First Four TT35s Looking GOOD!

Caveat Lector . . .

With the exception of which anchor sets the best is there any other thread in any of the categories on TF that illicits such a black and white divide on the forum? (Excluding politics and religion of course).

It seems to me that the opinions, attitudes and perspectives associated with GH reach in to the exclusion zone I just mentioned. This isn't passing judgment on any one person in particular, I am just looking at it from a perspective of human character and what the internet brings out (accommodates) with respect to discussion, discourse and disobedience concerning civility while acknowledging everyone has an opinion and mine isn't necessarily on having to insist that mine is the only correct one. Heck, look at the varying opinions of those we acknowledge as being educated NAs who cannot agree on the science behind what makes the best hull for the purposes of "X" type of boating/sailing and so on.

Such as it were, none of the negatives posted are necessarily untrue. Just as none of the positives that folk have experienced with GH are necessarily an exaggeration.

However, each time I begin to read a new post that is resentful or antagonistic I feel myself slipping in to the mindset I experience when some athlete, actor, etc. starts going off on the P or the R... in other words, they feel the need to offer opinion not necessarily because of their experience with the subject but because they are "X" (X = famous, talented, pretty and so on). In other words, speaking about something that is not about why they may of had my attention to begin with. (I think Dolly Parton said it best; you'll have to look up her quote so I do not misquote her about being an entertainer and not someone else's conscious regarding P & R. And so forth.)

Anyways . . .

Perhaps because we all don't know the extent of the candidly [extensive] backgrounds that many on TF possess (which I personally often do seek out) AND we (thankfully?) don't always know who's pretty and who isn't. . But we sure don't mind being argumentative with one another. If at times only doing it for the appearances of being so?

The point being this - I suspect Ken knows full well that his products are not everyone's cup of tea. His expereinces, thus far, still have him producing boats now going on decades, not just years, where many, many other boat manufacturers are long gone. Heck, what was I just reading about Brunswick deciding to sell off SeaRay. I just finished bringing back to life a great little McKee Craft. A great boat, but now just a part of history.

So GH isn't going to compete with GB, with NT, with OC, Marlow, and on into infinitudes with trawlers. Who knows how the TT will compete with other factories long term. I would suggest the GH trawlers influence on that part of the market will suggest just how much the TTs will have on that style of boating. I suspect the family running GH is quite content to remain just where they are in the industry.

In acknowledging that GH is a boutique builder in effect, my expectations of what's current on their FB site, what "news" is newly released versus actually old, did they meet this or that deadline is frankly - meh. As in so what. Since I am not looking to buy a TT, have no $$$ invested in GH or as a down payment on a TT, do I really care one way or another with all that there is frankly to chose from in this industry? They not hitting the points that would be important to me if I were "in the market"? Then I will move on to a builder who may be. Not rant r rave about how so and so didn't do this or that relative to MY expectations. (Actually sounds funny typing it out. Hehe).

There is obviously a lot more than just "meh" from many of those following this thread. So to circle around to the top of this soliloquy, I just keep wondering why so much +/- energy when there isn't anything personally tied up with whether or not GH hits deadlines and so on. Unfortunately, theirs would not be the first company to be innovative but not be able to get past nay-saying public opinion to sustain production. From my perspective on the world, I root for the little guy/underdog or handicapped. Obviously not all do.

As they say back home, if ya'all don't have a dog in this fight, why give two with the negativity?

Oh yeah, I have never owned a GH, never met "Ken" or any other family member. I do have an interest in seeing the boating and sailing community remain strong and ever viligent concerning fraudulent behavior, shysters or other nefarious characters. As such, I do not subscribe to the idea that GH is any of the above. Just a group of people doing what they enjoy, make a living doing it and sharing the outcomes of their endeavors. Thankfully we have many choices as to how to spend our own dough. So I say cheers to those who continue to try and extend boundaries, create new products and provide me with comforts I couldn't otherwise think of or produce myself.

Happy boating folks.

I would not expect GH to go out of it's way to keep TF updated. I would expect them to issue press releases and keep the boating press updated, and then our members would hear of it, and mention it here.

There are some innovative features of the TT35 but if I'm not mistaken, they are in the make up of the hull. Aparently the guy that runs the company spent some time building lightweight aircraft and came up with a way to build a lightweight boat hull ( I think the boat is under 6000 lbs ) That is a new and different idea, that I would expect might run into some difficulties. I understand that completely. BUT....those complications and difficulties would delay the production of the hulls. Those have been done. Installing a mass market, production outboard is not cutting edge. Are the electronics being custom built by Raymarine, or Furuno ? NO....its off the shelf existing stuff. This vessel is a very innovative hull, with a bunch of existing, off the shelf, stuff put in it. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I'm just trying to say that the difficulties of innovation have already been overcome in the building of the hull. Any complications after that step in the process should be well understood by a company that has been doing this for quite a while; and the fact that it isn't, makes them look bad. Justified or not, the perception in this day of instant knowledge, is that if there is an explanation that exonerates you, it would be public. No news, is bad news. If they came out and said that "component X" failed to meet our specs and we had to redesign the "watchamacallit" and expect this will set us back a few months...or we don't know how long but we're working on it...that would make sense. Transparency is a good thing. Fair or not, silence is equated with culpability.

