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I am interested in a new Dufour which I think will work well for me (mostly coastal cruising in the Apostle Island of Lake Superior with a couple of near/offshore trips each year. My local dealer (who does not sell Dufours) says the hull deck joint construction process is suspect, and also thinks the overall quality of the build is less than the boats he sells. As best I can determine, the hull-deck joint is sealed with adhesive with self tapping screws and additional through bolts at areas of increased stress. Does anyone have experience with the overall quality of the more recent Dufours? Any thoughts on the hull-deck joint?
A joint properly glued together with adhesive, will be as sold as one using bolts. Dufour seem to be quite popular in the UK and generally need a weathertight boat there. If your dealer doesn't carry them...he's not going to want to see you go away to buy one.
On the other hand, Dufour have never been very common or popular in the US, and that might impact your resale value quite a bit.
Cam, you are suffering from an illusion. You seem to think the self-tapping screws are structural, they probably are not. The joint is almost certainly a GLUED JOINT and the screws would have been put in simply because shooting a line of screws in while the glue sets, is cheaper than applying a hundred clamps and then going back to unclamp them afterwards.
This is standard carpentry practice, that's what you do with a big glued joint while the glue it setting up. Removing the screws would leave holes, so they're left in place, even though they serve no purpose after the joint has set up.
Modern adhesives aren't at all the same as the butyl tape that C&C used to caulk their bolted deck seams.<G>
The Dufour (friend has a 44 that I sail on) is of superior construction and very sea worthy. I have sailed on the 44 and a classic 36 both very impressive. Let us know what you do.
I know Dufour, since 1980 when they were very good, then...solid.
Now....well.....ther's better for same price....a lot of SIKAFLEX sealing, and sailing.....well...their sailing does not match their looks.....they look fast.....
We have all sorts of Dufours here, and sailed most of them, several times, mostly a 40' and a 36' right next to my boat.
A joint properly glued together with adhesive, will be as sold as one using bolts. Dufour seem to be quite popular in the UK and generally need a weathertight boat there. If your dealer doesn't carry them...he's not going to want to see you go away to buy one.
There is no physical way that a glued joint is as strong as a glued AND bolted joint. It might be real good glue, but I'll take the redundancy every time.
I think a lot depends on which Dufour you are thinking about. The new 34 and 44 are the future for them and in my opinion constructed as such. They have also done fairly well in Europe racing circles.
That said, I have sailed on a 33 and 37 and was not very impressed with the quality. These were both 2002 I believe and from construction, fit out, rigs, etc they left a lot to be wished for. The 37 was actually a pretty good sailer, the 33 very poor. The holding tank in these boats was a 5 gallon jug that you could open a cabinet and SEE the level. A hose in a jug. Not pretty.
I fell in love with the looks of the 44 at a boat show when it was first introduced. I really wanted the 34 version when it came out and that is when I started to look seriously. The exchange rate changed to the negative for the US market and the boat all of a sudden was 20% more for a boat that was competitive prior to the exchange rate. It was not worth 20% more than a comparable US made boat. Dufour/Gib Sea are price point below their owner Beneteau, but Bene's are made here and are not subject to the exchange rate.
All that said, I have not looked at a lot of Dufours outside of the 34 and 44 recently. I am assuming based on your location that this may be a charter mamagement deal. If so, good luck.
Thanks for the input. I did go ahead and buy the Dufour 455 which I will be taking delivery on in Chicago and then sailing it back to Bayfield, WI on Lake Superior in early summer. As has been discussed so often on this forum, there are so many variables when considering a new boat, and it is a matter of picking the one which best fits your circumstances. For me, the deciding factor was that my wife loved the boat and basically wouldn't listen to me when I told her about some other similar and nice used boats (am I lucky or what? she wanted me to spend MORE on a boat). I have spoken with a lot of people with direct experience with these boats who felt that the quality was excellent and perhaps better than some of the other production boats.
I also really loved the Dufour 44, but my wife not so much, so we compromised.
Robert, I also like bolts because they are prone to visual inspection. However...a properly glued joint is a fusion joint, and like metal welding it is as strong or stronger than the materials being joined.
A proper "bolted" joint is better seen as a perforated line in the materials, secured by dozens of point-stress concentrations, all there to help the materials fail.
A glued-plus-bolted joint is no stronger than a proper glued joint--but will be WAY more expensive, which means some other corner will be cut or the price will be steeper. And, the joint no stronger. If anything, perhaps weaker because of the point stresses perforating the materials.<G>
In the real world, yeah, I agree with you that there are many poorly glued joints. 30 years ago the folks at Permatex or Loctite (I keep confusing the two, shame on me) actually ran an Indy car with the engine assembled just with their "goo" instead of gaskets and seals, in order to prove the materials worked. They'd experienced large failures when the materials were used in shops, and wanted to *prove* that the problem was sloppy mechanics who wouldn't read or follow the basic instructions, like "clean surfaces before applying".
Glue joints, like FRP hulls with osmotic blisters, depend on the workers to make them properly. Or, not.
And if those same workers torque the hundred plus bolts improperly, the bolts fail and the hull between them is destroyed as well. Same old same old.
Isn't it ever?<G>
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