Garrett wrote:

<< And second, the marine surveyor is your real insurance in a purchase,
because he's the only person who actually peeks and pokes into each and
every nook and cranny - including machinery, hoses etc. - and certainly >>

Does anyone have any experience in getting a surveyor to speculate as to the
full extent of something he can't see?

I hired a surveyor with a reputation for being meticulous.  He went over
every inch of the boat that he could get to, and then reported every defect
he could see.  Problem was, the worst of the problems were things that he
couldn't see.  But if I could have gotten him to speculate, he certainly
could have explored what he thought MIGHT be wrong with what he couldn't
see.

For example, the wooden boat we bought had a serious problem with the alkali
attack that wood suffers from cathodic overprotection, a topic I've explored
from other angles in other threads.  The surveyor was able to stick his awl
at least an inch into the shredded wood at the backing block for the strut
bolts.  There was evidence of pretty advanced damage, but the only thing the
surveyor was willing to discuss was the backing blocks, a trivial repair,
because that's all he could see.

It turned out that both planks carrying the running gear were also shot and
had to be replaced, a major task, far beyond what the surveyor reported.  We
also had to replace the transom log, the big framing piece at the bottom of
the transom.  The zincs that caused the most of the damage further forward
were attached to the boat with metal bolts in direct contact with the
transom log, and the whole thing was soft and had to be completely replaced,
another major task.  Also completely out of reach during the survey, and
therefore exempt from evaluation.

The surveyor's defense is that he can only report what he can actually
visually verify as fact and is constrained from speculating.

I needed somebody who would speculate.  Keep this in mind when reading your
survey.  I don't know.  When your surveyor pulls you to one side to discuss
his findings out of earshot of the owner, is it typical to have a discussion
like "Come on.  I won't quote you.  What do you really think?".

What is everyone else's experience in this regard.

Doug Hoople
M/V Bomar
1963 Stephens Bros. 50 FDMY
Sausalito, CA

My little "pot stirrer" produced some useful and interesting responses.

Clearly, diesel machinery is remarkably tough, and few of us have
actually needed an engine survey to avoid disaster. I think only one
person reported a surveyor who found a deal-breaker, but almost all of
us considered a mechanical survey a good investment, especially in terms
of generating a reduction in the final price. As noted, I'll certainly
do one on my next purchase, and for exactly the same reason.

However, I was also struck by the number statements made along the lines
of, "It's a small price to pay for insurance when purchasing something
worth hundreds of thousands of dollars." That led me to my next idle
thought: the cost of the mechanical survey actually insures - although
clearly not completely - the value of the machinery which is what,
15-20% of the total worth of the boat? Again, the responses seem to
indicate that the true value of this protection is the final price
reduction that in most cases seems to be on the order of $2-3,000. Quite
an excellent return on investment!

That leads me to conclude that the big ticket repair items to really
worry about when buying a used boat are actually non-mechanical
processes that exist often and expensively, i.e. rot, corrosion,
electricity, and blistering.

Badly installed wood window frames and teak decking are notorious
channels for damage to wooden cores, and failure to properly seal holes
drilled or cut in fiberglass stringers, transoms, etc., end up producing
the same result. Fortunately a good surveyor should find this problem
and delineate its extent. (In a couple of boats where the surveyor had
noted deck delamination, I also had a yard come in to make an
independent evaluation and estimate the repair cost. Lots.)

Salt water eats away at internal engine parts, but condensation can do a
real number on fuel tanks. Replacing tanks is one of the more awful
repair jobs on a boat, and is priced accordingly. (Just check the TWL
archives.) The problem is not unusual in Taiwanese boats produced from
the late 60's to the late 80's, but during a survey tanks are almost
always hard to get at and covered with glued-on insulation that you
can't remove. There is a way to tell the tanks' condition, but who among
us has had them scoped on survey? And without scoping, there's just no
way to know. Why not apply the same logic as for engines?

We've just covered the topic of electrical wiring and component
deterioration in a number of long threads this month, so I won't say
much more other than that this is another one of those areas where the
choice is a lot of expensive bits & pieces plus uncomfortable,
time-consuming D-I-Y effort, or those same bits & pieces plus big $$$
for a professional. Who looks hard at the wiring?

Even excluding the infamous Uniflite problem, there are more boats with
at least some blisters than there are boats with none. The seller
already knows they are there. If they look like being worrisome, he
prices according to what he thinks he can get away with because they
can't be hidden. He knows blisters always cause concern, but that you
can't tell how bad they really are without opening a few of them. Even
if you could get the seller's permission, the patch-up isn't cheap so
purchase, ends up being  simply a go-no-go decision. Moreover, since the
price is already attractive, it's likely not too many more dollars might
be squeezed out. Because repairs will be expensive and rarely come with
a guarantee, I expect most of us would just walk from a marginal
situation. OTOH, sometimes the owner thinks they're worse than they are,
or a few other prospective buyers took a look and then a hike, so the
boat might, in fact, prove quite a good buy. In the absence of
certainty, you have only the advice of your hull surveyor. (See the last
sentence below.)

What points am I trying to make with this rambling? Two, actually.

First, if we were being perfectly logical about surveys - and by
definition, no one who buys a boat is logical - we'd then do each/each
of the sub-systems with specialists, not just the machinery. (In fact,
if you agree with what I've said above, if we could hire only one
specialist surveyor, for true insurance purposes we'd probably be better
off scoping fuel tanks than machinery!)

And second, the marine surveyor is your real insurance in a purchase,
because he's the only person who actually peeks and pokes into each and
every nook and cranny - including machinery, hoses etc. - and certainly
he's the only one who treats the boat as a "system". So, get the best,
toughest, buyer's surveyor you can find, and trust his advice.

Cheers, Garrett