Grand Banks v Defever

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You guys are great. Thank you all for the information and advice. ����
 
The Defever looks very very nice. I am not in love with the Volvos but maybe down under parts are more readily available and priced more reasonably. We have a sundeck style so I like the aft cockpit enclosure.
 
I am with Insequent /Brian on this one.

The DeFever displayed at SCIBS on the Gold Coast last year was very obviously built to a price. It is still for sale in Sydney I think, at a reduced price, through the Bobbin Head broker Empire Boat Sales. I think it is now around AUD 1.5m for a brand new 55+ foot boat.

I like the lines on the DeFever designs, I think they are pretty boats. But you need to check who built the boat you are looking at (was it POCTA or someone else?), and what was specc’ed by the original owner.

And now we come to engines. In my experience, for whatever that may be worth, in Australia the US engines or US supported engines are the way to go. Deere, Cummins, CAT, Ford Lehman. Others can be problematic. Older engines need spares and people who know how to work on them. Just my opinion.

H.
 
Hey Brishamish. The boat is now in Adelaide and has been for sale I believe for about a year. It was apparently designed by Defevers son inlaw 'Sharp'. Built in Shanghai China. I need alot more information from the broker before I make the trip from Qld.
 
Ralsy,

If you can stretch the budget, go have a look at the one at Bobbin Head. It’s a POCTA built, Arthur DeFever design. Brisbane to Sydney and back for two people is under $1k return.

Proper Pilothouse design and dimensionally larger than a GB46.

And ‘loose furniture’ in the salon. which is a benefit for the reasons mentioned by others who have posted. GB boats tend to, but not always, have fixed stuff.

This boat was built to a price as mentioned, and you can see that in certain areas, but it is still a lot of boat for the money now sought and I much prefer the design to a Clipper. It’s a single engine, however the single is a Deere 6068 which is really good kit and readily able to be maintained here.

Hamish.
 
That’s it. For a new boat, that’s a lot at that reduced price.
 
Comodave said:
We have 2 Stressless recliners in our salon. We put an area carpet that is slightly larger than the bases of the recliners with a non skid pad under the carpet. The recliners have never moved in 6 to 8 foot seas. According to my wife we will never be intentionally be in anything bigger so movement of the furniture isn’t a problem for us. We also have a freestanding chest freezer next to them with a nonskid pad under it on the teak and holly deck and it has never moved either.
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Any loose furniture would be a death trap in my eyes. Sometimes the forecast isn't quite right.

6-8 feet seas can be a gentle, long interval swell or it can be steep, breaking waves. I'd hate to be in the latter with an unsecured chest freezer.
 
As a previous owner of a DeFever 44 who also looked at many boats including the DeFever and the Grand Banks before buying, I would say this. The Grand Banks had way more teak than we were willing to keep up with, both interior and exterior, and the teak decks on the older models generally are big expensive problems. Also the GB uses that black iron for the fuel tanks which wasn’t what we wanted and the backs of the tanks were inaccessible on the 44 so we could never monitor for leaks. On the DeFever everything, including tanks and engines can be removed through the floor boards in the main salon. Not that we ever wanted to do that, but the possibility always exists in older boats. Look at both boats and sit and think of how you would use it, sleep on it, where clothes go, where food and tool storage would be, where navigation equipment lives, where do lines and fenders go, how you would entertain friends. To me that is a very important thing to do and talking to many boater friends, is something they did not do before buying. There will always be compromises since no boat is perfect or can you make it so, but know the devil you are buying gives you the upper hand.
 
An RPH style boat can generally have a lower Center of Gravity than a single level design. GB Europa’s have a reputation for rolling and are best operated with stabilisers. Earlier GB’s also have a lot of items hidden away and some maintenance can be a pain. If your budget runs to it, GB Aleutians are nice and well built but expensive and mostly over engined.

Defevers tend to be pretty well built but maintenance and care are critical particularly on the upper decks. Look very closely for warping in the boat deck which can happen if water gets in through poorly sealed deck fittings. Even if you have big engines it costs a lot of fuel to go faster than 10knots in a Defever because they are pretty heavily built and I think the hard chines were really only there to damp roll. There are also a lot of Defever hull shapes out there and if you see a couple of different models on the hard you will see that. The location and length of the chines is the first thing that stands out but the fullness of the forward sections varies a bit as well.
 
