[Rhodes22-list] Fun and Games with A Mac 26M, reply

[drbeer]

Hi,

I'm the guy Robert was talking about. I've been spending almost every
available hour trying to fix the boat and salvage the sailing season which
is why I haven't gotten on here sooner.

For those who want to know I've been sailing since I was 7. While Robert and
I have never met we have chatted via a list for West Wight Potter owners.
The Potter was a 1994 and we sold it to make room for the 26M. I did lots of
work to fix it up in the 8 years I owned it. I have 2 electrical engineering
degrees and a fair amount of mechanical aptitude as well. I'm in the local
US Power Squadron chapter and have taken and passed safety, seamanship and
piloting. My wife has taken these and the sailing and advanced sailing
classes as well. So we're not some chumps who've never been around a boat
before and wouldn't know bow from stern.

It is natural for people to think there must be some exaggeration and/or
that there are "two sides to every story". To them I say please go have a
look for yourself at the condition my boat was delivered in at the website
www.kellyhansonmarinesucks.com  or  the alternate URL
http://www.doctorbeer.com/kellyhanson/
Saying there are two sides of to a story is something Art Kelly did to
deflect criticism of his company's incompetent work and to try to discredit
me and make me look bad.  

My damages total over $3000 including costs to have the trailer repaired by
one shop so the boat could get towed to another, the authorized Evinrude
dealer who fixed the engine. I've spent over 100 hours repairing this thing.
I'm not even close to done, but it might be possible to sail it sometime
soon.

Just in case you think I haven't tried several times to resolve this: Before
I posted to the MacGregor Sailors forum I tried contacting both Jeff Stagg
(Director of Sales) and Andy Etzen (CFO) several times for almost a week and
was ignored. So I posted publicly on Sunday June 1 7:30PM. Barely 12 hours
later first thing on Monday June 2 7:39AM Art Kelly replied with an attack
on me stating I fabricated things and making other false claims. It is clear
by how quick he posted and the content of his post that he did nothing to
investigate the problems I reported. He certainly didn't even try to contact
me. After Art Kelly attacked me publicly I called him to talk to him
personally. That was June 3rd. He made a lot of promises and in the interest
of turning the temperature of things down I posted a conciliatory message.
Kelly Hanson's east coast sales rep (Stephen Smith) came to look at the boat
on June 9. Stephen is new to KH and has yet to sell a boat. He's a nice guy
and has tried to be helpful. I drafted meeting notes summarizing all the
problems and sent them to Stephen. He acknowledged these on June 11, and on
June 15 sent in an action list to Kelly Hanson's CFO in their CO office.

Since then I've received promises three different times that the missing
main sheet, genoa sheet and genoa cars were "all in the mail". As you might
guess they haven't shown up. These are stock replacement parts so there
isn't any reason that they haven't sent them other than that they really
have no interest in doing anything to rectify the situation. I just went
ahead and ordered them from Blue Water Yachts who have been exceedingly nice
to me, going out of their way to send me info on fixes for some of the
problems as well as a complimentary version of their own users manual they
give to their customers.

When the thread I started on the MacGregor Sailors site on June 1st was
closed the moderator said he'd reopen it if requested. I've asked him
several times now to reopen it because Kelly Hanson has done nothing. His
response has been "well I'm waiting to hear back from Kelly Hanson" which of
course he won't because they're totally ignoring me. I guess I could go
ahead and start another thread but I'm sure the moderators over there will
shut it down claiming that there is an existing thread pending being
reopened. Then they'll probably use my doing so as an excuse to ban me from
the  website. I would like to post a public reply to rebut every one of Art
Kelly's half truths in order to clear my name but am not sure where to do
it. 

BTW I've also spoken twice about this with Bill Snedeker of MacGregor. He
could have cared less. 

So I've tried to go through the proper channels to resolve this but when
you're getting stone-walled then you have to take more drastic measures to
defend your rights as a consumer. These guys think they can just blow me
off. I know how to play the system and how to cost companies like Kelly
Hanson that think they can sell you a pile of junk without repercussions a
lot more money than it would cost them to settle the situation. I've started
turning up the heat and if they don't settle I'm going to become their worst
nightmare. 


Also please be aware that what is on the website
www.kellyhansonmarinesucks.com isn't even complete. The timeline, the emails
with empty promises and misinformation, and a lot of other documentation I
have or am working on scanning in isn't posted yet. Going by the old adage
that a picture is worth 100 words though, what is up there should be enough
to convince you of how messed up this boat was when it arrived.

I'll be happy to answer any questions people from this forum have, but it
may take a couple of days since  I'm busy drafting up formal complaints in
addition to working on the boat in the hopes of water testing it this coming
weekend (let's hope it doesn't sink on me, or maybe not :-). 

Jay Hersh



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