Help - Historic Keel Damage found at point of sale!

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scott830

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Hi All,

We bought our yacht in 2011 and have enjoyed a few years of gentle sailing on the south coast but we haven’t really been making use of her so decided to put her up for sale. We found a buyer relatively quickly and all was going well until our buyer had her surveyed. To our shock the surveyor stated that the keel was dangerously loose and that it would cost at least £14k to resolve. To say we were shocked is putting it mildly.

We were advised to get a second opinion and this other surveyor contacted me to ask when we had the boat repaired. On discovering that we had never had her repaired nor have we ever grounded her (gentle sailing) he informed us that she had been very seriously grounded. Sufficient to damage the keel (evidenced by attempted re-profiling of the cast iron) and that a very bad repair to the inner part of the hull had been attempted. It was clear to him that this had happened before we had purchased the yacht.

We informed our insurance company who sent their own surveyor and he came up with the same finding. Reinforcing that the damage and bodged repair had been done before we purchased the boat.

Hence our insurance company informed us that this is not covered by them as it is a pre-existing condition! And that the boat would not be insured if she was re-launched due to current condition.

We had the yacht surveyed when we purchased her in 2011. No such damage or repair was notified in the survey.

We are currently writing to our original surveyor to inform him of the situation seeking recovery of our financial losses but I was wondering if anyone on this forum has any experience of a similar situation and could share some relevant advice.

Many thanks in advance.
Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?499717-Help-Historic-problem-with-Keel#OOAYohGMJZiyg73M.99
 
£14K does sound pretty expensive even for an extensive repair. Does she have an inner moulding to cut through?
 
A keel repair is mostly labour not a lot of materials required compared to the labour hours but 14K seems way over the top. I don't think after this length of time you will have any comeback on your own survey. I imagine you will get the response of "it was fine when I looked at it" Only comeback might be if you have photos that might show some evidence of damage.
 
It's possible that the repair looked OK superficially when you had the original survey, but was basically weak. That weakness could have shown itself as a result of craning, drying out, propping ashore. A fault that does not become apparent for over 6 years may not be expected to be seen by a normal survey.
£14k sounds a lot.
I would try to understand exactly what is wrong and seek some other quotes.
 
You would really need to prove that the damage existed when your survey was carried out and that the surveyor missed it. Even if you7 can prove that it is fairly old damage the problem you will have is lets assume the damage happened a couple of months before your purchase - by now, how would you prove that rather than it happening a couple of months AFTER the purchase.

Agree with others - shop around for quotes for the repair - explain it's not an insurance job and that should make a difference.
 
You report that both the second survey, presumably funded by you, and the third, funded by your Insurer, state that the repair was done before you bought the boat in 2011. How has this been determined?

I would seek Legal advice. If you’re a member of RYA, it’s a phone call away.

Is the new buyer still interested or has he walked away?

Best of luck getting this resolved, it sounds like a bit of a nightmare.
 
If your current insurers requested that you had a survey and a copy of your original pre-purchase survey was given to them, surely they should cover the repair as they haven't made any exclusions, and as the boat was surveyed in good condition, your insurers should cover it as there was no pre-existing condition. Have you changed insurers in the time of your ownership?
 
stevd said:
If your current insurers requested that you had a survey and a copy of your original pre-purchase survey was given to them, surely they should cover the repair as they haven't made any exclusions, and as the boat was surveyed in good condition, your insurers should cover it as there was no pre-existing condition. Have you changed insurers in the time of your ownership?
Click to expand...

I don't think so!
Insurance cover accidental damage, from events such as impacts.
If the OP has already told them that he's not had any such events, he is in no position to claim.
A latent defect is really an inherent risk in buying a used boat.

If the defect got exposed by a minor bump that the owner was not aware of, the insurance would cover the effects of the minor bump, but not the cost of rectifying the latent defect.

It's a bit of a mystery how £14k worth of damage was not seen at purchse, but has become obvious now.
Or of course it could have been a build fault?

Unfortuneately, there are many potential hidden defects which can be very difficult for a surveyor to find. People don't tend to like them cutting cores out of the hull and so forth.
It's hard to help more without more info as to what the damage is, but maybe getting a decent GRP boat repairer to look at it would be a start?
 
scott830 said:
Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?499717-Help-Historic-problem-with-Keel#OOAYohGMJZiyg73M.99
Click to expand...

That link gets me:-

DJE, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
 
DJE said:
That link gets me:-

DJE, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
Click to expand...

Mods might have removed it. It was basically the same as post #1 but in the feedback forum followed by a post saying try the PBO forum.
 
lw395 said:
It's hard to help more without more info as to what the damage is, but maybe getting a decent GRP boat repairer to look at it would be a start?
Click to expand...

+1.

The OP is likely to have to splash out to fix it anyway, whether or not he gets anything back from his original pre-purchase surveyor. The prospective purchaser, if he doesn't walk, will want at least the £14K figure knocked off and it really shouldn't cost the OP that much.
 
LittleSister said:
I know it is unlikely, but could the damage possibly have been caused since you had the boat - e.g. dropped/damage while being moved by a boatyard, who have covered up and not told you?
Click to expand...

+1 for that, my first thought.

This case does not add up. If the keel was as badly damaged at purchase (7 years ago!?) as the OP says then its hard to see it escaping any surveyor who had seen a boat before.... the OP does not give the impression that he has regularly inspected his boat out of the water (or maybe even sailed it much) if what he is saying is realistic. I look at my keel-Hull joint every winter on haul out and suspect most here do so? Best fit to the facts as we have them is that a yard has damaged the boat and tried to cover it up at some point during the OPs ownership, but that’s quite an accusation in itself..... we need more info.
 
bitbaltic said:
+1 for that, my first thought.

This case does not add up. If the keel was as badly damaged at purchase (7 years ago!?) as the OP says then its hard to see it escaping any surveyor who had seen a boat before.... the OP does not give the impression that he has regularly inspected his boat out of the water (or maybe even sailed it much) if what he is saying is realistic. I look at my keel-Hull joint every winter on haul out and suspect most here do so? Best fit to the facts as we have them is that a yard has damaged the boat and tried to cover it up at some point during the OPs ownership, but that’s quite an accusation in itself..... we need more info.
Click to expand...

Perhaps not. The Cheeki Rafiki case showed that with some designs significant keel damage is not easy to spot.
 
I agree with the majority opinion that it will be impossible to expect any comeback against the original surveyor 7 years after the survey unless you have surveyor's photos taken at that time which clearly show the damage .... but if that were the case, how would the original surveyor have missed it? :(

Richard
 
lpdsn said:
Perhaps not. The Cheeki Rafiki case showed that with some designs significant keel damage is not easy to spot.
Click to expand...

Don’t think that is comparable. The OP here has had two (three?) surveyors look at it immediately recently and all agree it is badly damaged (‘loose’). CR’s keel was inspected comparatively sooner; it was not loose and worked loose on its last passage. The OP’s case against his original surveyor is that the keel would have been loose 7 years ago. Also a fairing repair 7 years ago would be easy to spot, nothing comparable to that in the CR case.
 
RichardS said:
I agree with the majority opinion that it will be impossible to expect any comeback against the original surveyor 7 years after the survey unless you have surveyor's photos taken at that time which clearly show the damage .... but if that were the case, how would the original surveyor have missed it? :(

Richard
Click to expand...

Exactly- the OP is saying the damage today must be the same damage seven years ago, he has had more than one surveyor conclude that the keel is damaged right now, making it an oddity that the one surveyor he engaged 7 years ago missed it
 
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