Hello all,
We are old sailors who are looking at buying a trawler to live aboard in the warm south during our cold winter months. The budget isn't high, so we (think) we have narrowed it down to either a Mark 111 Mainship 34(1984) or a 1988 Bayliner 3870. Apart from the obvious difference in fuel consumption, what other comments do people have about the pros and cons of each of these boats?
We appreciate any and all input.
Cheers,
Alison
I know this is an old question, but I'll answer it since I looked at several Mainship 34's before I discovered the Bayliner 3818/3888/3870's. Loved the simple design of the Mainship 34 when I first looked at it, and all the room it had (compared to a 26' MacGregor 26X motorsailer I had at the time). The idea of a single diesel was both good and bad...lower fuel consumption, but no redundancy (and that has come in handy once for me). About the only thing that kept me from buying a Mainship 34 (twice) was that it only had one stateroom...weekends or weeks at the beach on the boat are generally me, my lady friend, and either my teenage daughter OR a guest or two. I really wanted two private staterooms.
After I stumbled across the Bayliner 38xx's, I was glad that I had paused long enough to not buy a Mainship 34. The Bayliner 38xx's have two staterooms (plus two heads, and a shower/tub shared between the two staterooms, separated by sliding doors on both sides), and even the midship's stateroom is plenty big enough for two adults. This was the winning point in my case...two staterooms, plus the table in the salon can be wrestled down to make another king-size bed. I don't like the built-in seating and raised platform in the salon area...but it does give you a lot more room in the engine room, and it's workable. (I do like the open "put whatever you want here" plan of the Mainship 34 better.)
The 175hp (400 or so ft-lbs of torgue) naturally-aspirated Hino EH-700 diesels were made by a Toyota subsidiary and re-branded as US Marine, and they tend to be engines with a long life. Parts are available (regardless of what a local shop will tell you...they may have to be ordered though), but some of them are expensive (manicoolers are about $5K each, although existing ones can often be pulled and ceramic-coated to extend the life to another 30 years or something crazy)...stainless steel risers are about $1200 each (and there are three different makers for them). The Hino's are rebuildable in-place (don't have to be pulled from the boat), cylinders are sleeved, and rebuild kits, hoses, belts, impellers, etc., are all available for those engines. You will find a few 38xx's that have been repowered with Cummin's 6BTA's that produce a lot more horsepower (and the boat goes a lot faster, at the expense of burning more fuel of course). You can find all sorts of info on the Hino engines at the Bayliner Owners Club forum (BOC.com). A diesel is a diesel, so any marine diesel mechanic who isn't hell-bent on selling you a Cummin's repower can work on them, if they are willing. There's also a Hino guru in Washington state who travels around the country in a motorhome and works on the Hino's. I don't think you'd end up *stuck* with a non-repairable engine, although you might have to wait on parts to be shipped and put a little work into finding a mechanic with the right attitude.
I'm 5'10", and on the Mainship 34, I would periodically bang my head going down the steps to the galley and front stateroom. There's much more head space at the galley-down steps in the Bayliner, and I can't possibly reach high enough to bonk my head going up or down those steps. I spent a lot of time on sailboats, and got really tired of constantly banging my head on something.
I looked carefully at three Bayliner 38xx's before buying the one I have...there are rarely any problems with the hulls on these boats (they are all solid 1.5" thick fiberglass, no wood-coring below the waterline, and have a vinylester coating applied...I've never seen anyone complain about blistering on the hull below the waterline).
