Need direction

[Trichamp]

Hell'o trawler friends,, Need direction from the experienced. New to this area (trawler world). Considering buying a Mainship 39/390, 1997-2002, single engine. Berthed on T V A lake Knoxville, Tn. (Tennessee River). Would like to do some ICW in segments over a period of time. Mainship has stairs to fly bridge which is necessary since wife has slight mobility issue. Please share with me the the good and not so good issues that I will experience with a Mainship. Thank you, Trichamp

 

[Moonstruck]

The Mainship 390 is a good boat. All boats have issues, and this one should be about average. One place to check is if the swim platform is an extension of the hull, there have been some problems with water intrusion at the hull deck joint. This would need to be checked out.

Welcome to TF and the Tennessee River system.

 

[ranger58sb]

I considered the Mainship 350/390 a really great successor to their already-very-good '70s-'80s 34' models I, II, and III. Not perfect, I understand, but many of the things we thought might actually be improved on our Mainship III happened in the 350/390s. Many of those (e.g., side door at lower station) wouldn't have been possible without the wider beam...

The swim platform water intrusion thing is the only reported problem I'm aware of. (But we ended up going a different direction, so don't have first-hand experience.)

FWIW, we also shopped on the 43 and the 400, and they too had very nice features, including stairs to the flying bridge.

I would describe Mainships (and boats from their original/sister brand -- Silverton actually built the first Mainships) as very solid Chevies/Fords/Dodges, if that analogy makes sense to you.

-Chris