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Survey Appraisal


ProspectiveBoatOwner

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Good day internet boaters!

 

I am in the process of trying to appraise a survey that was done for a boat that I am interested in owning. I am a first time boat-buyer and I really have no idea what kind of costs all of this work might incur. I have every intention of learning new skills, and doing as much of the work as possible myself, but I appreciate that much of this will need to be done professionally. The boat is currently floating free-of-charge in a local boat yard. I would like to know as a ball-park figure how much it will cost and how much time it should take, to take the boat out of the water and address these recommendations:

 

1. Long-term it would be beneficial to clean and paint the base plating (A)

2. The strakes have corrosion behind them in various places, which is an inevitable consequence of nonfully welded guards. There are areas of pitting to the hull sides below the strakes in various places. The resolve this, the rubbing strakes should be removed, the plating repaired as required, and the strakes refitted (A)

3. The following works are required to the hull (P)

  •  The water tank, believed to be integral mild steel and incorporated into the bows, requires accessing, descaling, inspecting and repair / repainting as required. There is reduced plating thickness apparent in this area as a result of internal corrosion. The condition of any tank bulkheads is not known nor can it be assessed at the time of survey.
  •  The cabin bilge at the aft of the vessel, between the engine room bulkhead and forward by approx. 2m requires accessing, descaling, assessing and repair / repainting as required. There is reduced plating thickness apparent in this area as a result of internal corrosion.
  •  The LPG locker to starboard and deck storage locker to port are integral steel lockers, and are wet lockers where navigation water can wash in and out of them with the base of the lockers being located below the normal laden waterline. As such, the lockers are required to be maintained in good condition to ensure the water-tight integrity of the vessel is not compromised. The lockers require aggressive descaling, inspection and repair / repainting as required. A long-term solution to wet lockers is to raise the height of the base of the locker above the normal laden waterline and weld up the then redundant previous scupper.
  • The aft deck drain gulleys and aft deck itself are holed and require repair / replacement

4. The following repairs and amendments are recommended to the hull fittings (P)

  •  The vessel has a fuel filler spillage overflow tube that spans between the aft deck and the uxter plate, where it exits the vessel. This is below the normal laden waterline; it is difficult to maintain and prevent corrosion and as this exits the vessel under the water line. It is difficult to establish the condition, as access is poor. This tube is also completely unnecessary as any spilt fuel naturally drains overboard as there is a coaming around the aft deck. The tube should be blanked off top and bottom by way of welding. The welded ring around the filler opening should be slotted to the outboard side.
  •  The now-disused pump out tank breather, located to the starboard side, should be blanked over by way of welding
  •  The WC basin outlet is too close to the waterline and furthermore, the internal plumbing is poorly made and not watertight. The outlet should be raised and the then-redundant fitting blanked over by way of welding
  •  The hull side plating below and around the galley sink drain, located starboard aft is heavily pitted and requires reinforcing; ideally the affected section should be cut out and a new piece of plating inlet.
  •  The rudder stock tube where it exits the uxter plate should be continuously welded from the external side as this is only presently welded internally.

5. The paintwork condition is generally poor and renewal is required. There is corrosion apparent across the superstructure that requires resolving (A)

6. The rubber window seals that seal between the glass and the frames have shrunk and in places has shrunk away from the frame. These should be refitted or replaced. There is some evidence of water ingress internally (A)

7. There is evidence of some water ingress through roof fittings internally; fittings might require resealing (A)

8. Clean and paint the weedhatch, and replace the seal (A)

9. Access and remove the now-disused pump out tank (A)

10. The engine room requires descaling and repainting (A)

Additional context: The boat is 71ft long and was constructed in 1986!

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When was this survey carried out, and who for?

That is a lot of work, and cost will depend on what internal fitting have to be removed, and replaced because of the welding heat.

In all for a first boat, best walked away from.

5. £15,000+ any remedial work, for a back to metal professional repaint. (Ball park figure)

 

Bod.

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It sounds like this "survey" was conducted with the boat in the water?  If so, it's worthless.  You need a proper external hull survey.  

 

But based on the comments above, unless you are getting this boat for next to nothing, forget it. 

 

 

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I think some perspective is needed here. Something often lacking in survey reports. 

 

This type of stuff is typical of a boat of this vintage and yes it all needs doing to bring the boat up to "as new" and to current expectations and standards. But who is EVER going to do that to a 1986 boat? It has managed to stay afloat so far and probably will for many years more even if nothing is done other than sort out the gas lockers. Boats degrade as they grow older and hopefully the price reflects the age and condition.

 

"Run away" is good advice assuming the OP has £80k lying around to spend on a boat with nothing wrong with it, but if this boat is say £10k or £15k, buying it gets them out boating and learning and they would probably get their money back even if it sinks and if it doesn't, they can spend money on it fixing stuff as and when it suits. If ever. (And it sounds to me as though the seller had exactly this philosophy!)

 

 

  • Greenie 3
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There is so much stuff that should not be below the waterline but is; perhaps something has made the boat heavier. It could be a doubled bottom perhaps, though you'd expect the seller to promote that if it were true. In many respects it is easier to find and repair a hull leak below water, but all this rain water getting in will be more problematic, plus also whatever damage has followed from that. Unless you already have the various skills necessary, especially the welding, David Mack is right about the boatpole

 

Tam

 

p.s. MtB is obviously right too - if you buy it for £10,000 or do it does change things, but you'll be buying into constant maintenance forever after that.

Edited by Tam & Di
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Sounds like a survey for the OP to me and would be very similar for a number of boats.