If you run at hull speed, you'll get around 2 nmpg of fuel from the Bayliner 38xx with a reasonably clean bottom, so the fuel burn between the twin Hino's in the Bayliner 38xx and the single Perkins in the Mainship 34 are definitely in the same ballpark (which is surprising considering the 12,500 lb vs 20,000 lb weights). In good shape and good tuning, the Bayliner 38xx is a little faster than the Mainship, but not by a huge margin...I got one 38xx that I sea-trialed up to 18 knots, but it was low on fuel, no fresh or grey water onboard, no supplies...it was empty and lightly-loaded. Mine is heavily-loaded (too much so, in fact) and needs a little engine maintenance (valve adjustment, injector cleaning, maybe slight repitching of the props), so I tend to top out at 12-13 knots or so. I sea-trialed an old Mainship 34 with a new Perkin's 185hp (or 200hp?) diesel in it, and it topped out at 14 knots, so I think they are in the same ballpark speed-wise (although the Bayliner *should be* several knots faster). The Bayliner 38xx likes to take a bow-up attitude above hull speed, so make sure trim tabs are working properly, and realize the inside helm will have very limited visibility except at or below hull speed. I just had the engine hatch open last weekend over the starboard engine, and it's amazing to me that the 27 year old 2600 hour Hino diesels in this boat are clean and dry...there's not a single oil leak or drip that I could see, they are almost clean enough to eat off of. You can run these large engines at hull speed forever without worrying about accumulating soot in a turbo, etc. At 175hp, these engines have a very low hp/displacement ratio, which means they tend to have a long life. The same engines were turbocharged (250hp), and put into the 4588's.
After having a twin engine boat, I would not want to go back to a single-engine boat. I had an engine problem once (a faulty ground wire sounded the oil pressure alarm, so I shut one engine off...we limped back to dock easily, although docking with only one engine is NOT easy in this boat). You can spin the boat on it's axis with the twin engines, and you can also walk it sideways with some practice...can't do those things in a single-engine boat (unless you have stern and bow thrusters), and it makes docking this 10-ton boat a lot easier than you'd think. Oh, although it's labelled/named a "38 footer", if you measure it from swim platform to bow pupit, it's 42' long (although I've never had a marina get out a tape measure and measure it yet).
Just like the Mainship 34's, the Bayliner 38xx's have wood-cored decks and flybridge floor, so check those carefully when you look/buy. The flybridge floor is usually the most at risk, but from what I saw when looking, the 38xx's with a fully enclosed flybridge often didn't have any soft spots. (I did encounter one 38xx with a soft spot on the bow deck, but I think that was unusual.) Most of them have some minor rot in the teak at the back corner of the windows...something leaks in from the drain rail on top. Not true of all of them, mine doesn't have any rot there...but the first two I looked at did.
Just like the two engines, I like the redundancy of two heads on the Bayliner 38xx, although that is twice as many heads to maintain. The waste holding tank is poly, and I haven't heard of many of those failing (I know of one)....it's under the floor in the front master stateroom. The freshwater tank is aluminum, and I've seen several folks have that fail...it's under the galley and midship's stateroom floor. The 150 gallon fuel tanks are aluminum, and I have seen a couple folks have those fail...but they are under the bed in the midship's stateroom, and can be removed and replaced (not easily, but you don't have to practically cut the boat in half to get them out). Sometimes the fuel tanks will develop a leak around the fuel-sender, so if any doubt, check/replace that first. Or just don't fill them over 3/4 full (they can leak out around the fuel-senders when 100% full since the boat takes a bow-up attitude).
The original reverse-cycle heat/AC units will roast you even in cold weather if you want them to...AC sometimes struggles to keep up in August summers here in the South due to all the windows in the 39xx...shade the outside, and they'll do fine. Or replace them with larger units. Power is 2x30amp, but everything seems to run fine off 50amps with a splitter/Y-cable.
I love this boat...it's plenty comfortable in both warm and cold weather, and has actually changed how we use a boat (into the winter now, it has extended the season quite a bit). Most 27 year old cars (for instance) would be "junk" by now...these boats hold up well.
And "yes", I would consider the 38xx's to be "trawler yachts" or "fast trawlers", depending on how you use it.
Hope this all helps! Ask me any questions, and I'll try to find an answer!
Cheers,
Dave
I trust him.
