The surveyor was recommended, and was indeed meticulous.

Even he, however, missed two problems, which have turned out to be serious.

Firstly, the recently fitted diesel/saildrive had an incompatible single lever control. I have only found this out the hard way, and face an expensive rebuild.

Secondly, the rudder problem posted on the Superseal section.

It is the latter that brings me to ask questions.

Many surveyors are competent and thorough. However, due to the hundreds of yacht designs they are forced to be generalists.

As all yacht designs seem to have their own endemic problems, specialist surveyors are needed, e.g. one who only surveys Seals.

Any comments, or suggestions:-

1/ could be achieved?

2/ would work?

3/ is necessary?

Frank Marsden

Frank Marsden

The issue of identifying surveyers who know Seal and Parker boats has cropped up before and I'm still not sure what the answer is.

It was for this very reason that prior to me purchasing Calypso, a Parker 325 last year, I asked Bill Parker to do the survey. He extracted the keel hydraulic ram for inspection, which I doubt many others carrying out a survey whould even know how to do it. Unfortunately I don't think Bill would do this as a regular thing.

I could set up a page on the web site where such surveyers could be listed, but how do we identify them?

I will be speaking to Bill later today or Monday. I'll ask if he has any suggetions.

Don

Don Harvey

After a season with the Seal and three with a Hustler 25.5, plus a background of dinghy sailing, including being an RYA measurer, I contemplated studying to become a surveyor, specialising in only boats which were thoroughly familiar.

Problem, just not economic. A course would take about a year at a cost of over £2,000. Equipment and liability insurance would then be necessary.

I gave up the idea.

The only suggestion that I can make is that a checklist is made by the association; there must be a deal of knowledge amongst owners of anything that needs more than normal inspection. This could then be made available to prosective purchasers/surveyors.

My costs this winter to rectify items not found on survey are about £1500.

How about making this an agenda item for discusion at the AGM?

Frank

Frank Marsden