Doug Dotson wrote:
From what I understand from a broker and long time boat person,
Catalinas and Beneteaus are pretty much of the same class in terms
of quality. Hunters are a big step down. No one I know in the
business puts Catalina and Hunter in the same class.

You should talk to a few surveyors. I've bilge crawled a lot of both and
seen a low average and some incredible oversights.

Neither are really an "all-time worst" but both have rather poor QA.
Another make-or-break is the work the dealers do- and neither have any
consistent prgram of getting info on how set up boats or systems to
their reps.

IMHO Hunter goes a bit furher with engineering & design but falls short
on QA and dealer support. Catalina design is "same-o same-o" and they
seem a bit more consistent from the plant. Both plants occasionally turn
out boats where they forgot some basic & critical step... makes me think
they're handing out vials of crack to their line workers. Maybe it's the
fumes.

DSK