Trojan is back again and there's no mistaking that the emphasis
here is on style and luxury. This one's got enough pizzazz, elan
and machismo to be marketed with success on the Mediterranean
with the best of the Italians. You aren't likely to mistake the
new Trojan with the earlier models that came out of Bertram-Trojan,
Inc. that had the reputation for extremely rugged hulls. The Trojan
name is now marketed by Carver, in turn owned by Genmar Holdings,
Inc.
As we frequently point out, it takes more than
style to make for a good quality yacht. Looking good and being good
are entirely different things. This boat is intended to wow you,
as so many try do these days. But let's have a look at what's behind
the surface appearance. Our subject model here (1996) was being
sold after about 20 months ownership and is very well cared for.
Far and away the first thing to capture attention
here is the trunk (I think the English call it a bonnet), which
is intended to store your personal water craft, launched by a nifty
electric davit that's tucked out of the way in that space. The space
back there is huge, but let's suppose that you weren't interested
in a personal water craft. What would you do with all that space?
And what do you do when the electric opener craps out? You can see
in the photo below that the amount of leverage on those two cylinders
is enormous, causing them to strain under the load.
That deck also opens up 12" above the water
line and there are no gaskets here, so water pours in through the
unsealed seams. Presumably this compartment is water tight so that
a large amount of leakage into it (assume heavy wave action against
the stern) isn't going to sink the boat. Gee, even the trunk on
your car has gaskets. No doubt that's why the plywood decking at
the bottom was starting to rot. Wonder what they were thinking .
. . .
Boarding
This does not look like a 44 footer, in part because of the 4-5
linear feet of the lower stern area that makes it look that much
shorter. But the cockpit area is considerably smaller than on similar
boats. That's the trade-off for the trunk. One thing you can complain
about is that boarding can be difficult; the only easy way is from
the stern platform (assuming that is possible), which is low, while
the side gunwales are high with a big drop down into the cockpit
and no place for steps. To board on the port side you have to walk
on the upholstery. After all, you don't let the kids jump on the
furniture at home, do you? With a short dock, you've got to
dock stern-to, and unless you like dirty footprints on your nice
white upholstery, this forces you to board on one side only. Which,
in turn, forces you to always try to dock starboard side-to. The
design looks great, but there are some serious impracticalities.
Of course, the uninitiated would never notice these things, which
is why we write these reviews.
The cockpit is filled with gleaming white upholstery.
Situated out in the open as it is, need we say more? Its too heavy
to be moving around, so that a few years down the road its not going
to look so good. You have to keep the covers on when not in use,
but the ability to actually get the covers on is another story.
The way these were laid out were very hard to reach.
Next is a step up into a cockpit which is, well,
elegant. With a white upholstered wrap-around settee to port
and a rather nice looking bar set up opposite, there's adequate
of space for a social gathering without being too cramped. But you
do pay a large price in loss of space for that maybe useless trunk.
Personally, I'd rather forego the trunk in favor of more cockpit
area. Although when you compare this to the Sea Ray 500 Express,
they're about the same.
This seating area is divided off the helm area
by the double wide pair of helm seats that are sculptured
like pseudo bucket seats, all this behind a very large and sweeping
wraparound windshield. A windshield of painted aluminum that is
already corroding badly. This will be a major bleeding sore for
the next owner.
There are Bowmar hatches in the foredeck that,
when you step on them, sag a good two inches. We have to wonder
if the Bowmar people sell these things with a straight face. No,
they don't break; you just think they will. When the plastic deflects,
it just breaks open all the caulked seams. Don't worry, when it
starts leaking, it will only go all over your bed. You're not likely
to be very happy with all the aluminum on this boat either, from
the large aluminum arch which is corroding like gangbusters, to
the windshield and companionway door which was not properly aligned,
would not close completely and leaked water into the cabin. Yes,
every stainless steel fastener and every point of attachment had
big corrosion blisters all around them. They didn't even bother
to prime the aluminum properly before painting it. In another year
or two, all of this aluminum is going to be a very unsightly and
costly mess to attempt to refinish, which it can't be because its
not made right in the first place. Like the football announcer exclaims
when the wide receiver fumbles on the two yardline, "Oh,
my!" Ah, well, its only money folks, we gotta keep the boat
yards going.
|
Open wide . . . .
say ahhh. |
Upon Entering:
A large curved, sliding door leads into the main salon area which
is in the great cabin style with galley contained therein. The entire
starboard side is leather lounge seating with entertainment center
built in behind it. Hunh? Entertainment center behind the lounge,
you say? Yes, a small 15" TV is built into the bulkhead on
the opposite side, at ceiling level, but the first thing that caught
my attention was that the space for your entertainment stuff is
behind the lounge. Hmmm. Not exactly the way I'd want it. Its
not convenient looking up at the ceiling and not many people have
eyes in the back of their heads. Then you've got to climb onto the
leather seats to reach whatever you put in the entertainment center.
