Wizard of Woodstock wrote in
:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:12:25 -0700, jps wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:27:25 -0400, Captain Wizard of Woodstock
wrote:

On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:20:07 -0700 (PDT), wf3h
wrote:

The gospel is that one gets a survey done. Has anyone found this
useful, apart from your own experience looking at a boat, especially
for cheap ($10K) boat? Is it worth it to get a survey done since on a
28' boat this costs about $600 in the NY area.

Well, let me put it this way. I'm pretty familiar with problems and
such as far as the hull goes and I'm handy around engines - know what
to look for in a general sense.

A few years back, I became really interested in a early model Topaz
28' sportfisherman - twin 350s. I looked that boat over for three
days before I committed to buy it - put the 10% down and called a
surveyor, set up an appointment and off we went.

He spent a whole five minutes before the $13,000 deal was off.

That should tell you something.

Do what you will, but it can be money well spent. And they aren't as
vague as you seem to believe - their rep is on the line and they have
to tell it like it is or they are going to get insurance companies on
their asses if something happens.

What did he catch?

No baffles in the exhaust, sea water had gotten up into the engines
and they were siezed solid.

While I'm not debating that a survey is a good idea, if you couldn't tell
both engines were siezed in three days of looking, without a survey, you
should pick a different hobby. Maybe you have money to burn, but to me,
that's like spending $600 for somebody to tell me there's a foot-sized hole
in the hull. Survey or no, I would do my own preliminary check of the
obvious before I shelled out for a pro. At a minimum, that would include
starting all engines.