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You’re a yacht broker and a good one. You’ve been in the business about twenty years and worked for some of the best houses West and East coast from Ardell, Alden, Northrop Johnson, Fraser, and finally East Coast Yacht Sales. Business has been way off so you need this deal in order to land a new...

It pays to be on the smallish side and lithe if the surveyor wants to do a complete job and get into those tight spots where maintenance is almost always neglected and surprises are often found. I’m not small but not too big either but with age I’ve sustained more than my share of orthopedic...

It seems the prevailing school of thought on this forum is that wooden boats are I’ll advised as they all rot, costs so much money to maintain and repair, and the final nail in the coffin is they are uninsurable. If these conditions were true I’d have been washed out of the marine surveying...

I was down in Fairfield CT doing a pre-purchase survey on a lovely wood S&S Bill Healy built yawl at the Pequot YC. Boat was tied up in their marina so I decided to start at the top and I’d just started coming down from the masthead. I’d been up there about half an hour when the owner yelled up...

Around Halloween time I had a Hans Christian cutter down at the Scituate Yacht Club in Massachusetts. It was figuring to be a long day from dark-thirty to dark-thirty as it was a pre-purchase and the third cutter I’d looked at for this client. He was in his late sixties, very tall, lanky sea...

But this was the claim that topped them all. I got a call from one of the overnight marine wonder insurance companies. You know the ones with cheapest premiums, no survey no questions asked. This guy calls telling me he is the Claims Manager and ihe’s got a wind loss in Exeter, R I where a tree...

I’ve been asked by a number of folks ‘ what’s with your name Garbler ? Well it’s an archaic maritime term for a person that garbles or garbling. Back in the day of sail trading ships would routinely come alongside the dock and unload their goods for inspection and sale. Sometimes this was done...

I was in St Lucia to do a pre-purchase survey of a F&C 40 an Argentine built Frers design racing cruising sloop. Never seen one before but had heard from some serious racing types at Ted Hood’s Little Harbor in Marblehead that they were well built and pretty fast in heavy weather. German Frers...

You know those photos that pop up and go away at the top of the page well is there a way to go back and retrieve them or are they gone ? Rick

Is it possible to access previous photos and links in the Random Album ?

Was working in a small yard in San Pedro California in 1975-76, I believe, and was helping a friend with his Cal 20. These quick nimble inexpensive little boats were prevalent everywhere in SoCal and generally held up well and left owners pocketbooks alone. He had been told by a surveyor to...

Often surveying the New England coast and especially on assignments or insurance company C&V’s ( Condition & Valuation) it would be necessary to row or motor out to the boat on a mooring. This was always done by either taking the Yacht Club launch service or taking the owner’s tender which would...

Was hired to survey a customized Pettigrow 56’ ‘Downeast ‘ style motor yacht. A very handsome boat of this pedigree that came up on the market suddenly due to owners health. The owner had the boat built in Maine but after two seasons of running the Intercoastal back and forth from nice homes in...

Okay here’s another off color tale. In the late 60’ I was mate and stand in skipper on a converted 130’ LCU ( landing craft utility ) the company had a four year MSTS contract with Pan Am to service and supply the various tracking stations that did the telemetry work for everything shot off...

As many here may know Mr. McIntosh ( Bud ) was an amazing wood boat builder in New Hampshire and after a lot of pestering wrote a very concise easy to follow book on boat building cleverly named How To Build a Wooden Boat. He didn’t need to build boats he’d gone to MIT but that life didn’t...

I’m willing to forget the ‘ naked trapeze artist ‘ if you will I’m living and working under my own name now in New England and I get a call to do a kind of multifaceted valuation and general fleet condition report for Stonewall Insurance a large Atlanta broker and their bank. There were four...

I’d been working as a start up surveyor for about seven months and was used primarily for wooden hull inspections as that was my background. I got back to the office one day about three hours early as the boat I was to have surveyed was such a wreck the buyer backed out at my suggestion. When I...

It was late August in New England and the days were clear, dry and perfect but I was boarding an Eastern flight for Miami for a nice couple who ran a hotel in Hyannis. They had their eye on a big aluminum Chris Craft Roamer. It was a 73’ classic looking motor yacht with a pair of Detroit...

Years ago I was handling two claims at Ted Hood’s big yard and complex at the Melville Boat Basin in Rhode Island near Portsmouth on Narragansett Bay. It was March sometime and five or six boats on jackstands toppled like dominoes on top of each other. This location is known for its wind. All...

Many prospective buyers especially newer buyers love the big open concept saloons and I understand this from a creature comfort and guests aboard concern but nobody talks about some rather ugly consequences of large open areas in a seaway. If your young and agile a quick beam motion or quick...

I believe all of the members here who own boats, cruise and/or live aboard should have a decent marine dictionary. Nautical terminology and understanding is imperative and not just some superfluous bunch of odd words or phrases but a language that spans centuries and identifies parts, procedures...

Just got here and thinking maybe I could sit in from time to time and talk with like minded folks. I honestly never heard of this forum until a few weeks ago when an old surveyor friend on the West coast told me that one my old customer’s fine steel yacht, Delfin visits here and so maybe there...