The leather on the L lounge is very soft, and very thin; its not
going to hold up well. Quality material it is not. The seat cushions,
attached to plywood backing, are pie-shaped, with the large end
in. We couldn't just lift one out to get to the storage space beneath,
but had to start at one end and take all of them out to remove one
in the middle. Not too convenient.
This is a two stateroom layout with the usual center-positioned
double bed in the forward cabin. Its end loading with no side isles.
Hope you like crawling into bed on hands and knees. Its fun to try
to make up the bed too. Have you ever tried to make up a bed while
you are on it? There's no choice because you can't reach the sides
and other end. Hopefully your servants will be doing this for you.
The aft cabin is really little more than a sleeping
hole with a double berth that's even more difficult to make up than
the forward berth. Close the door and the stand up space is no more
than a phone booth. I'd really call this a party boat, not a cruiser,
so you don't really expect all that much. But the lack practicality
is likely to overwhelm the experienced boater at times. The forward
head has a nice full glass liner and a wildly curving shower stall
of . . . . what, Lexan, Plexiglas? Something like that. In
any case, the first thing I did was to walk straight into it. No,
I don't have bad eyesight; its just that its hard to tell where
that "S" shaped panel begins and ends. Maybe after the
plastic gets all scratched up it will be easier to notice. I can
appreciate modernist design as well as anyone, but this is strictly
for show. You can imagine what's going to happen when someone tries
a little abrasive cleanser on that. In any event, its definitely
eye-catching if you notice it in time.
The aft head, with doors to both the aft stateroom
and main cabin is decidedly too small, while the salon area is plenty
big. The doors get tangled up when you try to open both, and the
space is so small that you can't open the vanity cabinet without
first opening the entrance door because there isn't even room to
bend over. More thoughtful design. Then there's a huge 1" thick
chunk of clear plastic acting as a railing for the companionway
steps with the Trojan logo carved into it. Some might call it tacky.
Others might simply object to having the builder's logo in your
face, which, by the way, is rather prominent all over the boat,
from the logos in the seat cushions to extra large name plates and
stenciling on the transom. Its about like having "Arvida
Homes" carved in your front door. Sort of make me wonder how
long its going to be before we start seeing the first Calvin Klein
or Tommy Hilfinger editions.
Meal Time I
do like the galley with the imitation granite counter tops and a
positively huge stainless sink with a decent fixture above it. It
also has panels to cover the sink. Now, why you'd have this neat
galley with enough space to cook up a real meal on a two burner
hotplate that is supplied is a bit of a mystery. No, I think this
is really just a large bar disguised as a galley. Only thing its
missing is a dedicated icemaker which is out in the sun in the cockpit.
Yes, you should always put the icemaker where the sun will beat
down on it and turn the individual cubes into a block of ice. Still
and all, if you wanted to cook a meal, all you'd have to do is install
a decent stove. Meanwhile, drink up, this is a heck of a bar area!
Foundations
We could tell very little about the hull construction because so
little of it was accessible. If you punch a hole in the bottom,
forget about doing anything about that. Call 911 and your
insurance agent. Nowadays, internal hull access is no longer considered
to be important. Until you have to tear the boat apart to repair
something, and face a huge repair bill. Trying to find where various
equipment, pumps, motors, through hull fittings and such was extremely
difficult to locate. The foredeck seemed solid enough, but when
you walk on the cockpit hatch covers they sag noticeably. Its nice
to have lightweight hatch covers, but these are too light and they
rattle while underway.
Except for the carved Trojan railing, the interior
is for the most part tastefully done in light to dark grays with
a backdrop of maple cabinetry and a planked maple floor in front
of the galley, which is a decidedly bad idea because it is very
slippery when wet. Maple is one of the worst choices of wood to
use on a boat, the others being oak and ash. They all turn black
with exposure to salt water. Less than two years old and its already
not looking so good, particularly around the leaking port holes.
