OP
OP
Roger Long
Senior Member
So, how did it go?
I'd hoped to be writing this after a year or two of experience with the boat. However, we have just returned from our 2000 mile road trip with no sale. It was a nice trip with a beautiful waterfront dinner watching the spectacular sunset created by the approaching storm but still over a grand invested in looking at a boat that we didn't buy and I'm glad not to have had another few hundred dollars for a survey added to the cost.
We stopped first at the office for the surveyor for the engine room flooding a year or two back and reviewed the file. I was quite impressed with this guy and, if I ever do need a formal survey in the area, Tom Eve is the one I am going to call. He doesn't get much yacht sale work now because he is too through for for brokers who want deals to go through. His calendar is filled solid though with commercial and insurance work. Availability could be tough.
I used to do a lot of stability testing work which is similar to surveying and this was a reminder of why I got out of it. I just hate giving people bad news. I wasn't nit-picking little stuff like wire terminals that don't meet current ABYC standards, just looking for the things that immediately matter to the safety and function of the boat. There were a number of items that would have been price negotiating points but wouldn't have kept us from buying the boat. When I went over my list at lunch with the owner (who is a friend of Tom Eve's BTW), he said, "Tom is tough but you make him look like my mother."
There was a deal killer. The Sampson post had hollowed out with rot. The water had been getting in through the paint cracks and the rot had worked its way down and taken out the whole chain locker bulkhead. I also found water working its way down through the flybridge deck into the support beams. No trouble there yet but there will be soon. I took the gear out of the steering gear space and stepped in to remove the floor over the tiller and the rotted plywood gave way and dropped me down the hatch. Since the sale of our last trawler was largely prompted by the arm injury sustained by my slipping in a hatch, my life kind of flashed before my eyes. I found the strongbacks that restrain the water tanks rotted to the extent that one was lying in the bilge.
I must point out that Tom Eve's survey of the boat was limited to the machinery spaces, I'm sure he would have found these things in a full survey.
We proceeded with the sea trial and haul out in case we could come to agreement about fixing the major items as we did quite like the boat. Almost nothing aside from the engine, the steering gear, and some of the electronics worked. No tach, no bow thruster, no generator. The boat does have the teak decks removed and two new aluminum fuel tanks so it is a rare A 36. If we haven't found another boat by the time the owner has had the Sampson post and bulkhead replaced and gotten everything working, we might take another look. In the meantime we are still searching for a boat.
I'm sure this was a beautiful and fully functional boat three years ago when illness began distracting the owner and I don't think he was trying to slide these things by us. It just goes to show how fast things can go to hell on a boat even when it has AC running full time inside and is being cared for by a good yard.
I'd hoped to be writing this after a year or two of experience with the boat. However, we have just returned from our 2000 mile road trip with no sale. It was a nice trip with a beautiful waterfront dinner watching the spectacular sunset created by the approaching storm but still over a grand invested in looking at a boat that we didn't buy and I'm glad not to have had another few hundred dollars for a survey added to the cost.
We stopped first at the office for the surveyor for the engine room flooding a year or two back and reviewed the file. I was quite impressed with this guy and, if I ever do need a formal survey in the area, Tom Eve is the one I am going to call. He doesn't get much yacht sale work now because he is too through for for brokers who want deals to go through. His calendar is filled solid though with commercial and insurance work. Availability could be tough.
I used to do a lot of stability testing work which is similar to surveying and this was a reminder of why I got out of it. I just hate giving people bad news. I wasn't nit-picking little stuff like wire terminals that don't meet current ABYC standards, just looking for the things that immediately matter to the safety and function of the boat. There were a number of items that would have been price negotiating points but wouldn't have kept us from buying the boat. When I went over my list at lunch with the owner (who is a friend of Tom Eve's BTW), he said, "Tom is tough but you make him look like my mother."
There was a deal killer. The Sampson post had hollowed out with rot. The water had been getting in through the paint cracks and the rot had worked its way down and taken out the whole chain locker bulkhead. I also found water working its way down through the flybridge deck into the support beams. No trouble there yet but there will be soon. I took the gear out of the steering gear space and stepped in to remove the floor over the tiller and the rotted plywood gave way and dropped me down the hatch. Since the sale of our last trawler was largely prompted by the arm injury sustained by my slipping in a hatch, my life kind of flashed before my eyes. I found the strongbacks that restrain the water tanks rotted to the extent that one was lying in the bilge.
I must point out that Tom Eve's survey of the boat was limited to the machinery spaces, I'm sure he would have found these things in a full survey.
We proceeded with the sea trial and haul out in case we could come to agreement about fixing the major items as we did quite like the boat. Almost nothing aside from the engine, the steering gear, and some of the electronics worked. No tach, no bow thruster, no generator. The boat does have the teak decks removed and two new aluminum fuel tanks so it is a rare A 36. If we haven't found another boat by the time the owner has had the Sampson post and bulkhead replaced and gotten everything working, we might take another look. In the meantime we are still searching for a boat.
I'm sure this was a beautiful and fully functional boat three years ago when illness began distracting the owner and I don't think he was trying to slide these things by us. It just goes to show how fast things can go to hell on a boat even when it has AC running full time inside and is being cared for by a good yard.