Seems to be no attempt to qualify the extent of any pitting or distinguish between best practice and BSS requirements.

 

1. You can say the same for probably over half the boats on the system, without original plate thickness and depth of worst pits it is close to bullshine.

 

2. Probably true, but how has the surveyor measured the pits under the strakes? You could say this about nearly all the budget hulls on the system yet they are not sinking left right and centre. However, I would certainly want to srt it on any submerged strakes.

 

3. All probably true, but unless the gas tank floor is perforated (again no measurements) it's just best practice, not a BSS or legal requirement.

 

4. Apart from the un-dimensioned pitting in the hull by the galley sink drain again just not best practice and not a BSS fail.

 

And so on - it's a typical surveyor's arse covering survey designed to give scope for the purchaser to negotiate a price reduction. I note the OP has not given us a price so we can't assess if it is reasonable or not. 

 

I agree it would be expensive to do all that work, but question how much actually needs doing. If a purchaser brought that lot to me asking for a price reduction to cover all the work, they would get a very sharp Foxtrot Oscar, especially if I had already discounted the price a bit. After all It's a 30-year-old boat, not a 5 year old Hudson!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sounds like a shedload of work and expense!

At 71ft long there will be some canals you can't use and at that length any overplating at about £150 per foot plus extras will be very expensive.

Unless it's very cheap,then I think it's one to walk away from,and don't look back.

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1 hour ago, MtB said:

I think some perspective is needed here. Something often lacking in survey reports. 

 

This type of stuff is typical of a boat of this vintage and yes it all needs doing to bring the boat up to "as new" and to current expectations and standards. But who is EVER going to do that to a 1986 boat? It has managed to stay afloat so far and probably will for many years more even if nothing is done other than sort out the gas lockers. Boats degrade as they grow older and hopefully the price reflects the age and condition.

 

"Run away" is good advice assuming the OP has £80k lying around to spend on a boat with nothing wrong with it, but if this boat is say £10k or £15k, buying it gets them out boating and learning and they would probably get their money back even if it sinks and if it doesn't, they can spend money on it fixing stuff as and when it suits. If ever. (And it sounds to me as though the seller had exactly this philosophy!)

 

 

 

But didn't we agree on a different thread that the cost of doing up a wreck these days is way more expensive than a few years ago, just on the cost of steel alone.

 

£10k on a boat like this that almost certainly needs overplating - and the rest - is not a cheap boat.

 

Get it for £3k maybe and it might be worth it.

 

But, it needs to come out of the water before anyone can make a proper assessment.   

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39 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

Sounds like a shedload of work and expense!

At 71ft long there will be some canals you can't use and at that length any overplating at about £150 per foot plus extras will be very expensive.

Unless it's very cheap,then I think it's one to walk away from,and don't look back.

 

Like Tony suggests, it actually sounds like a crap survey, (needs painting - No Shit Sherlock :) ). I could probably write similar for my boat, whereas an out of water survey would be completely different.

 

If the OP is genuinely interested in it, he should have an out of the water survey carried out, where he will get the hull thickness and pit depths.

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  • 1 year later...

This post on Facebooks highlights the danger of buying a boat on someone elses survey.

 

"Hi everyone. I was wondering if anyone can give me some advice.
We bought a boat a couple of years ago, I have posted pics of her refurb here earlier and got such supportive comments. It turned out we had been handed a false survey at the purchase of the boat and the hull needed replating according to our surveyor. We found a boatyard willing to do this and even though their price kept on going up and up we decided to go ahead since the alternative was to scrap the boat, which we couldn’t bring ourselves to do.
Once we got her back into the water we noticed it was harder to get through locks and it transpired the boat had been distorted because of the welding. She is now 7’2” wide.
We got back to the guys that did the job but they say it wasn’t their fault since we were the ones requesting the overplating.
Does this seem right? What can we do? As you can see in the pictures the sides are clearly not straight and there’s now gaps between the door and the walls."
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3 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I think the bigger lesson is not to trust a cowboy welder to do the overplating. There's no way a boat should have distorted that much.

 

I'd suggest there is no way a steel-cabined boat can distort that much, just by over-plating the hull. 

 

The whole story doesn't stack up really. 

 

 

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11 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Yes you're probably right. The boat may have started out 7' 1 3/4" beam.

 

 

Yes that was my thought too, in which case the boat is probably an old riveted iron hull and possible even with an elm bottom which might have been replaced. This might just about explain its apparent expansion during the work. I think there is a lot of highly relevant info missing from the OP

 

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16 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

The reason I posted was not the crap welding but buying a boat relying on someone else's survey

Yes I know. But plenty of people have bought boats without surveys, or only with old surveys without problems, despite the warnings regularly posted here.

Your facebooker says the survey they were given (by the vendor?) was "false". Does he mean it was deliberately faked? Or was it an old survey and the boat has deteriorated since? Or is it a legitimate difference of opinion between two surveyors?

In any event they were a naive purchaser, as evidenced by the fact they refurbished the interior before checking the structure.

As MtB has pointed out, boats do not distort that much when being overplated. So did the second surveyor check the hull width? Or advise on the overplating? If the facebooker has any cause for complaint I think it should be directed at their surveyor and overplater.

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7 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

The reason I posted was not the crap welding but buying a boat relying on someone else's survey

 

Yes, they are easily doctored. I once met a bloke selling a Dutch barge at Penton Hook who'd bought the boat based on the strength of someone else's survey which turned out to have been "amended". It cost him an additional £10K to get all the extra replating done that he hadn't budgeted for.

 

 

 

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