There is a fold-out, pneumatic maple hi-lo
table that is all falling apart at the joints because the carpenters
didn't joint it properly. And let me say here that the owner of
this boat is very meticulous. I got my fanny reamed good by the
owner for not getting the carpeting put back down exactly right.
Carpeting which is all tacked down with those nice steel tack strips
that are now all rusty, ugly and making a big mess of things. He
was probably more mad at Trojan for the unbasted edges of the carpeting
that was unraveling and leaving large amounts of carpet fibers all
over the place. Apparently you're not supposed to ever lift the
carpet and look in the bilge. There isn't much access anyway. And
Trojan is still using those nice-looking, but ever-leaking stainless
port holes, the leakage being no exception in this boat. The ports
are framed out with maple, so I needn't describe what's going on
here. These ports will not seal, and you'll have to live with the
damage these leaks cause.
Helm They almost
got the ergonomics of the helm right. No one with less than a 44"
waist line is going to have trouble standing up or sitting down
steering. But from here its downhill all the way. You can see over
the bow just fine, but to take advantage of the windshield
wipers, you have to bend over and sight along the deck. Of course,
its never going to rain, so not to worry. I'm not thrilled with
the panel design, which is overly fancy at the expense of practicality;
all of the labeling is stenciled on with paint, and you know what
will happen to that after a few years.
They tried to get fancy with the shift and throttle
controls and really botched it. The shifter lever end knobs are
only 1-1/4" apart so that when trying to work them independently,
the knuckles on your hands collide. I guess the designer didn't
know that you have to use two hands to operate them. Or more likely
hadn't ever operated a boat long enough to know this. And the narrow,
cylindrical shape of the lever ends is decidedly uncomfortable.
Here's yet another case of an attempt to get fancy that has resulted
in a design disaster. There are places to flush mount instruments,
but I wouldn't say that they are quite the right places. Look
at where the VHF and autopilot had to be located in the photo
below. Now imagine trying to pick out the controls you need to use
with these instruments being located at your waist. The Teleflex
tilt steering wheel is painted aluminum and is, um, well, you know
. . . . . corroding. This is amateur design at its worst.
Motors & Stuff
For such a big boat, engine room access is clumsy and difficult.
I'd describe the overall layout as poor.
The bank of four 4D, 12 volt batteries is
located outboard of the port engine and requires a contortionist
to reach them. Here we go again. There's no way I could. Batteries
never need to be serviced anyway, right? When they crap out because
you're not willing to kill yourself trying to service them,
just write a check for someone to install new ones. No problem,
that's only about a grand or so. And hope they don't do a ton of
damage trying to get 100 lb. batteries into this inaccessible space.
Trojan apparently figures you're rich guy and you can afford it.
This is inexcusable.
The Caterpillar 3126 six cylinder inline diesels
rated at 420 hp each, are driving through Z-F, IRM302V vee drives,
made in Italy. So far, we're not hearing much good news about these
all cast aluminum gear casings and we had to wonder why there were
considerable oil leaks and oil in the bilge under both of them.
We've not only heard stories about these gear cases breaking apart,
we've seen them. And these big buggers ain't cheap, either. They
cost about the price of a small automobile. Each. Here's
what a metallurgical lab had to say about pieces of a cracked Z-F
aluminum casting that we had analyzed:
"The radiographs attached in appendix
A show that the general casting quality is poor. The casting contains
porosity shrinkage and is a grade D material (lowest of casting
grades) . . . . the sample is brittle . . . and does not have high
strength or impact resistance. This is a poor grade of casting."
Not very reassuring, is it? This analysis
came about after our learning of 7 cases of Z-F aluminum gearboxes
failing, and several lawsuits, so we decided to find out why this
was happening.
 |
Just
so you know that we're not talking through our hat, here's
a shot of an aluminum Z-F gearbox broken in pieces. Inside
the red circle, the gears are exposed. This boat hit a coral
head, damaging only the propellers, but broke BOTH gear boxes
in this boat into a minimum of a dozen pieces each. These
things shattered like hitting glass with a hammer. |
We've noticed that Cat is not putting much paint
on their engines these days, and we were surprised to see the engines
starting to rust already. One thin coat of white enamel and no evidence
of primer. The large amounts of salt spray that was entering through
the huge, unfiltered hull side vents was starting to rust them up
good, along with everything else down there. The salt spray was
bad enough that it already corroded the heavy duty stainless steel
exhaust system clamps to the point of breaking. This is a serious
design fault that's going to cost the owner a lot of dollars. Salt
is not recommended for seasoning machinery and electrical apparatus.
