Nothing wrong with the plan,my bit of advice as a
boatbuilder and a guy who gets to fix boats that some poor bastard has bought after paying good
money for a
survey only to find major issues that the "Surveyor" had missed.
!/ do a lot of
research and narrow your search down to just a few boats first
2/ If you narrow it down to a production boat such as the Tartan do a search online for an owners group,just about everything has one.Read and post questions on their forum and develop a list for the
surveyor to pay particular attention to.
3/ Be present at the survey if at all possible,if the surveyor dosnt want you there find one who will.
4/ Dont be sucked in by boat owners around the
dock or on
forums such as this who will say that this brand or that brand are good boats,you cant go by brand name,only the individual boat you are looking at matters,I couldnt give a rats ass if its a Hinkley or a
Macgregor.
5/ Make sure you get a good
hull,deck rig and mechanicals, a lot of people get
sold by fancy
electronics and other fluff and then find they just bought a wet
core and are in fore
repairs that cost more than the boat is worth,ive seen it time and again and many of the boats were surveyed. You can always update
electronics,sails etc as you can afford it,no skill involved.
Ok,i could go on and on and you may think im being an alarmist but ive seen a lot in 35 yrs in the industry, ive owned a Tartan ten, folks around here will tell you that "Tartan are good boats", Tartan tens as a group have major rotten
core issues in the bottom from
bilge water for gods sake as well as the
compression post trying to drive through the bottom.This does not mean the 37 you are looking at is the same,it simply points out that you cant go by a name brand.
You need to do as much research to find a competent surveyor as the boat itself, many of them may have some letters after their name indicating they are a
member of some organizing body, i dont care,i want to know what their actual experience is,if they are surveying a
hull have they ever built one,do they really know how the things are put together,many of them have just read
books and sat tests and paid
membership dues to get some letters after their name to impress you. Look for someone who has a lot of experience as an actual
boatbuilder in the medium you are looking at,even that is no guarante,we once had a 36ft Rhodes carvel planked boat in the shop where the customer has purchased it in
Maine,he hired a well known
wood boat surveyor who had written articles for wooden boat magazine,he found some
deck issues and the buyer bought it and shipped it to us in
minnesota,while we were working on the
deck we looked it over and found the telltale signs of broken frames,after getting the go ahead to explore deeper we found that most of the frames through the
keel area were broken.
Good luck with your search.
Steve.