There are bargain boats available in Oxnard, Ventura and MdR, but buyer beware!

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How to save money and grief without really trying.

by Wayne Roper, “The Engineer”

We humans have one thing in common, and that is as soon as the sailing lessons are over, we feel the urge to buy a boat. Some of us don’t wait that long and are not very careful.

Some of us will take a prospective used car to six mechanics before a purchase decision. But many in that same group will purchase a boat based strictly on what the owner (or worse – broker) tells us about the vessel, often without as much as sea trial.

For these people and other prospective boat buyers we are going to attempt to explore the wonderful world of surveys.

A survey doesn’t give a 100% guarantee that the boat is 100% up to standard, in fact surveyors will usually tell you what they won’t look at or what they won’t test before they start. Make sure you know what you’re buying in terms of survey service. Done correctly, a survey goes a long way to assuring the safety of your crew and the overall condition and value of the boat. It also satisfies both insurance and bank loan requirements.

A marine survey is nothing more than an inspection of the boat’s hull, rigging and its various operating systems. These systems can be complex and are always expensive to repair or replace. Onboard operating systems such as electrical, water and sanitation are inspected and tested for proper operation; the engine is inspected for leaks and proper mounting. All the deck-level rigging mount points are inspected, along with the hull above the water line. Most insurance/bank surveys will also require the haul out of the vessel for a below waterline inspection. This will uncover hull damage, blisters, shaft issues, as well as any damage caused by the lack of maintenance of zinc’s. Steering mechanism and rudder can also be checked along with straightness of the propeller shaft and condition of the bottom paint. Finally, the surveyor will attempt to assign a value to the vessel, considering its condition.

Most of the surveyors that I have talked with charge approximately fifteen to twenty dollars per foot to survey the vessel. A couple of notes at this point, surveyors do not go aloft to inspect masts or rigging. So a visit from a good rigging specialist would probably be a good investment, particularly if the boat is more than 10 years old. Surveyors do not perform in-depth condition reports on engines. Therefore, an outside mechanic, and the purchase of a couple of his hours for an inspection, compression test and oil sampling would be money well spent. And surveyors do not look at the sails or running rigging on sailboats.

I know this seems like a lot of time and trouble but a marine survey is the best money you will ever spend, affording you more protection than most insurance policies. A boat that looks good and floats could be a better candidate for a chain saw and the recycler than a boat for you and your crew. A survey will help identify the correct boat for you.

At no time in my memory have their been better boat bargains. The recession has forced many quality boats onto the market at very attractive prices. By using a well performed survey as your compass you will insure the fact that you get the most value for your boating dollars.

But even before the survey is the sea trial … we’ll deal with that next.

Here, btw, is a list of Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors and the International Association of Marine Surveyors and some case studies and other valuable information about the surveying business and survey procedures.

And, finally, an example of what might happen if you don’t have a bit of help when you buy – Country Bumpkin Buys a Boat

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One thought on “There are bargain boats available in Oxnard, Ventura and MdR, but buyer beware!”

  1. A survey helps to slow the buying process down. Why would that be a help?

    Because just about everyone who buys a boat is in an amazing rush. I’ve bought several boats in my lifetime and being a bit more careful might have saved some aggravation as well as money.

    Fortunately, when I bought my first bigger boat – Wiley, the Catalina 36, I had an honest, forthright salesman. Though it cost him commission dollars, he pointed out some of the deficiencies of the boat and told me that I could either use those to bargain for a lower price or demand that they be fixed.

    I also had a very competent and thorough surveyor. He’d already talked me out of two boats that I thought were perfect for me. (The first had osmotic blisters that were untreatable and the second had a rotten bulkhead and water intrusion in much of the balsa core.) These boats required so much work that there “as-is” value was near zero. The second one would have been unsafe to sail as the chainplates on the starboard side were working out of the rotting bulkhead.

    I paid that surveyor a few thousand dollars to be disappointed – a very low expense considering the $100,000 boat investment I was contemplating.

    After the second disappointing survey, the surveyor recommended that I look at Catalina 34-36 that were about 10 years old. He’d spent a lot of time with me and knew what I wanted – and he was right.

    BTW- it took a year of shopping every weekend before we did our first sea trial. We looked at a lot of junk. Once we had a better handle on what we wanted, we sought a broker. And, as I said, he was great: honest, knowledgeable and patient. There are very few like that. Shop carefully for a broker. That, too, could take a year.