Benetti's - Anyone w/ Experience?

Pretty straight forward as far as build and such was concerned, however until you took the covers off, you found one mess after another. Troubleshooting plumbing, electrical, or other issues would typically be a mess.

MTU engines, parts, other system / gensets, etc. was not much of an issue. Pretty straight forward there. Most of which was not dependent on Benetti.

Where we cringed was when there was an electrical issue which would have needed diagnosis and repair.

Overall, in general, not as bad as the typical "Italian / Over-engineer / over complex" however not nearly the "simplicity works" theory that other builders follow.

Perhaps not a lot of help, but maybe some. The above is based on a 120' custom Benetti.

I would surmise that Propbet is correct, given a personal observation on a boat that meets your description. If the circuit box on the windings end of the starboard genset needs a look-see, the entire genset (plus peripherals) requires an un-bolting and a nudge aft.
Overall, it very much resembled the machinery space of an Azimut.

As a lover of most things Italian; Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Moto Guzzi, Moto Morini, Gilera (owned them) or Benetti, Azimut and Sangermani (worked on them).

Alas, I have to concur with the above posts.

Beautiful to look at but.............

Fish

(But I'll probably buy another, got my eye on one more Guzzi. Will I ever learn?)

Pretty much so....

I have done a bunch of Italian jobs. They are not fun boats to work on. They take a lot of attention and care.

Ok, I will plead guilty to loving my dumb little Fiat far more than the critics allow

But, out of idle curiosity, do any of the Italian yacht marques escape the curse?

Kelly

Not from what I have seen.

Nope, Suits and shoes... that's what Italians do well....and art glass....

Based on the 2009 order statistics, the so-called “curse” translates into business success year after year for the world’s most popular yachts.
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Triton...

Italy once again tops the list of countries with the most new yachts on order with 523.
Although No. 2 on the list of countries, yachts built in the United States paled in comparison with just 113 orders.

As for builders, Azimut-Benetti, Feretti Group and Rodriguez Group finished in the top three positions based on total length on order, the same order as last year.
Azimut-Benetti reports 13,030 total feet on order (3,972m) in 111 projects averaging 117 feet.

As I understand it, Rodriguez is still in worse shape than Ferretti, It was announced that they had sold their majority stake in Pinmar on Thursday. One thing that did surprise me was how empty the Ferretti stand appeared to be for the majority of the boat show.

repair log{?}

For yachts with engineers in the crew, is it safe to assume they keep a log with things like repair description, date of repair, time it took to fix the problem, cost of materials if any, and contractor cost if required for repairs done? I'm curious about if such information is most likely to be available in a log as a place someone can look before purchasing a yacht to understand how prone to problems is the yacht being looked at.
Any information is very welcome.

Most Captains that I know of do not keep a log on such things, however they do keep the reciepts and in cronological order and can go back through the reciepts. However, I manage 7 different yachts at the moment and can tell you off the top of my head what has been changed, when, how often, about how long it took on every single one of them. Most yachts share a lot of common items and most of those items there is no ryhme or reason as to how often they go bad (for example: freshwater pump, bilge pumps, float switches, macerator pumps) etc. etc. unless there is a poor engineering design that causes a known part to fail repeatedly, then I re-engineer it. Some products and parts are known to go bad often........sure-bail float switches have a very poor wire insulation and in a year if there's any fuel or oil or even harsh bilges cleaning chemicals in the bilge water at all the wires will just fall apart. I've also had issues with shur-flo livewell pumps repeatedly.

Sometimes you're stuck using the same products that fail and fail again because of space/mounting locations and keep warranting them out. But this is very rare, only done if you have no other way of swapping to a different design or brand.

I've managed several Azimuts from 2001 to newer. The exhaust expansion joint (I forget the proper name for it, the part is about 12" long) between the exhaust manifold and riser has gone bad on every single Azimut I've managed. It is a very thin, accordian looking piece of stainless steel. You then have to order the $800 part and wait 3 weeks for it to get here and cannot safely use the boat because you have an exhaust leak in the engine room. You cannot change to one made by D'Angelo's of better quality for example, because you'd have to remove the manifold and riser to have US flanges welded onto them to accept the new part. AND, the riser will not come out of the engine room door on the 68' plus, 70' seajet, or 50'.

Have a guess what boat I'm going to see first thing Monday morning with the same problem.

An Azimut???? hehehe...... Check the blankets and you'll see which ones the culprit. But when one's bad the 3 others are never far behind. Well, there's only 4 expansion joints per boat. hehehe.......Make sure you order new clamps as well when you order the part as the old ones never hold tension with the new expansion joint........I also put that Fuchs exhaust sealer on the flanges

Hi J,

I have some old Ford Sabre (Euro Ford diesels) expantion joints that I think will fit on the Cats. I hope that negates dealing with Azimut, you know how much fun that is.

If you send them detailed photographs with exact measurements, 3 weeks later you have a 50% chance of recieving the proper part.

Interesting. In the Weekend Edition of the WSJ, there was a small piece on FLIBS wherein some wag(s) mentioned that boat buyers were mostly hailing from two geographics: the US Northeast and the Middle east.
That would make these buyers either a) some poor (relatively speaking) SOB who slaves away for twenty hours a day at the bond desk at Goldman Stanley for his mega-bonus or b) some guy who lives in a desert and has the occasional glimpse of water during his lifetime.
Unless they are aficionados of Yacht Forums, they'd likely know less than the average bear about boats in general and much less about arcane aspects of various yachts such as engineering and build quality.

There will always be a market for Italian anything, whether it be Ferraris or Ferrettis because they are sexy, stylish, and make a statement about the guy/gal who's at the wheel...and who is as likely to enter his boat's engine room as change his own oil in his 599 Fiorano.