Are the people who are so critical of GH because they think they can't do anything right, any worse than the people that are so supportive of them that they think they can't do anything wrong ?

Benthic2 said:

I would not expect GH to go out of it's way to keep TF updated. I would expect them to issue press releases and keep the boating press updated, and then our members would hear of it, and jump in.

There are some innovative features of the TT35 but if I'm not mistaken, they are in the make up of the hull. Aparently the guy that runs the company spent some time building lightweight aircraft and came up with a way to build a lightweight boat hull ( I think the boat is under 6000 lbs ) That is a new and different idea, that I would expect might run into some difficulties. I understand that completely. BUT....those complications and difficulties would delay the production of the hulls. Those have been done. Installing a mass market, production outboard is not cutting edge. Are the electronics being custom built by Raymarine, or Furuno ? NO....its off the shelf existing stuff. This vessel is a very innovative hull, with a bunch of existing off the shelf stuff put in it. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I'm just trying to say that the difficulties of innovation have already been overcome in the building of the hull. Any complications after that step in the process should be well understood by a company that has been doing this for quite a while, and the fact that it isn't, makes them look bad. Justified or not, the perception in this day of instant knowledge, is that if there is an explanation that exonerates you, it would be public. No news, is bad news. If they came out and said that "component X" failed to meet our specs and we had to redesign the "watchamacallit" and expect this will set us back a few months...or we don't know how long but we're working on it. Transparency is a good thing. Fair or not, silence is equated with culpability.

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I think you are missing the point, and what is likely the reality, which TXN wrote succinctly above, "I suspect the family running GH is quite content to remain just where they are in the industry."

Benthic2 said:

Are the people who are so critical of GH because they think they can't do anything right, any worse than the people that are so supportive of them that they think they can't do anything wrong ?

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Bingo.

boathealer said:

I think you are missing the point, and what is likely the reality, which TXN wrote succinctly above, ."

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Succinct - Brief and to the point.

Benthic2 said:

Are the people who are so critical of GH because they think they can't do anything right, any worse than the people that are so supportive of them that they think they can't do anything wrong ?

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I believe the adage is whether one believes the glass is half full or half empty... to wit we see it displayed here with regard to who is whom....

Are the people who are so critical of GH because they think they can't do anything right, any worse than the people that are so supportive of them that they think they can't do anything wrong ?

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On these online venues its normally the case that if you have no direct experience with a product, its normally the need to just spout off. Of course it also can be a case that a person has of a friend of a friend of a friend that has espoused a similar opinion either way and they parrot it too. And you know what they say about opinions too...

boathealer said:

Maybe I'm just different.

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Maybe you are, but your opinion and comments sound good to me.

There are many things that I like about the GH designs that I have looked at, and I was sorely tempted by a GH37 that was for sale up here in Seattle. GHs are rare in the PNW.

I wish GH well and wish them success on their new boat, even if it isn’t the boat for me.

boathealer said:

putting low-maintenance-cost 54hp engines in a 50,000lb boat,

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That was one of the things that appealed to me about the GH. Those are the same Yanmar engines that were in my Catalina 400 MkII. Great engines. Efficient, easy to work on (other than a horizontally mounted oil filter), and very reliable. Those two engines burn less fuel and are cheaper to maintain than my single engine (or course they have less than 1/2 the hp as well).

Wouldn't it be nice if the TT35 was the topic? wait, isn't that the thread?

Plane Nauti said:

Wouldn't it be nice if the TT35 was the topic? wait, isn't that the thread?

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Actually the thread topic is more specific. It's the four TT35's under the shed in the July 21 photos and how good they're looking.

BandB said:

Actually the thread topic is more specific. It's the four TT35's under the shed in the July 21 photos and how good they're looking.

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It's the biatching about this and that that's the issue.

Just let it be.

The last GH newsletter stated that hull #1 would be delivered on 15 March and haven't seen anything on Facebook to indicate that happened. Yesterday, the Admiral was out of town and I had free time on my hands so I drove over to Gainesville to see what was going on. Well, hull #1 was still in the shed. It looked real good from the road with bottom paint and a stripe on it but when I walked around the boat, it might take another week or two to finish it up and detail it. There were three other boats in the shed in various state of construction which assume were hulls 5, 6 and 7 and there were 2 boats in a fenced compound perhaps waiting to be finished up after hull #1 is delivered. They must be hulls 3 and 4. Took a few pics with my iPad.

