Trojan Boat Forum

I have had my Tri Cabin for 5 years,I have found the build to be above average.What do you find to be the good and bad,what boats built today would you rate them equal to. Thanks John

From what I have read, when Trojan was in business they were one of the premier boat builders in the world. I am happy with the quality of my tri-cabin and feel very safe and secure when I leave the dock.

It's too bad they were purchased and went out of business before the age of technology we now enjoy. I think they would still be at or near the top of the industry. Before I even knew the brand name, I loved Trojan's classic lines.

It is really a tragedy that the molds were destroyed - what a waste. Some of us would have liked the opportunity to revive the brand.

I think the fit and finsh was very good in its day ( better the bert and some others )all and all a good boat .I would have like to have seen more glass in the hulls and maybe more V in the hull too but that means more fuel used .

I am refering to F boats

I agree with the "v" in the hull not being enough on the F series, but I'm very happy with the construction of my boat. When drilling through the bottom for a thru hull transducer, the fiberglass was about an inch and a quarter thick. Happy to see that kind of construction. The lines of the F series are timeless, I always have compliments on the boat and when I tell people it is a 1977 they can't believe it!

Jim

F32 :
Pros:
Sportfisher / sedan lines are timeless and I too get the "really a 1977?"
All glass, no wood in the house or hull (glass over wood construction)
heavy stringers and seem to be well laid up, I have very few spider cracks any where on the boat.
Beam. love the wide beam, great interior layout and sill a navigable walk arounds to the bow
Teak interiors, love it and have never really liked the all white or pickled wood look
Cons:
poor support for the bridge=cracked glass
tiny flybridge and very limited seating up there
Seems that most trojans were produced and sold with gas engines , this leads me to believe that they were originally sold to "value minded" buyers and they still are today.
Not the best joinery in the older models, in mine, there is not a plugged screw to be seen and no mitered interior joints
Lots of formica
very small water tank

as far as where they would be today, I think that Trojan would have had to decided who they were going to compete against,
Bayliner or Riviera,

My hubby and I are not pros in any way, but in working on our '86 10 meter we have been very impressed. Every ounce of elbow grease we have invested has netted 20 pounds of impressive.

The interior especially came almost back to new pristine condition with a thorough cleaning. i started at the ceiling and just worked my way down.

Even her orig upholstery was in pretty good shape, although I am currently redoing all of it due to a dastardly mauve color... I've only found one star crack so far on the hull, i can live with that.

Mechanically, she has held up remarkably well. The most expensive problem we have had was the heat/air unit. All needed replacing right from the thermostat board on down, but that isn't necessarily a flaw of Trojan itself.

International Series:

Superior:
design
engineering
execution
lack of any wood in th ebuild (exception is thge rear engine bulkhead)
wiring
fitment ( bow rail supports, cleat supports, etc)
upholstery fabric and cockpit vinyl, including the nip & tuck not found ANYWHERE today
Teak

Inferior:

placement of fresh water pump and HVAC unit
use of certain ptoperietary electrical switches that are expensive to replace today
bow pulpit is cored with balsa - great idea but perhaps longevity can be an issue
more structure in the factory radar arch would have been a good idea - no wood would be better !

eveb though they lasted 30 years - better quality portlites and hatch material !

The hinges on the lazarette - c'mon guys !



RWS

first and foremost, i do not think for one minute, that anyone at the trojan factories thought these boats would be around as long as they have been. that is a tribute to how they were built. having grown up with the brand, i always love the classic lines. here on the chesapeake bay, the f-32 is by far, the most popular model around. on any given day, in any given marina you can spot at least 4 or 5. like all brands, they had their hits and misses. the construction of the hull overall is amazing. strong, stable and sure. the ride is also really good. the interior room, especially in their size range is nothing short of superior. like carver, they stuffed a lot of living space in a small foot print. the use of warm woods, innovative storage areas and the like make for a much bigger feel. my '82 tri cabin has a bath tub in the aft head, and some of the women at my marina i've shown the boat to are totally amazed that there is a tub in 36 foot boat. the room in the engine compartment is great. i can do whatever i need to do without contorting my self.
now, having said that, some of the misses are access to subsystems.
the fresh water tank on my boat is burried under the aft port dresser. access to the water fill connections are nothing short of impossible. the same holds true for the aft head tub/shower and sink drain connections. they are impossible to access. the sink drain hose vanishes behind a small bulkhead and the tub/shower is god knows where. i would probably have to take apart the entire aft head assembly, which by the way is one fiberglass unit, to get to it. window tracks were also one of the bad spots of trojan. inferior materials and the draining systems were inferior too. the use of epoxy for anything drilled into the decks were also a low point. if you look at the anchor chain pass thru, the balsa core is right there, exposed to the weather. access to the bots for the staunchions are impossible to get to unless you remove the head liner in the forward cabin. some manufactures now have access panels that all you need to do is unscrew them allowing access to the bolts etc..... for me at least, one of the issues i have is the underwater exhaust system. when i think about two 5'' holes right there with no way to close it off if the neoprene exhaust bellows rots away. yipes! believe it or not, my mechanic did do a retro fit on a 1985 tri cabin a few years ago for this reason. he removed the pan flute below the water line exhaust 'jet', glassed it over and used a centek lift muffler system out the side after larger exhaust ports were fabricated. the performance of the boat did slow a bit, because as john surmised, the exhaust 'jets' actually contributed to 'lifting' the boat up on plane. over all though, i love the boat, and she cleans up great.
timeless classics that have a huge devotion. as long as we care for our 'ladies', they will be around for a long time to come.