The engine compartment isn't going to win any awards
for neatness; its ho-hum okay. Once again, the builder didn't much
care about what the customer had to do or pay for maintenance. They
could have provided room to get around one end of the engine or
the other, but didn't. Even in this large space, only a very small
person can get to the outboard sides. You have to crawl on your
belly over the tops of the engines. And yes, its painful getting
torn up with all that sharp metal. Sharp corners and edges everywhere.
There is adequate space that they could have placed
the engines so you could reach things for servicing. Instead, you
have that huge trunk back there for your personal watercraft storage,
assuming that you just have to have one on your yacht. The aluminum
diamond plate decking is murder on your knees, but at least you
don't have to stand in bilge sludge like many other boats. And that
foil over foam insulation on the underside of the deck? Yep, its
already starting to fall down. Nothing like using tape and adhesives
in hot engine room. Don't worry, the warranty will run out before
it all falls down.
Engine mounts are Bushings, Inc., single vertical
stud type in a rubber donut, allowing 360 degree movement.
They are already badly distorted and misaligned. With vee drives,
engine stability is doubly critical, but these mounts just aren't
going to do the job. We really get tired of explaining the problems
these el cheapo mounts cause, but builders go right on using them
because they cost about 1/4 of what a good mount costs. Plus there
are 8 of them, so what they save on the cheapos comes to some serious
dollars. If you're interested in learning more about how cheap mounts
can wreck transmissions, see our essay on Engine And Shaft Alignment.
|
|
For the price of this boat you'd think
they'd do a bit better job of the wiring and plumbing than
this mess. Here there is wiring, water hoses, hydraulic
hoses and engine control cables altogether. |
|
|
These four hull side
vents, up to 40" long are channeling salt spray straight
into the engine room. What you see at upper right is the hull/deck
join. Imagine what happens when this area bumps a piling. |
Performance wise, she's no speed demon, even with
a fairly shallow vee bottom running to about 14 degrees deadrise
aft. 840 is not a lot of horseys for this boat that comes in at
only 28,000 lbs., but she'll cruise at a solid 22-23 kn. without
overtaxing the engines. Figure a tops of around 28 kn. With a 15
foot beam and very full bow, at best she's a coastal cruiser and
isn't going to handle big seas very well. It was dead calm on our
sea trial day, so we didn't even get a hint of heavy weather performance.
The inline Cats would not be my power choice for this boat if you're
a speed demon, instead favoring the higher power 6V92's. Unfortunately,
you can't get Detroits in a vee drive configuration.
Summing Up The
emphasis here is obviously on glitz and glitter. Its easy to be
impressed by the style and glitter of a new boat, but at little
more than two years old, the gloss of this one is wearing off fast,
despite unstinting care by the owner. I couldn't help comparing
the 440 Express to the 46 Maxum that we have also reviewed.
The better quality Maxum was able to achieve for a considerably
lower price is obvious. My impression is that style and faux luxury
takes precedence over practicality and quality.
This boat is giving us a preview of some serious
maintenance and costly issues to be faced in the future. We'd like
to be able to give a heads-up to a company that is trying to make
a comeback. But what looks to be a good effort seems to have gone
a bit too far astray in trying to wow us with too much fanciness,
and not enough solid engineering. Trojan would have to do
some some serious tweaking before we could give it a thumbs-up.
In this price class, a builder had better be prepared to go beyond
surface appearances and consider durability and service issues.
How their products look and perform a few years later can cancel
out a lot of costly marketing.
We're constantly reminded that the ocean is still
the ocean. It treats all products with the same relentless enthusiasm
for destruction.
Related Article: Problems
with Engine and Shaft Alignment
| These
are "reviews", not surveys, and bear no resemblance
to our survey reports.
We do not publish the results of the surveys that we perform.
Please note that the purpose of these reviews is educational,
to help you discern the differences in quality among boats
generally. They are not offered as a means to help you evaluate
any particular boat builder. We have no other reviews than
those posted. |
Posted June 4, 1998, Revised
April 13, 2000
|
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