Opinions wanted please.

[NJS-Rodrigues]

Hi Everyone,

I'm going to try to make this adventure so far as simple and as short as possible, I hope you can understand what I am trying to explain and at the end your opinions will be appreciated.
Here it goes:

The Mrs and I recently got into sailing and we enjoyed it so much that we decided to buy a sailboat.

We found a 1993 Beneteau 400 for sale ( We are in the UK) . The story is that the owners no longer use the boat and it has been sitting on the stands for over a year now without any maintenance at all!
The broker sent us a copy of a previous recent survey and a copy of the repairs that were done along with the cost.
This is a copy of the original survey attached.
Since then, repairs have been made to the boat but not as described on the survey. see also attached.

We made a offer on her that was around 8k lower than the asking price and the owners have accepted it. and we have put down a deposit.
I then arranged for my surveyor to attend the boat and carry out a further survey to check everything was ok.

My surveyor said to fully check the quality of the works carried out would mean removing a lot of the saloon and galley area. (the boat has a linear galley and a U shaped seating area.

The only other way would be to test the repairs by taking it for a sea trial and put the keel under stress to see if anything cracks or breaks.

The vessel was not safe for a sea trial at the time of the survey so we had to wait a few weeks for it to be ready to launch.
It needed new batteries, new engine mounts, and new position lights.
All was done and paid by the owner and the 2nd part of the survey was carried out yesterday.

So what we noticed as she was lifted off the stands was that the keel did not move at all which was good and the sea trial went fine without anything cracking or breaking. However we did notice that with the vessel now in the water and the Keel hanging the saloon floor was now completely flat and not not raised as she was when she was on the stands.

Although the sea trial was fine and nothing broke, I am still worried about this issue of the floor flexing.

Am I worrying about something that I shouldnt be??? I am not sure.... HELP!

I also spoke to a friend on here that has the same model and this flexing of the floor does not happen on their boat, so that has made me even more worried. He Suggested dropping the offer price even more to make the repairs properly.
I have heard that a repair like this here in the UK costs around 6k to 7k

At the moment there is not indication that the boat has any structural issues besides the floor raising when she is put on the stands.

What should I do? I dont want to loose my deposit also.

Hope to hear your opinions soon.
Thanks for taking the time to read through all this

[HeinSdL]

According to my understanding there should not be any deformation of any kind at any time of a sail boat hull. Or at least not as you describe. You may find discussions on how much you can tension up the aft stay and how this pulls the boat into a banana shape (although this is not actually visible, just has an impact on the tension in the fore stay). And I have seen slight lifting of the deck on different yachts just below stress points such as the attachment of the baby stay and genoa track. But that is more or less it.

The deformation you see would concern me. For two reasons. Firstly, it is not something that a sailboat should suffer from as mentioned above. But secondly and critically, if the boat already deforms in the vertical axis, I would hate to see how it responds to the torque produced once it starts to heal over. Those twisting forces (torque) are much bigger than the vertical up/down.

[Sherpa17]

https://www.yachtsurvey.com/HullFailP2.htm.

[sailorboy1]

I think that you paid a surveyor to help you understand your boat and concerns and should be asking that person.

But you aren't comfortable with the boat and weren't it seems way back at the beginning, yet still proceeded with buying it.

[NJS-Rodrigues]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

I think that you paid a surveyor to help you understand your boat and concerns and should be asking that person.

But you aren't comfortable with the boat and weren't it seems way back at the beginning, yet still proceeded with buying it.

Hi Sailorboy,

Thank you for your comments.

I came on this forum to share my situation and speak to likeminded people who are willing to share their thoughts & ideas and possibly help me make the right decision. Which it has helped me quite a lot so far.
I thought this was the whole point of forums like this??

As this is my first boat purchase, its quite a big learning curve and we only really learn by making mistakes.

But lesson learned now and we move on...
By the way I have not bought the boat yet...

Thanks again for your comments.

[Sailing August]

The solon floor should not flex on the stands or in the water......at all.
The flexing indicates that the hull grid is compromised. When the weight of the vessel
is loaded on to the keel (on the stands) the cabin solon floor pushes up because the grid in not completely connected to the hull. This is usually the result of a very hard grounding and it is likely that the pervious owners know it.

[S/V Illusion]

All boats flex when going from storage on land to in the water. Having said that, you state it is the floor which moved, not the hull. That is also not surprising but it is the hull that 'counts' when determining structural issues. The floor is basically cosmetic.

[double u]

R U N!!!!!

[Shrew]

You'd have to have a significant amount of flex in the hull to translate to the sole of the cabin. That would be sufficient grounds to terminate my P&S, recover my deposit and move on.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by NJS-Rodrigues

Hi Sailorboy,

Thank you for your comments.

I came on this forum to share my situation and speak to likeminded people who are willing to share their thoughts & ideas and possibly help me make the right decision. .

I was trying to help you!

You paid a surveyor to look at at and evaluate the boat in person. That is worth 1000 comments from a bunch of forum posters.

[boatpoker]

The hull in that vessel is very thin. The grid/liner is where all the structural strength is. If the liner is flexing to the point where sole movement is visible you have a very serious issue

Take a look at this one I was involved in (another brand) where the liner was never bonded to the hull.

Liner Bonding Failure

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Shrew

You'd have to have a significant amount of flex in the hull to translate to the sole of the cabin. That would be sufficient grounds to terminate my P&S, recover my deposit and move on.

Totally agree, would move on. Too many other boats out there.

[BobHorn]

Maybe the boat is not meant to be supported by the keel?