Survey Question

[florida newbie]

At what price point should you have a survey done before buying a sail boat? Thanks.

[redcobra]

Any time you are spending more money than you can afford to throw away.

[Randy]

nice answer!

[Kefaa]

Since the buyer pays in almost all cases - and the cost is anywhere from $10-22/ft, you want to be sure you are ready to buy. I am planning mine at the point I am certain this is "the one." The sale will be contingent upon a survey being acceptable to me. (we can all argue what acceptable is - but to me is what I care about)

Here Inspecting and Surveying a Used Sailboat is what they will look at (and you should first). how to buy a used sailboat (scroll to bottom), gives you a set of checklists you can use to review.

Given that, I would suggest using the used car analogy - at what point would you pay a mechanic to look it over? $5k? $10k? I may not pay $500 to protect a $5000 investment, but I would for $15k.

[florida newbie]

Ok, my post was pretty vauge, but thanks for the insight and the links for review.

[Bash]

The less you know about boats, the more likely you will need a survey.
The more you know about boats, the more likely you are to insist on a survey.

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Bash

The less you know about boats, the more likely you will need a survey.
The more you know about boats, the more likely you are to insist on a survey.

That is what I thought too.

After my survey I realized if I had been looking.................

What a waste.

[PA28235Pilot]

We bought our boat without a formal survey. I could afford to lose the purchase price but it wouldn't have felt good.

What I did was research everything I could find written about our boat. This included posts from owners forums. I came up with a checklist of things to look for. I found a few minor issues but nothing significant.

After the purchase, our insurance company required a "formal survey". I hired a surveyor with an impressive resume and all the initials behind his name. It wasn't cheap.

Guess what, he found the same minor items I found and NOTHING MORE!

Bottom line is that I had to pay good money to find out what I already knew. Simply to get insured.

Go figure!

[skipmac]

If you are going to insure the boat you will have to have a professional survey. Likewise if you finance. If you plan on keeping the boat at a marina most require insurance so you will have to have a survey. Unless you keep it at your own dock or at anchor, don't finance and don't insure you will sooner or later have to have the survey.

[Ex-Calif]

The killers are:

Mast, boom and standing rigging - cracks, wear and rigging condition
Hull - Blisters, osmosis and previous repairs quality
Sails - Condition & age
Engine - Condition, type and age

If dreadfully wrong each of these items could consume 50-80% (or greater) of the value of the boat.

Our boat was dismasted in a previous life. The new rig installed, with sails, was over US$15,000. This exceeds the value of our boat by a fair bit.

Another rule of thumb - take the most expensive boats in your class and then compare to the price of your boat. Be prepared to invest the difference in your boat in the first two years of ownership.

This just recognizes that there are very, very few "sweetheart deals" out there.