French and US built Beneteau's

[negrini]

What ? Everyone knows the best red in W is chilean !! Although I must admit, and would knee on corns to punish the contrary, french Champagne is done by gods. Nothing else compares.

Anyway, for me there are only two kind of wine in the world, those I've taken and those I will. And thanks Hello for cooling here.

[Zanshin]

A couple of years ago I arrived at the construction site of my flat just as the backhoe operator came out of what was going to be the basement. He was an older, experienced guy with years of experience but he was visibly shocked. He said "I've seen a lot in my life, I've dug up power lines, sewer lines, water, gas, and even bones. But this beats everything!". I looked into the pit and the tracks of the backhoe were already submerged and a peculiar smell came from the pit... It turns out that my place was being built over an undocumented pipeline leading from the commercial winery next door to the docks (this was on the Rhine river in Rheinland-Pfalz) which transported white wine! We joked that I would actually run a line up to my kitchen and have white-wine on tap. Unfortunately, the wine is mass produced plonk so I never acted on it, but I did mark the exact location where they moved the pipeline to just in case my tastes change over time. We ended up calling the winery to tell them to shutoff the pipeline, they had already lost at least 10cubic meters and hadn't even noticed.

[TejasSailer]

Back to the original question, Nigel Calder in response to a question about electrical systems in the July 2008 Yachting Monthly of a US versus European boat replies "The big worry is buying a European boat in the USA rather than an American boat in Europe. European AC voltages are higher, resulting in smaller cables which are too small to carry the lower voltages and higher amperages found in the USA - they may well overheat. ...."

More directly to the original question, we have a US built Beneteau First and are satisfied with the quality. We sailed the same French-built model for a week in the Med and noticed no quality differences I can recall.

[negrini]

Zan, I would go back to winery and convince them to switch pipe to red. Amazing story.

Tejas, down here everything is 120V 60Hz, like in north America. When you order a boat from Beneteau France, they always ask the region power requeriments, so microwave, shorepower, chargers, ac, etc comes matching final use. Beneteau build electrical plant on that info too. Nigel meant boats built for european market ending up sold in Americas.

I red in this forum, several complaints about european design taking a futuristic path, and loosing the old traditional woodwork. In my oppinion, taste can never be argued, but I loved Nautos design for the new Oceanis line. Of course there are boats in the market that surplus Benes on whatever aspect, rig, performance, finish, design, etc. For me, Benes are the best boat in the world ... that fits in my budget !