Surveyor in San Diego?

[Lennie]

Looking for a good surveyor in San Diego that will be looking out for me not the broker. Any recommendations?
Also looking for someone to help me move the boat to Anacortes WA.

Lennie

[Dennis.G]

I had my survey done by Christian & Co. and felt they provided a professional level of service. Would use them again.

[JPA Cate]

Zeehag, who spent lots of time in SD says that Kjell christiansen or 'on? is a very decent, honest man who is a super surveyor.

Ann

[TacomaSailor]

I can confirm that Christian and Company is the surveyor to use. George Jarvie is the C&C guy who surveyed our boat in Nov 2012. I am convinced that George saved us from a disaster and a very expensive repair. He did an out of the water insurance survey for me and spent six hours explaining stuff to me as he went through the boat.

George found a broken motor mount that I could not see as broken even when he told me which one to look at. The Yanmar mount bolt that supports the engine was sheared in half but had stayed in place. The only indication that the bolt was broken was a faint discoloration at the fracture and the bolt threads above and below the bolt were out of alignment by a 1/2 thread width. That was enough for George to notice - even though the mount was on the back of the engine and very difficult to get to and examine.

George returned to the yard two days AFTER he had completed the survey. I was still working on props, cutlass bearings, prop shafts... etc. George, who lives on a boat in my marina, told me "something about the rudder had been bothering me and I want to look some more."

He eventually convinced me to drop the "shoe" that is bolted to the skeg and serves as the bottom bearing for the rudder post. There were no obvious signs of a problem but George felt there was some discoloration in the welds on the shoe that he did not like. Shoe removal and reinstall is not a trivial task because the entire weight of the rudder rests on the shoe and the six big stainless bolts that hold the shoe to the skeg had not been removed in 18-years. He then proceeded to browbeat into doing the work.

I removed the shoe and found that the cup that supports the rudder post was rotten on the inside. The cup is a 2" diameter stainless tube cut off and welded to the shoe. The bottom of the rudder post rests and turns in the cup. If the welds that held the cup/tube to the shoe had failed - there would have been nothing to keep the rudder from flapping, unsupported, in the water flow behind the prop.

George has been a boat owner / liveaboard for a very long time and he seems to really care about doing a good job.

A close live aboard friend here has owned a marine service company in San Diego for over 15 years. He helps a lot of people buy boats and rebuild them. George is the only surveyor my friend uses.

Another friend is a boat broker and again, George is who he uses for all his deals.

[Lennie]

Thanks for the replies it looks like Christian and Company is the way to go.

Now if we buy the boat we will need a delivery captain to help me sail her up to the San Juan's. Any suggestions?

Thanks again.

Lennie

[zeehag]

you will love kjels.. he is sooo smart. christian and co are the best surveyors in so cal. honest to a fault and thorough

[TacomaSailor]

Originally Posted by Lennie

Thanks for the replies it looks like Christian and Company is the way to go.

Now if we buy the boat we will need a delivery captain to help me sail her up to the San Juan's. Any suggestions?

When do you plan to move the boat north? Please forgive me if I am repeating information you have already considered.

I assume you are familiar with the winter weather between Point Conception (Santa Barbara, CA and Point Wilson, WA at the east end of Straight of Juan de Fuca). There are full SW gales and 25-foot seas for at least 10-days a month November thru May. The storms last for several days at a time and are survival events for small boats.

Have you considered trucking the boat north? It may be less expensive, overall, to do the truck soon and get the boat to a cheap slip in the Salish Sea rather than leave it in expensive SoCal for the months until it is safe to start north. My charts show it is 1,200 NM from Shelter Island in San Diego to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island.

If your captain has to make repeated trips from the rhumb line route into harbors of refuge you can add 60 miles and at least one day for each harbor detour.

Here is my estimated budget for the two options:

- $2,000 slip fee to keep boat in SoCal Feb – April
- $6,000 captain & crew fee 20-days at $300/day
- $ 500 fly captain & crew back to San Diego
- $ 375 fuel to motor 600 NM 6 knots, 1 GPH, $3.75/gallon
- $ 000 sail 50% of time
- $ 500 transient slip fees going north 10 nights $50/night

$9,375 total expense February thru May to keep boat in San Diego until winter storm season is over and then move boat on her own bottom to Salish Sea.

