Mainship Pilot 31

Hi All,
I have reached out to several sites in a hope of getting more information on a Mainship Pilot 31. I am struggling to find anything.
Quality of build, handling - especially in a sea way. Has anyone helmed one?
I have found a few sales briefs and videos online but they were obviously designed to sell rather than give an objective review on the boats. I am looking for a small family cruiser that can handle the odd overnight stay for my family of 4. Something that can power through a swell as we get quite a sea breeze here (Palma de Mallorca, Spain) in the afternoons. I like the look of the Mainship and the simplicity of the design and ease of maintenance with one engine. I have found a 2009 31 for sale in Europe. Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.

The Mainship Pilot 31 was a renaming of the better known Pilot 30 that was built from the early 2000s. They came with either the Yanmar 4LHA 240 hp engine or the preferable Yanmar 6LP 315 hp engine.


It is a nice short distance cruiser. Four would be a little tight but ok for a weekend. They come in canvas and hardtop versions. Look on Yachtworld for listings and here for an older review: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/256890/www.mainship.com/models/reviews/30review.pdf


David

David, I do not think the 31 ever had a soft top. Like David said, the 31 is basically the same boat as the 30 except they did some pretty serious redesigning of the interior spaces and cockpit space. They basically moved the galley from down below up to the outside cockpit area and also redesigned the seating. I think the redesign was a huge improvement for the boat. Assuming the hull is the same as the Pilot 30 II, and I think it is, it is a fairly seaworthy shape of a hull. I had the one in my signature for 6 years and loved the boat.

Build Quality is average. Nothing earth shattering. I will say that build quality of my Carver is surprisingly better than the Mainship. But that really doesn't mean much. For what you say you will use it for, I think it would serve very well. 4 people would be tight but you mentioned it with the "odd weekend" meaning you won't be doing that much. And if you are European you folks tolerate smaller spaces and closer living quarters better than us Americans.

The reason you don't see much about that boat is because they started building the 31 in 2007 and Mainship went bankrupt in 2008. SO there were very few 31s built. They do command a fairly hefty price though probably because they are newer and the redesign really was extremely valuable...in my opinion.

boattest.com has a review on the Pilot 31

johnrupp said:

boattest.com has a review on the Pilot 31

Click to expand...

One of their better reviews because while Smith loves the boat, he does a good job of saying what the boat is and what it isn't, who would like it and who wouldn't.

Thank you djmarchand and Baker very helpful. Its good to know more of the history and we will only be using her for limited overnight use so i think the layout works well for that. I was more concerned on the handling in a breeze and heavy sea state as I am just not familiar with the hull design.