Originally Posted by
capttonyf
If you can find a good deal on one that's in great condition there is no reason to not buy one. They're a Hatteras, built well, and will provide you with a nice stable cruising/fishing boat to enjoy your time on.
You asked why it was only built for a short period of time. The 48C was a big, Heavy, 48ft boat but the engine room came with only DD8V92's. With the design and the weight of the boat. The motors had to be put under heavy load everytime the boat was brought up on plane, which put alot of strain on the motors and limited their life to about 1500 hours before needing rebuilt. The boat also required alot of trim tab to keep it running at the proper running attitude. We had a Custom 48 with a tower listed for sale years ago and the owner had moved on, so I was responsible for managing the boat until it sold. To get the boat on plane you had to give it a healthy dose of throttle with some loading up and a little black smoke to get her over the hump. Now once on plane she ran great but if the bottom wasn't perfect it was hard on the motors getting it to that point.
I believe Hatteras realized this and they retooled the boat, added 2 feet midship at the the engine room and started calling it the 50C in 1991. The 50 became one of their best boats. The added hull length with very little weight gain improved the running angle and help the boat get on plain much easier. By adding the two feet they were also able to create more space in the engine room allowing 12 Cylinder Motors to fit which have more torque, which also assisted the boat jumping to plane without over loading the motors. This extends their life tremendously.
Looking at the listing and it being a NE boat it appears it doesn't have a ton of time on it. The Generators have under 2000 hours and the motors have 545hrs SMOH which stands pretty true with what I mentioned above about engine life limited to 1500hrs +/-.
Like I said if there is a nice boat out there that's priced right you can't go wrong, these are just a few of the reasons it's not as popular as some of the other boats you mentioned.
Tony