$1,000 prepare boat for truck in San Diego
$6,000 move boat via truck to Bellingham, WA
$ 750 put boat in water at Bellingham
$1,600 slip fee to keep boat in San Juan Islands February - May

$9,350 total expense February thru May to truck boat to B’ham and then keep boat in a slip somewhere in San Juans, B’ham, Anacortes.

The big UNKOWN cost of the trip north on her own bottom is how many days the captain will have to sit in port waiting for another weather window. If the captain is lucky and aggressive they might be able to ride the late winter Southwesterly storms north, sailing 75% of the time, and keep the transient slip fees down to five or so and to keep the fuel cost to less than $200. In that most optimistic case the captain’s cost would drop by $1,500 and the slip fees and fuel by another $750.

So the most optimistic cost I can see for sailing/motoring north is $7,700.

I checked with a captain with whom I have done a lot of SoCal deliveries. He has done several SoCal to Puget Sound deliveries and said he would charge $400 per day plus expenses. The local Beneteau dealer put me in touch with their delivery guys and they told me $500 per day for the two of them, both captains.

Both captains expected that anytime between early February and late May would require at least 20 billable days for them to get a boat from here to Friday Harbor.

[CLady]

20 days would be nice, but the days between good weather windows could be several for each leg. Having delivered SoCal<-->San Juans, it is chancey to make it between safe harbors with chancey entrances over the bars.

[Lennie]

Tacoma Sailor, I'm looking at both options and your assessment looks spot on. I would like to sail her up just for the learning experience but that may not be practical this time of year as you point out.
If we truck her north do you have any suggestions as who would to a good job decommissioning the boat and getting her ready for the road?

I have been looking at the Don Douglass book San Diego to Seattle and if one had the time harbor hoping north looks doable but you could be sitting out the weather for sometime between ports. I'm retired and have the time but not the experience to do that on my own and it would be cost prohibitive to hire a captain for that length of time.

Thanks again for all the support!

Len and Carol

[TacomaSailor]

"I'm retired and have the time but not the experience to do that on my own and it would be cost prohibitive to hire a captain for that length of time. "

You could make it safely, but never comfortably, by harbor hopping. The problem is the lack of places to safely stop and wait out weather that are not very expensive harbors with very expensive docks. There just are not many anchorages along the way. And almost every free anchorage I know about (Cojo, SLO, San Simeon, Port Orford) are wide open to the prevailing SW storms. There is not a single anchorage north of Port Orford (California - Oregon border). Drakes Bay and Bodega Bay may be safe but I have not been in there so can't tell you for sure how they do in a full gale SW storm.

So, my concern if I were heading north during storm season would be the cost of sitting in places like Monterrey, Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay, Coos Bay....etc. The California ports will cost you at least $50/night and the Oregon/Washington ports might be a little less. I can easily see spending 20 or more nights at a series of expensive docks while waiting out the multiple storms that roll thru the area every week or so.

Another concern about getting stuck in harbors, something we have experienced many times, is the USCG will close the harbor entrance (bar crossing) many hours before the storm arrival and then the residual swells may keep the bar crossing closed for up to 48 hours after the storm moves through thus making you pay for one or two extra nights at the dock. That make it more expensive to stay and gives you less time at sea to make northward progress before the next storm rolls in.

Dudley Boat transport (Fife/Tacoma, Washington) worked well for me and several others.

"I would like to sail her up just for the learning experience"

What you might learn is how much you hate sailing. In 2001 I brought a Tartan 42 back to San Diego from Puerto Vallarta/Cabo San Lucas in late April early May. At that time I had been sailing for 30-years and had done Tacoma-Cabo twice and Annapolis-BVI. I had raced for many years in horrible weather and was pretty dedicated to sailing.

The 750 pounding north from Cabo to San Diego was so bad, so miserable that when I got back to San Diego I immediately put our boat up for sale and swore i would never go to sea in another sail boat.

Since then I have done two more trips from Tacoma to San Diego, San Diego to Zihuatenejo and back to the far north end of the Sea of Cortez. I have also taken another boat from La Paz back to San Diego (a 60,000 pound 53' trawler) and have done a lot of SoCal boat deliveries from San Diego northbound to Catalina, LA, Ventura, Santa Barbara.

The more I pound north in sailboats, the more I realize trucks are wonderful tools for getting sailboats from SoCal to the beautiful Pacific NW.