My wife and I embarked upon a significant series of upgrades to our
motor yacht over the past year. Many of those were performed by a marina in Virginia; however, it was painfully clear that the junior technicians assigned to our
boat were not properly trained and supervised, yet they nevertheless charged top dollar. For example, our
Raymarine installation was performed by a
outboard engine specialist who had never installed one previously. That marina took way too long and there were several discrepancies that we constantly had to address with them. They billed us a minimum of one hour if we asked them a question or had them look at something on the
boat that took more than 15 minutes. The final bill was certainly not worth what we got. This sort of thing sound familiar to you?
I happened across the owner of
Marine Diagnostic Services (MDS), Jake, who was in my former marina performing a LiFeP04
battery installation. I had a good feeling about him after our initial discussion and decided to move the boat to New Bern, NC to begin a massive
overhaul of our
electrical system. Our new system consisted of 1840 Ah of Epoch
LiFePO4 batteries, two
Victron Quattro 3000W Inverters, a
Victron Power Distributor, a Victron Cerbo GX panel, and associated Victron
battery protectors and Orion chargers. It necessitated the entire redesign and reorganization of our tech bay. It was a serious challenge that Jake seemed to relish. When he discovered issues not anticipated, he would talk with me and explain my options. There were no surprise costs. He was also brutally honest. When he suspected that one of his people damaged our wooden cabinet, he called to confirm it had previously been fine and then fixed it. Few
marinas I’ve experienced would have taken such responsibility. I was also impressed with his attention to detail. After the
electrical system upgrade, he ensured his team torqued all fittings to proper specifications and then conducted thermal testing himself with his hand-held FLIR
camera to ensure there were no loose fittings or unusual
overheating. Because of this diligence, he discovered massive
overheating in the fuse for our bow thruster (800+ degrees Fahrenheit!) and took it upon himself to ensure that it was safe since the manufacture hadn’t adhered to ABYC standards. Many shops would just let you sail away. Instead, he fabricated a new fuse box with double the
cables and
fuses to lower the amperage and heat. It is so safe now, you can hold your hand on a fuse while it’s engaged. I felt so comfortable with him that we also had him install our
water maker and an additional
camera. He also doesn’t guess, he is a master diagnostic technician and researches everything he doesn’t know off the top of his
head, including calling both vendors and ABYC itself when he’d heard standards were changing regarding the ELCIs we were installing.
No boat
work is
cheap, and if it is you need to reconsider whom you’re dealing with. The real issue is the professionalism and honesty you get. With MDS, you get this…and a lot of piece of mind. You see, Jake is a former
captain of his own 51’
sail boat and spent two years in the
Caribbean with his
family. He understands that for many of us our
boats are our homes and that they must be safe and functional when we are far from a safe harbor. We will use him for any future
work we get done. He is our chief
engineer. Contact him at marinediagnosticservices.com. While they're based out of New Bern, NC, they do some traveling work.
Robert Ivey
M/Y Espial
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