There is another thread going on this forum which discusses a grounding off Cape May, I think, in which a fairly new Nordhavn 47 was holed and sank after hitting a jetty. The owner of the boat attributes this to his own negligence in navigating by electronic means only, if I read his posts correctly. I suspect he did not have a paper chart book up on the bridge.
Paper charts are easier to read, the lights on them can't go out, and they have been the standard for centuries. Electronic charts are very useful, but you should always have a compass, binoculars, and paper charts on your bridge with you.
As to core and deck repairs, well, most of these boats were built with balsa cored decks, and when water gets in there, the balsa rots. The reason you read so much about it on this forum is that Hatteras yachts are tough enough that they can survive as functional and useful vessels long enough to develop core decay. I suspect that many boats of competing brands did not remain useful long enough for anyone to bother finding out if they had core rot or not.
It is worth repairing a Hatteras. Probably all of our boats have this to some extent. No boat, Hatteras or otherwise, is likely to sink from deck core decay.
In discussions this summer with one of our newer members, who had bought a 43MY and was going through it system by system with the aim of ending up with a reliable and comfortable cruiser, we agreed that the way to tackle a boat with needs is essentially from the bottom up- first the hull, engines, and running gear, then the fundamental ship's systems such as electrical, plumbing, AC, then making sure everything is watertight and solid (this would include repairs to deck core) then the exterior cosmetics, and finally the navigational gear and interior cosmetics such as soft goods. People who restore Hatteras Yachts professionally pretty much follow that plan, I think.
You asked how long a set of radios (navigational instruments, VHF, depthsounder, etc) are good. That depends on who built them and how well they were installed and maintained. I have gotten years out of VHF radios and sounders, as well as GPS chartplotters. I would say that having multiple units and some redundancy is very prudent. Generally speaking, anything of a quality brand such as Garmin, Furuno, Raytheon, Simrad should be good for several years. The two favorites in radios seem to be Standard Horizon and Icom. Obviously any unit is only as good as the installation, and if you aren't familiar with doing that, it should be done by a professional. Your life may depend on it- in fact, it will. And make sure you have current paper charts AND a very good set of binoculars.I have Fujinon Polaris binoculars and they are over twenty years old, still perfect..
LOL
