Hello and welcome to the Sailing the East podcast. This is our podcast about sailing and cruising the east coast of the United States. In some episodes we will focus on passages and destinations, in other episodes, we will talk about boats, equipment, and techniques, and when we come across an interesting person, we will try to get them as a guest on the show. As our frequent listeners can tell, I am doing this episode solo today as my co-host Mike Wasserman could not make it. 

In this episode, we discuss marine surveys and my experience when we purchased Paradox in September 2020. Paradox is a 2009 Hunter 45 DS. It's been 9 months since we took possession of Paradox. Since Paradox was on the hard for the Winter we have used paradox for about 3 months so far this season. We purchased her from the original owner and she had just under 200 hrs on the engine. That is a very lightly used boat. 

We hired a marine surveyor who was SAMS, and NAMS accredited. A surveyor typically goes through all of the systems on the boat, checks the hull and deck for damage or water intrusion, they may also do a rig inspection and test the oil in the engine, transmission, and generator and a do sea trial where you hoist the sails and run the engine under load. A typical survey in the North East of the United States costs between $25 to $35 per foot. This does not include paying a marina to lift the boat out of the water so the hull, rudder, and keel can be inspected. This is often called a Short Hall and costs $10-$15 per foot. 

There were a few items we have discovered that the surveyor missed.  I list them in the podcast.

What is the lesson learned here? Don’t just turn stuff on. Turn it on and let it run. Make sure it working and not just turning on. Put it through its paces. There are big items and not so big items. But if you are paying someone to check over the boat, they should cover it all. I was pleased with the survey and the surveyor. He did a good job and on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give him an 8. 

So, if you are considering buying a boat, in addition to being there with the surveyor for the survey, I would make it a condition of buying the boat to spend a day going through everything myself. Turning stuff on, letting it run. I would try to do this prior to the survey so anything you find can be pointed out to the surveyor and included in the survey report. It’s important to have stuff in the report because things uncovered during the survey give you grounds to walk away or renegotiate the price. Don’t rush, take your time, use it as a learning experience. 

Thanks for listening! We will be spending most of the summer sailing around Narragansett Bay, Long Island Sound, and Buzzards Bay. Hope to see you out on the water. We love to hear from our listeners, send us your questions, comments, and suggestions at [email protected]. If you would like to support the podcast, click on the sponsorship link below. For as little as 99 cents a month, you can help defray the costs of producing this podcast. Wishing you fair winds, and calm seas. 

Bela and Mike