After all the nits are picked, Overall, Trojan made a very well made boat. Ask anyone who knows boats what they think about Trojan's and they always say " Those are really good boats" or something similar. Plus, the fact that our 30+ y/o boats still turn heads and are still seaworthy says a lot.

International Series (mid cabin)

Superior:
design
engineering
execution
wiring
fitment (bow rail supports, cleat supports, etc)
Teak
engine room access
Real rub rail, shoe box construction that's through bolted
Good hatch access to various systems
Vaccu-flush as standard
Tons of room, plenty of storage and easy to expand
It's all around better than the Express


Inferior:

Helm wiring - needs connectors so helm can be removed and/or be hinged for access

Cored swim platform=bad idea

Cored cockpit floor=re-bed all the hardware before it's too late

Port light windows

Windshield is too raked/low

Windshield wiper wiring, anchor light location

bow pulpit is cored with balsa - great idea but perhaps longevity can be an issue (yep, mine is wet)

Small, 3 blade props, pretty steep angle on shafts

No helm storage but easily added

Painted helm stripes are a committment unless you're industrious

Should be #1 - stringers, standing water in bilge. Aweful attention to detail in the bilge where all stringers/cross members intersect. Plenty of voids for water to collect.

Standard trim tabs too small

Hi Bob,

Here's a tip re: the dash wiring.

if you remove all teh phillips screws and pop th etwo "wing unts" off the back of the dash you can easily raise up the lower edge of the dash up for complete access. The trick is to build a hook arrangement out of a coat hangar. I keep mine in the tool box.

The reason the windshield appears to have too much rake is that the mid cabin has a higher deck at the helm (and the entire cockpit) than the express cruiser. They SHOULD HAVE changed the other dimensions as well, instead they left the windshield the same and put in those fiberglass box fillers on top of the transom.

I do love those stainless steel welded deco air intake grilles and especially my teak swim platform (tease!)

As far as I am concerned, there was no good reason to drop the vacuum liner and woodless stringers with the mid cabin. That was a great design feature and a failure not to continue that construction.

As far as the balsa cored deck - the rear of the cockpit has six fittings where the bench seat attaches. If these are not rebed properly, water can find it's way into the core and take out sections. We did some repairs to mine during the refit.

The anchor light on the top of the windshield was a rediculous idea. I moved mine to the radar arch.

I wonder if the arch on th emid cabin is taller than the express?

Also, the wiper motors are grounded to the windshield frame. Sometimes you can get limited connectivity. I ended up running direct grounds to a common ground and used heavy wire FWIW regarding not just poor mechanical connectivity but regarding (like it would make a difference) lightning - I wanted to tie the windshield frame to the boats ground system.

I think the accomodations on the mid-cabin made it more popular, however for my own tastes, I prefer the express.

What I really wish I had done was to repower the 11 meter as compared to the 10. The cockpit space is roughly the same, however the salon and galley are much more user friendly. Other than potential issues with the 11 meters cored hull, I think overall it's a better place to be with the diesels.

Did they ever do a 10.8 express model?

RWS

I Thought the 10.8 was a express ?

Great minds think alike

For the dash, I have a pair of Irwin adj woods clamps on board. I stand the dash up on end and then hang it in place from the windshield frame using the clamps. Everyone should have something on board in case you had to swap a starter switch or something on the fly.

I found the company who makes those wing nuts on the back of the cluster and they sent me a bag as a sample. I was missing one. If anyone else needs 1-2, send me an email and I'll drop them in the mail.

I just beefed up the swim platform brackets yesterday (a lovely fiberglass I might add... teak is so out of date). I replaced the bracket hardware and installed taller/wider wood backing plates and fender washers. The lower two bracket holes and lower two trim tab holes are below the water line. All of them leaked a little, I could see the brown rust lines.

Anyway, rambling off topic. I never accounted for the deck height being the difference in the windshield height. That makes sense, I love the windshields on the similar size Tiara's.

I added a removable LED light for the arch but never re-wired so it would be the running light too. That's on my list for next years haul. I finally figured out my wiper issue and it was a short right in the frame. There's not enough room for all the wires and the threads on the wiper post cut into the wires after a while. Moving the windshield running light will help this issue.

Have not seen a 10.8 express but thinking an 11m would probably be my next boat if I were to upgrade.

Bob

See below for 10.8M express.

Of course its a mc...they call it an express though.