Surveyor in Ft Lauderdale/Tollycraft

[SoggyDollar]

Hi All - have a contract on a 1990 Tollycraft 44 in Fort Lauderdale pending survey.

Does the group have any recommendations for hull and mechanical surveyors?

Thanks

Burt

 

[yachtbrokerguy]

Send an email to me tucker at bradfordmarinmeyachtsales dot com and I can send some suggestions.
For engines I like Joe Stafford 954-803-3252 who does not do repairs, only surveys so there is no incentive for him to say an engine needs some work and he can come back the next week to do it. However he is expensive but well qualified with over 5000 engine surveys.
For hull survey try Slakoff and Associates or Marine Surveyor Group, or Jon Howe, all with many years of experience.

 

[Carolena]

Hi All - have a contract on a 1990 Tollycraft 44 in Fort Lauderdale pending survey.

Does the group have any recommendations for hull and mechanical surveyors?

Thanks

Burt

Very highly recommend Ed Rowe for the hull survey, and Dave Odham for the mechanicals. Ed's company is Ed Rowe and Associates. Dave's is Dave's Marine. We hired both of them to survey our NT, and they worked well together and each did an amazing job. Ed was there around 8:00 AM, and was still working when we left for the airport at 3:00 PM. Ed spent a lot of time pointing out and explaining minor things that didn't go in his formal report. We subsequently hired Dave to do some work for us after we purchased the boat and before we had it shipped north. He was great about keeping in touch with us and even gave us updates on what he was seeing other contractors (like our painter) doing, which made it much more comfortable having work done from a distance. We ultimately had Dave prep the boat for shipping, as well. He was more expensive than the yard, but did an amazing job removing things like the radar antenna, etc, to make it easier for us to reinstall upon delivery. He marked every wire, ran lines where necessary so we could snake wires back through, sealed any openings to the elements, and even took detailed photos. Made reassebly a snap. Dave also managed to replace our cutlass bearing for much less than anyone else quoted, becuase he figured out how to do so without pulling the shaft (something we were told would be necessary). Even to this day Dave has answered any questions I have asked him regarding our engine and generator. I suggest you make sure to opt for an oil lab analysis. It may uncover hard to detect issues, and if it comes back OK, it will give you a good baseline for monitoring your engines/transmissions/generator.

 

[Carolena]

Edit - saw the comment above about using an engine surveyor to do work subsequent to the survey. That is a real concern. We felt comfortable using Dave for subsequent work becuase (1) he didn't offer to do the work until we asked him, (2) he pointed out to us that some people would view it as a conflict (we appreciated him pointing that out, but chose to use him anyway), and (3) he was very upfront about which things he thought it made sense for us to do ourselves to save some money.

I've never dealt with the people that Tucker recommended, but he would certainly be in a position to know the local market. Jon Howe was on our short list for a surveyor, as he had been recommended by others. I can't recall why we ultimately went with Ed, other than recomendations and availability.