PremierDetailer

Was driving by a local shop/brokerage center by my house today and spotted a neat yellow center console with an I/O, as I drove closer, it appeared to be a Donzi!! I called the broker immediately and he informed me it's a 1967 Donzi, 20 foot cc . I have seen a lot of boats but I have never heard of such a thing, hoping someone here may have some information on this. Wondering if maybe its mislabeled as Donzi and is actually a different brand. Any information on this would be greatly appreciated. For the asking price, I will likely buy it if I do come to find out it is what it's advertised as, as i imagine this was a practically custom built boat, and low lpwnproduction. One neat feature I saw was the shifter handle was a wooden circle with a Donzi logo in the center of it. Any information people could give would be very much appreciated.

JBmarine

Hello...Donzi did in fact have a factory a 19' center console model the St Tropez. It was built 1965 thru 1976 and production numbers were relatively low considering 11yrs of production. It was based off the 19 Hornet hull and is great riding and dry.

You won't find a hull number on transom as late model boats have but may find a Donzi ID tag if boat is still all original. Regardless, I would ask to see the title and be sure it documents the boat as a Donzi.
Hope this helps!?! Jason @InshoreOff

Basic Info:
Lake George Donzi Classic Club: St. Tropez

madbouyz

I've had mine since 1987. It was advertised as a '66 but might even be a '65. Supposedly they made a total of 117 of them .
I did a total deck off , floor tub out 4 year resto that was completed in 2006-2007 and you might say I'm pretty familiar with them and their weak spots .
Even if this boat checks out structurally the big worry is the fuel tank. I've followed every thread on the St Tropez' that I can find and some had only one tank but mine had 2 and you have to cut the boat up (or dismantle it ) to do one of those tanks.
Mine had absolutely no HIN anywhere . Built well before the mandatory number on the transom was required it still had no wax pen numbers or a foil tag anywhere.
What is the one that you saw powered with ?

edit to add .. The Lake George Donzi club info states production as 102 units but I got the 117 number from a thread on the Donzi.net a few years back when the topic came up that a member had found what was supposedly the very last St Tropez built and it was for sale.then . Previous to that I had always gone with the approx 102 boats.

PremierDetailer

Excellent info from both of you! Thank you, It has a Volvo outdrive with a recently replaced, black, 350. As I further investigated the boat, it appears a bulkhead was either redone or added somewhere up toward the bow. Makes me wonder if perhaps the fuel tank had already been replaced as well. Was definitely atleast partially restored somewhere down the line. Where is the tank located exactly ?

madbouyz

Volvo outdrive = Good .
Mine had obviously been repowered a few times before I got it but when it arrived it was an older Merc drive with a Ford 351 4bbl and center riser manifolds , probably a reasonable 225 hp at crankshaft.
The subject of tanks is a bit of a puzzle for me . The St T brochure states 42gal fuel capacity but the boats that I've seen with the single tank under the console can't possibly be 42 gallons because they would then extend into the lazarette under the floor in front of the console , and they didn't.
I have the tank under the console (20 gal approx new build) and the fwd tank is under the forward storage lazarette in the bow (22 gal approx new built also)
The forward tank was original when I got mine and was leaking badly so for a number of years I relied on the tank under the console which had been recently replaced just before I got the boat. .
I would imagine that the replaced bulkhead you're talking about is the one at the front of the lazarette under the floor and it (in my case) delineated the fwd fuel tank from the storage area. It too had long turned to sponge as it was right up against the foam that locked the fwd tank in place. Actually , all of the bulkheads in the St T are of pretty minimal construction.
If someone DID replace that bulkhead because they changed out the forward tank and were able to do it without butchering the front of the deck seating area and floor they were not only very talented but very patient as well . .

PremierDetailer

Any idea what a fair price might be?? The transom has some moisture in it, and they put a big arch on it which stress cracked all 4 mounting points on the gunwhale. The hull itself is very solid and clean excluding thegun whale. Surprisingly no stress cracks on hull except for where they made a not so fantastic repair, maybe a softball sized area along the starboard transom corner and the chine. I offered 6,000 but they won't go lower than 8. I don't want to get myself into something that's not worth my time/money. Just want a nice boat to handle the chop and go nail some fish, having a donzi for this purpose, with an i/o would be a great option, but again, don't want to get into something I'm going to take a bath on. I have the space, equipment, and likely the time come winter to do a transom rebuild, have always wanted to learn glass work anyway.

madbouyz

When it comes to the fair value of used boats in your country I'm probably not the best person to ask. Maybe the seller should be reminded that it's a 53 year old boat that sold for about $4000 new
I can sort of visualize that issue with the arch and the deck though. The deck in those areas is cored but only in the center areas , outside of that as you move towards the rub rail it goes back to single skin glass , and it aint that thick !
If yours is like mine they used what appeared to be a very good grade of ply in the construction of the stringers and transom . I don't know what it is but it has a very pink color compared to the wood used in the deck coring . When I removed my transom slug it was wet too but it wasn't in any way rotting. The limber holes in the aft of the stringers had only a few inches of rot around them as was typical , and still unfortunately mostly is , they weren't sealed up at all .
Have you gotten in and walked around this thing ? Before I redid mine the cockpit flooring made all sorts of cracking noises and I found out the reason for that was when they layed the wood core in the mold it was just floating on resin saturated glass and there was huge air voids all over the place.
Another issue was that the floor tub wasn't supported properly in the area of the console and the area just aft of it and over the years the cockpit floor on both sides of the console literally cracked right through .. about 18" per side !
Another common area they had problems with were on the hull bottom , the full length running strakes. Look underneath and go about 3' forward from the transom. In the right angle corners of the strakes I'll bet anything that you'll see cracked gelcoat (assuming the bottom isn't painted) .
The full length strakes fall about 10" outside of the stringers and seeing it's a single skin hull the stresses of the water rushing up from the keel at planing speeds cause them to flex considerably. This isn't a problem with the lower half strakes as they mostly hit the stringer and they're nowhere near the water at planing speeds. I know of at least one other where this was NOT a cosmetic issue . In mine and the other water was weeping through on at least one side .
If your willing to tackle improvements and work yourself this could be a great project at the right price .
Any chance of maybe putting up a pic or two of it ?
BTW , if you go over the the Donzi.net and enter the search words St Tropez a lot of stuff comes up. Unfortunately a few years ago there was a serious software problem and all pictures attached to posts prior to 2009 or so vanished .

PremierDetailer

apologies they are not the best. Wasn't planning on taking some for this purpose.

madbouyz

Kewl ! Thanks for that , now I have something to look at .
There's something very familiar about that boat. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere before , maybe in reference to a sale a while back . Looks like it might have originally been a blue/white boat that's been resprayed .
Someone obviously spent a fair amount on that shorty bow rail , arch and (horrible) console pipe frame . The St Ts only had a small grab rail on both sides of the console , no wind deflector or supporting frame. I can see a few other hardware changes as well but it's intact .
I can see something on the cockpit floor on the stbd side of the console but it doesn't resemble the cracking/support issue I mentioned above.
That shift knob is period correct and if it's the original one it's a miracle it's still there .
Do you plan on having another look ? I'd recommend it if for nothing else but to look for that issue with the hull bottom I spoke of.
IF the floor insert that the engine box sits on is not secured it's easy to pull it up and you can then see the inside of the hull areas that I was talking about .

PremierDetailer

I will head back down to get more pictures and investigate the floor area and the inner hull. It appears to not be secure at all. I had no idea they did so much to the bow rail and what not but would make sense. I absolutely love the fact it's I/o as well. I like outboards, have driven a lot of outboard boats, but they have their downfalls.