Capt.Bill11
Guru
It was reinforced today.
Needed to get a hull survey done for insurance purposes on the free to me 1990 Chris Craft 501 I picked up a few weeks ago.
Call a local surveyor, member of the usually accreditation agencies. Very nice person with years of experiance and able to come on very short notice.
Does a thorough job of looking the boat over. I tell them that all the running gear has been gone over and renewed during this haul out. Props, shafts, muff couplers, alignment, etc., etc. Plus of course new bottom paint and all the in use thru hulls have been replaced along with added backing plates, larger NAIAD fins installed, new PSS dripless packing boxes, new UW lights installed, blah, blah, blah.
First red flag, "Wow, you've even got new props!"
No, those are the ones that came with the boat.
"New props came with the boat?"
No.
"But they are shiny and have the those tags stuck on them!?"
Ah no, that is the standard tag that the prop shops put on props after reconditioning. And of course they are shiny. They just came from the prop shop.
Next flag, get the report, read it over and one of the notes reads, "Cutless Bearings" - "Some wear noted. Monitor for next haul out."
Hmm, shaft bearings are brand new with of course zero wear on them.
Seriously, if you get a survey, no matter how basic, read it carefully, take it with a grain of salt, assume they did not find everything, ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to point out the obvious. Because apparently the obvious isn't always obvious. Even to an "accredited" and "experienced" observer.
The scary part is that these surveys go on to some insurance person that in many cases knows little or nothing about boats and takes them as gospel because they come from an accredited expert.
Needed to get a hull survey done for insurance purposes on the free to me 1990 Chris Craft 501 I picked up a few weeks ago.
Call a local surveyor, member of the usually accreditation agencies. Very nice person with years of experiance and able to come on very short notice.
Does a thorough job of looking the boat over. I tell them that all the running gear has been gone over and renewed during this haul out. Props, shafts, muff couplers, alignment, etc., etc. Plus of course new bottom paint and all the in use thru hulls have been replaced along with added backing plates, larger NAIAD fins installed, new PSS dripless packing boxes, new UW lights installed, blah, blah, blah.
First red flag, "Wow, you've even got new props!"
No, those are the ones that came with the boat.
"New props came with the boat?"
No.
"But they are shiny and have the those tags stuck on them!?"
Ah no, that is the standard tag that the prop shops put on props after reconditioning. And of course they are shiny. They just came from the prop shop.
Next flag, get the report, read it over and one of the notes reads, "Cutless Bearings" - "Some wear noted. Monitor for next haul out."
Hmm, shaft bearings are brand new with of course zero wear on them.
Seriously, if you get a survey, no matter how basic, read it carefully, take it with a grain of salt, assume they did not find everything, ask lots of questions and don't be afraid to point out the obvious. Because apparently the obvious isn't always obvious. Even to an "accredited" and "experienced" observer.
The scary part is that these surveys go on to some insurance person that in many cases knows little or nothing about boats and takes them as gospel because they come from an accredited expert.
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