I've had a couple NAMS members share their checklists, and what Rosalie
describes is what these guys look for. They also check the dates on the
flares.

"Rosalie B." wrote in message
...
x-no-archive:yes "Doug Dotson" wrote:

After perhaps 8 or so surveys over the years being both purchase
surveys (which are the expensive ones) and insurance surveys (
which are the cheaper ones), I've never had any surveyor mention
anything about the CG mandated equipment other than fire extinguishers
begin sufficuent and current. None of any of the surveyors checklists
contained anything about flares, signalling devices, PFDs, waste
management plan, oil discharge placard, waste discharge rules placard,
etc. Those items are left to the CG safety inspection or the courtesy
inspections conducted by the CG Aux. No insurance has had any
complaints other than sending me a form that I could indicate that
I complied or wil comply with the "required" items.

OTOH we've had 1 purchase survey and several insurance surveys and all
of them addressed all or most of those items. I thought that was the
norm.

I just got out the initial survey to look at it and on the last page
it addresses:

Minimum Inshore and Coastal Equipment
-horn and/or whistle (aboard)
-bell (none observed)
-PFDs - aboard all US CG approved including throwable type IV
-fire extinguishers - all mounted and show charge
-automatic fire suppression for engine room (none at that time, but
we've got one now)
-compass (Ritchie) and deviation table for compass (none observed)
-distress flares (aboard and correspond to CG regulations)
-anchors (listed the Danforth)
-gas vapor detector (none but we have one now)
-high bilge alarm (none)
-first aid kit (none observed but we have one now)
-bilge pumps - work
- EPIRB (none but we have one now)
-USCG No discharge sign (posted)
-Federal no dumping sign-posted (no garbage management plan was seen,
but we have one now)

Of course all the surveyors were from the same office. The
pre-purchase surveyor was the head guy in the office and we picked him
on the recommendation of several trusted friends and relatives as THE
surveyor in the area (the broker was unhappy but couldn't do anything
about it), and he lived up to his reputation. In fact when we
switched insurance companies, the new insurance company took his
pre-purchase survey without requiring another one. The other
surveyors from that office used the initial survey to check off that
we'd fixed the things that were mentioned as deficient in the first
survey.

We did have a CGX courtesy inspection, and Bob did not show them the
autoinflate PFDs that we wear when underway because they aren't
approved. He just showed them the regular life vests.