Mods - could you please rotate the images. Thanks!

I still want a walk through.

Okay TF, here is an update

For those who are curious about the delivery of Hull #1, our new TT35, here is an update. More performance data will follow when we actually get our boat, which we are hoping will be by the end of this week or next week.

Via email, Travis Fickett invited us to Lake Newnan in Gainesville, in order to lake-trial the boat for the Final Inspection, for last Tuesday March 13th, 2018. Per our contract, after the Final Inspection, we are to pay them the final payment and take delivery of the boat. Also per the contract, at that time we will make an agreed-upon list of things that need to be fixed and Mirage will take care of those in a prompt manner.

Lake Newnan is a very small lake about a mile wide that is close to the Mirage Manufacturing production facility. There is a boat ramp there, and this is where the initial speed & fuel consumption tests were performed on our bare-bones Hull #1 on February 1st, 2017. (You can see these results on the Great Harbour website under "TT35: Test Report.")

We proposed to Travis Fickett, that instead of Lake Newnan, we could splash the boat on the St. Johns river at Palatka, where there are fuel and water facilities, because we would like our marine surveyor to have the opportunity to survey the boat while it is fully loaded with water and fuel. We offered to pay for the dockage and transport.

Palatka was the closest location to the Mirage facility that we could find with marina facilities and an adequate boat ramp. We estimate that it is a little over an hour's drive from Mirage.

To our surprise, Travis Fickett (and we assume, Ken Fickett, because he was copied on the emails) refused. As a result, our marine surveyor is scheduled to do the survey tomorrow (March 20th, 2018) on the hard at the Mirage facility and then move to a test on Lake Newnan.

Our contract states that we will take possession of the boat and make the final payment if the boat is found to be "seaworthy."

We fully expect the boat to be found lake-worthy, because Dan was with some Mirage representatives on our boat (on this same lake) March 1st, 2018, when the outboards and steering were tested. However, due to the break-in period for the new outboards, they were unable to test the boat at full speed. (We were told that the original outboards from the February 1st, 2017 test run ended up on Hull #2, so our outboards have not been broken-in.)

Dan observed that the outboards ran well at idle speeds and that Travis Fickett and another gentleman were able to steer the boat from the lower and upper helms. Dan observed that the Garmin screen at the lower helm did turn on, and that the Garmin screen at the upper helm was not yet installed. He also observed that the boat had about a quarter or less tank of gas.

It is also important to us that the surveyor will be able to test the the boat to see if the high-thrust outboards are able to achieve their full rated rpm's. This will require running the boat at idle for approximately another two hours before the engines can be throttled up to max (for short periods of less than 5 minutes during the next 7 hours of operation - again, part of the outboards' break-in period).

We are hoping that during the lake test the Ficketts will, at minimum, allow the boat to run at idle for two hours, and then allow a brief full-throttle test, before the lake-trial is concluded. Mirage did not install any engine gauges or instrumentation, so this will also involve getting the two Garmin screens to accurately display the outboard instrumentation.

Dan has also had some conversations this past month with Travis Fickett concerning the two joysticks that were paid for and installed. Travis Fickett has said that the company that was supposed to program the joysticks has not been able to successfully program them. We have not heard anything new on this topic from anyone at Mirage, so it appears we are probably just going to have to eliminate the joysticks. This may involve the boat spending a little more time at the production facility before she is delivered to our dock in St. Petersburg.

We will find out from the marine surveyor if there are any other issues. We have a few concerns and are interested to see if our concerns are documented by the surveyor. Because our dock is located several hours away from Gainesville, we are hoping that we can get all issues addressed before we take possession. Hauling the boat back and forth to Gainesville would be a PITA, and we were hoping to start the Loop on March 1st.

Here are some photographs from Dan's March 1st, 2018 boat ride and from a visit to the facility a week later. And I would also like to thank BandB, BruceB, Woodland, Benthic, JLD, dmarchand and Donsan for their observations on this thread.

And Don, thank you for the update. Your photos showed me that our bimini is not yet installed; I am crossing my fingers it will be there tomorrow.

Amazing to me how they think you can determine if a boat is "seaworthy" on what is nothing more than a large pond. Newnan's lake is 1.12 miles long, an average depth of 4.9 ft and a maximum depth of 12 ft.

I wish you the best of luck in the completion of this endeavor.

P.S. They removed the joystick on Silver Song as well due to inability to resolve software issues.

I still say it looks like a nice little boat and I think once all the details and kinks are worked out, you will really enjoy it. It just may take a bit of time getting it done.

Pea - are you bringing up a surveyor from St. Pete?

Will it be possible to walk in the cockpit without getting your feet wet at full load?