DeFever

The boat you are describing would not be considered a
'Defever". It is a design most likely done by Art's son in law, and would be considered a Sharp design. At one point they both worked in Art's office together, but the son-in-law went his own way after a couple of years, because of the difference in design philosophy. If you go onto the DeFever club website as a visitor, you will see all of the different DeFever designs with pictures of the same. All the DeFevers for the last couple of decades have been built by one yard. POCTA is the exclusive builder of Arthur's designs. The quality is unsurpassed for the price, and better than most at any cost. We considered both and went with the DeFever for a number of reasons, most specifically, the difference in engine room sizes and the difference in the Bow design. The grand Banks is a much wetter boat, while the DeFever with its larger flair at the Bow enters the waves better and sends the spray to the side instead of over the bow. All this being said, you need to look at both to see which boat Will suit your individual taste better.
 
O C Diver said:
I think he's inferring that they're both built by the same manufacturer (General Motors) with mostly a personal preference to the sub manufacturer.

Both boats were likely built in similar boatyards in Taiwan.

IMO, for boats of the same age, the quality will be similar. I would tend to focus more on layout and features.

Ted
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Just for the sake of accuracy--I don't believe any Grand Banks were ever built in Taiwan. Hong Kong and Singapore, yes.
 
Grand Alaskans were a Defever design and not built by POCTA. I believe but I am not 100% sure that some designs live on with Outer Reef.
 
I own a Defever 49. Have had it for 15 years. It is a 2002. I wouldn't trade it for any of the mentioned trawlers (GB, Nordhavens, Kadey nor Fleming). It suits me perfectly.
 
DeFever

If you look at the history of the Defever designs, the first commercial success was with West coast tuna fishing boats. The first design that Arthur DeFever did for the boats built in the orient was for Grand Banks. It was called the Alaskan. It was a wooden boat, and when Grand Banks changed over to fiberglass, that design was no longer built. There were some other people who copied Arthur's designs to one degree or another, and that is how the Fleming 55, the Grand Alaskan, the Alaskan etc. were born. They have many similarities as Arthur's design, but are not DeFevers. Arthur DeFever was not a boatbuilder, but designed the boats that were built by other yards. The most prolific yards were in Taiwan, and over the years, they were consolidated into a company called POCTA, which moved manufacturing facilities to mainland China in order to expand. That is where all the DeFevers have been built by Wilson Lin and his staff for many years. There have been a lot of copies of the wonderful DeFever design, but as with many things the copies never live up to the real thing.
 
nhfred said:
...There were some other people who copied Arthur's designs to one degree or another, and that is how the Fleming 55, the Grand Alaskan, the Alaskan etc. were born.
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That would be incorrect. Arthur designed the Grand Alaskans built by Oviatt Marine in Taiwan.
 
I believe you are correct. I misspoke about the Grand Alaskans by Oviatt Marine There are some others that look similar, but I can't remember all of them without checking my research. I was trying to make the point, that there are a number of manufactures that realized Arthur's designs were wonderful, and liberally incorporated parts of them into their designs. This is why many non DeFevers have the look.
 
Little story.

We were anchored between the Majors in the Exumas. I was laying across the cockpit seat reading a book when a guy came up in his RIB and started chatting. He then said that he was in a Fleming 55 and I lightly said "oh, the boat Fleming designed after he measured up the dimensions of this boat?"

He said "I wish you hadn't said that," and took off!

I was "What?"

Seems a sore point with some people! Maybe he was Tony's son!
 
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I’ve always felt that boats are just copies of others ideas.
 
Bigsfish said:
I’ve always felt that boats are just copies of others ideas.
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I would hope that designers steal the best of what others have come up with and continue designing better and better models.
 
For the most part I believe that is true.
 
I have a GB Classic (46') and have a good friend who has a Defever....both good boats. I've had mine for about 7 years. Have been to the Bahamas two or three times, up to Charleston (once), to Key West a bunch of times and over to the West Coast (Naples, Sarasota, St. Pete) every winter. Home base is the Florida YC in Jax. Love my boat.....could live on it but wife likes a house. :(. I don't think you could go wrong with either of them assuming a good survey.
 
Everything is built to a price point. If money were no object we’d own a Fleming. But for the kind of boating we do, we’re more than happy with a Lexus vs a Lamborghini.
 
Question: I have a post on this thread and have a picture of my boat on my profile but it does not appear with my post....how to 'fix' this?
 
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