Potential customers call Bill saying that they hired a surveyor and bought the boat on their recommendation. After they have some work done to the boat from their mechanic, they are told that the transom or the stringers are rotted out. Then they try to sue the surveyor saying that he didn't check out the boat that well. After spending $500 to $1,000 for the survey report and wasting time trying to call him to make up for the bad report, owners then proceed to call a lawyer. Now they have to deal with court cost and a lot of headaches. Now you know why boating gets VERY expensive and the new owners get very disgusted and then give up on boating.

That's a bad experience. Bill prides himself on offering customers sound advice and tips to try and help his customers avoid these Bad Experiences and save them some money. Boating is a great experience with many good memories.

Custom Boat Repair has checked out many boats for local customers for free after Marine surveyors had checked them out. Often times Bill advises his client to pass on boats that surveyors gave a good report on.

Bill has been doing this for over thirty years and knows most of the tricks that people use. Surveyors can only do a Visual check of the boats that they check out. That's a clean job. Bill gets down to the physical dirty business of repairing boats and this gives him a glimpse of the boats history. A surveyor will see a crack and try to summarize how it happened. A repairman will cut it open and tell you how exactly it happened and what needs to be done to repair it the right way. (Note: Not all repairmen have this capability.)

Some customers even fly Bill to Florida to check out boats. One of those boats was a 55“ Wellcraft. Three surveyors said the boat was in great shape and to buy it right away before he lost it. When the stringer system was tested the bottom section was very wet and the top was dry. This said that maybe there was bottom damage. Bill advised that the boat should be hauled out of the water. Nobody wanted to haul the boat, so Bill told the customer to fly him back to Jersey. Finally the customer starting bickering with the owner of the boat and the surveyor and they came to an agreement to haul the boat out of the water.

The group traveled over an hour in the water to get to the marina that was going to haul the boat. It turned out that the boat was in such bad shape that it was not even safe to ride it

On the bottom of the boat where very big blisters, the size of oranges. The next thing was that when pushing on the starboard strut it moved about an inch & water shot out from in between the layers of fiberglass. The bolts where not loose the fiberglass was just falling apart. That was bad. Then on the same side the four bladed prop had a crack on one of the blades, if that ever broke off it could have gone thru the hull while the boat was traveling at high speeds.

The conclusion on the boat was that it had major work done on the bottom and it was repaired so badly that it should never have left the shop. Bill advised the customer to pass on the boat and he did. ( Update ) The boat was sold to someone else who used it for about a month. He took a cruise out in the ocean blew an engine, the hull cracked and the boat sunk. He abandoned the boat and told the bank he wasn't paying them.

So here are some Tips that the ordinary person can use to check out his future boat. Tools you'll need: ( Ice Pick, Small Ball Peen Hammer, Wrench, Digital Camera)

Tips on Buying a Used Boat
Looking for a Marine Surveyor Tips
After Purchase Tips

< Back to home