Glad to hear you're making progress, MT. It can be a challenge being on the leading edge of a project like this.

I can appreciate your interest in conducting a sea trial at normal operating weight with full fuel and water. IIRC, the tailgate sat a little low during a boat show display. Maybe that was just due to lots of folks being aboard. In my way of thinking, a planing hull ought to achieve the performance benchmarks with a full load.

Hopefully that can be accommodated, even on the lake.

FlyWright said:

Glad to hear you're making progress, MT. It can be a challenge being on the leading edge of a project like this.

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In my experiences, this is often thought of as the bleeding edge . . .

Pea, since my initial post (#121), I have had opportunity to learn much about GH offline. I sincerely am hoping all goes as desired these next couple of weeks, in spite of effectively being handcuffed regarding what is not unreasonable requests given the value of this purchase.

As dhays suggests (and hopefully soon), once the kinks, headaches and related challenges are worked out to your satisfaction, yours should be a pleasing boat.

You made the final payment prior to the successful completion of the acceptance/sea trial?
Was that wise? You have lost your leverage. My thoughts would be to walk away with the instructions to the builder, "Call me when you have the kinks worked out, instrumentation installed and working and ready for sea-trials."

I know, missing the start of the Great Loop is disappointing but, we all want you to successfully complete the Great Loop too.

What is the cause of the wet cockpit floor? I must have missed the explanation.

The pictures seem to indicate to me, the boat is sitting low in the stern. Maybe this can be corrected with ballasting.

You are correct, you need all tanks full when doing a sea trial. Personally, I'd also want all my stuff onboard and stored for the sea trial.

Are the results of the stability tests available? You do not want a 'tender' boat when it comes to stability.

They will not sea-trial in the "real world"? Hmmmmm.

The list of, "this does not seem right". seems to be growing faster than the "corrected list".

How many hours must be on the engines for them to be 'broken-in"?

I know they will work everything out, future sales depend upon getting completed boats out the door to satisfied owners.

I sill want a walk through. It is an interesting looking boat.

OldDan1943 said:

I know, missing the start of the Great Loop is disappointing but, we all want you to successfully complete the Great Loop too.

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As a clarification, when she said they planned to start the loop on March 1, that was March 1, 2017. Silver Song is starting it this year. Hopefully they can as well if that's still in their plans.

BandB said:

As a clarification, when she said they planned to start the loop on March 1, that was March 1, 2017. Silver Song is starting it this year. Hopefully they can as well if that's still in their plans.

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Spirit Song.

OldDan1943 said:

What is the cause of the wet cockpit floor? I must have missed the explanation.

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The TT35 utilizes a folding swim platform which is also a boarding gate. It was observed during the Annapolis Boat Show that the swim platform and cockpit were so low that water could enter the cockpit. GH stated to one poster they were going to raise the cockpit on later (after hull #4 or so) boats. If it were me, I would want to see what happens at full load.

OldDan1943 said:

How many hours must be on the engines for them to be 'broken-in"?

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Outboards typically require a 20 hour break in period. Believe that applies the Suzuki DF60.

Since they will be trailering the boat to the testing site, I would think they would be able to fill the fuel and water tanks along the way. If not, perhaps they can simulate the weight with sandbags or something?

Miz Trom said:

For those who are curious about the delivery of Hull #1, our new TT35, here is an update.

--- Travis Fickett and another gentleman were able to steer the boat from the lower and upper helms.

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Just curious if you know how much of the delivery delay was yall asking for the redesign to include a flybridge?

Benthic2 said:

Since they will be trailering the boat to the testing site, I would think they would be able to fill the fuel and water tanks along the way. If not, perhaps they can simulate the weight with sandbags or something?

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In some states, they have 'off road' fuel sold at the gas dock. To distinguish it from gas with the road tax, the off road/marine fuel is red in color.
Check to see which is less expensive.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but I just saw that GH is planning to make hull #4 a demo boat that they will cruise and show.

Al said it right. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine expressed concerns of quality control from company strategy in a small builder’s new project, but your boat is almost finished now. In spite of the provocative delays causing you to pace up and down the dock where it should have been tied months ago, the eventual development of each model of Great Harbour boats have represented quality, inovativation and reliability.

Drove by Mirage Mfg this weekend. The sad state of affairs appears to be not one TT35 is out on the water. Well, hull #2 was on the water but is now in a fenced compound in brokerage waiting for a new buyer. Hull #1 was parked out in front and looked like it was waiting for some one to come by and steal it. Hull #3 has a blue hull, hull number 4 has a red hull....how patriotic.

The good news is if you have a spare $300K or so, you can drive your 4x4 pickup to Gainesville and drive off with hull #2...after sea trial and survey of course.

Still waiting to read some real life experiences on how this design is going to work out.