, and real marine fuel tanks that are easily serviced , instead of boxes of fuel.

Would not change the cost of most production cookies by 1 or 2 % , only an extra month or two on the loan.

Sadly some folks see TT as derisive , when it is not , as they probably take poorly to "Houseboat" , even tho that is what TRUMPHY called their coastal masterpieces.

 

[Marin]

Ditto some other very nice vessels:

[*]Grand Banks
.

Grand Banks are not Taiwanese or Chinese made vessels. Wood GBs were made in Hong Kong (Kowloon) until the switch was made to fiberglass in mid 1973. All fiberglass GBs were and are made in Singapore. More recently the company opened a second yard across the Strait in Malaysia. Some models have their hulls molded in the Singapore yard after which they are towed across the narrow Strait to be completed in the Malaysia yard.

But all American Marine/Grand Banks Llc boats--- Grand Banks, Alaskan, Laguna, Eastbay, Aleutian--- have been or are built in Singapore, Malaysia, or in the very early wood days, Hong Kong.

 

[Keith]

Speaking of, what ever happened to Seahorse Marine, who was building Diesel Ducks in China I think.... Their web site is gone.

 

[C lectric]

SEAHORSE MARINE


They may be gone but I just googled them and found the site.

 

[Keith]

Interesting, that's actually on yachtworld.com.

 

[Phil Fill]

From day one on Passsagemaker and other boat sites the Eagle been named as TT which 15 to 10 years ago had a very negative connotation to it as most of the well know brand where US made. Now since the majority of the band name boats are foreign make its not very often you hear TT any more. I have not seen/found where TT boasts where any different than domestic boats as they all seem to be made basically the same. Being the RW 58 was one of the first ugly, slow long range pleasure trawler being called a Taiwan Tub did not make that much of a difference. In the actual boating world at the time, being a ugly slow heavy trawler made us stick out from 95% of the boats. So it was no big deal as we could 95% of the time say, “But our boat is bigger than your boat!”

 

[Edelweiss]

LOL Luciano, you've been the victim of a common occurrence here. Sorry for the hijack.

FF what is a TT?

-------------------------------------

It goes back to the 70's when US boat builders were competing against the flood of imported boats. They often referred to the various imports in a negative vain to their customers and owners. It's mostly disappeared now since everything we buy now days is imported from somewhere.

TT's were Taiwan Tubs (Presidents, Marine Trader, etc.)
SS's were Singapore Slugs (Grand Banks, etc.)

Larry B

 

[SomeSailor]

Call 'em what they will. For under $1000 a foot of length, I'm happy with mine.

 

[BruceK]

Let`s lose the pejorative. TT= Taiwanese Trawler. I`m not sure my IG actually is one because of the local Halvorsen design and input, but doubt it matters much.
Quality should be assessed individually; boats sold under the same brand sometimes had more than one builder.

 

[FF]

Quality should be assessed individually; boats sold under the same brand sometimes had more than one builder.

YES!

It was common to give a splashed hull to a family member on his getting married , to start him in business.

 

[caltexflanc]

"Something that can COMFORTABLY deal with 5'ers without active fin stabilizers will be a welcome change."

Ain't no such thing. OK, there are paravanes as an alternative. You and the SO go trying to deploy and retrieve those some time and get back to us.

 

[twiisted71]

Since I grew up on fishing boats in all manner of weather I look at and engineer things with just such occasions in mind. My fish would be on winches. That way they could be hauled up to the boom and then the booms raised. 5'ers may be ambitious for comfort but, if facing those conditions in my present boat, we're staying put until things improve. I want something that I'd feel comfortable with the boat's capability to deal with that situation in case I want to get home, now. Why would I need to get back to you? Are you wanting to know if paravanes are effective? It'll likely be 15+ years or so until we get that boat unless we win the lottery and can quit work and head off into the sunset.
I'd also like to get some experience on sailboats to see what effect sails have in rough conditions. There have been a couple of occasions that I've had to extend the frames (had already taken the nets off) to lessen the effect the waves had so we could make it in to sell our catch and not spend a miserable night out on the boat.

 

[Marin]

From the sailing I have done while living in Hawaii I can tell you that sails are WODERFUL stabilizers. I've been out in the notorious Molokai Channel in sportfishing boats, the locally built aku (tuna) boats, and sailboats (mostly an Islander 36). The Islander under sail was remarkably stable in the big swells with wind waves on top of them. The narrow, 70' displacement aku boats were next as they sliced through the swelles, and the sportfishermen were a very distant third.

 

[Larry M]

...My fish would be on winches. ... Are you wanting to know if paravanes are effective?...

Yes and yes. We have winches to help with the retrieval and deployment of our paravanes. Are they effective, you bet. We have 10k plus miles with the paravanes deployed. We wouldn't be doing what we're doing without them on our TT.

 

[caltexflanc]

Yes, I am interested in various couples experience using and deploying paravanes. I have interviewed a very unscientific sample of about 10, all with the full complement of winches (including electric/hydraulic) and each female interviewed, and most of the men described it as a big PITA and at times dangerous. Most had stopped using them altogether and simply stayed inside or waited for good conditions outside. Observation, even more unscientific, of boats underway, I have seen a pleasure boat with them deployed once, in thousands of ocean going and open water miles. So experiences like Larry's are great to hear. You don't see many Krogens equipped with them.

I am anything but anti-paravane, quite the contrary, to me they are the only thing that makes sense, if you had to choose just one stabilizing system for an ocean crossing full displacement recreational motorboat that would be operated by a couple or three people.

And yes, sailboats are very stable under sail. It always amazes me when I see them under power, rocking and floundering around in almost ideal sailing weather in open water. The first half of my boating life was virtually all on sailboats, mostly along the entire coast of California, with a little in the PNW and Hawaii. It can get a little sporty out there.