Instructing a surveyor

[zoidberg]

What would you ask a surveyor specifically to inspect and comment on, wth this example of a Beneteau First 24SE...?

Truly, asking for a friend.... and not in the UK.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I would certainly wan't to know about the bodge in the second photograph, the first just looks like a panel repair, perhaps from some careless damage, it doesn't look as though it's part of any structural part of the boat, the third I have no idea what the arrows are referring to. However there is no harm in asking the surveyor to comment.

 

[C08]

There is an aspect of boat surveys that sometimes is not obvious until you are bitten by it and this impacts both buying and selling a boat.
What i am referring to is a surveyor being too inexperienced/cautious/covering all eventualities to cover his back. Much of the overcaution is for the benefit of the surveyor not the buyer or purchaser.
Once the surveyor has produced his report and the sale goes ahead the boat insurers will require all the recommendations to be carried out as a condition of the boat insurance.
This means that all the "surveyor covering his back items" can stack up to the net effect that despite a boat having no serious defects the accumulation of small things mentioned can be overfacing to a potential buyer to the extent the sale collapses particularly to someone new to boating.
I have been bitten by this both buying and selling a boats that were fundementally sound but with bits and pieces to be done. One instance was a surveyor recommending that a main outboard engine should be professionally services by a main dealer despite my self service records being available showing oil change, oil,filter, impeller, gear oil replacement on an annual basis. The cost of this including a lift out being upside of £1000 which is a big item on an old cheap boat.

 

[Ingwe]

Firstly I doubt you will find a surveyor who has seen a First 24 or has much experience on small race boats as they aren't very often surveyed.

Pic 1 I assume is just in front of the keel box? If so I would check with the seller what had damaged it as its a pretty odd place for a repair and it probably won't be possible to check the quality of the repair, it might be worth double checking with seascape that there is nothing too structural there - they are pretty responsive via email or through facebook.
Pic 2 I would get a local glass fibre specialist to look at, it almost certainly isn't structural, but to do a really good repair where the non slip matches you may need to cut out a larger section of deck then the best solution would be to get a section of matching moulded non slip from Seascape which can be glassed in from below, if that isn't possible a really good glass fibre specialist could try and take a mold from a good bit of non slip or if a small area can try and re create a section of non slip free hand - either way this isn't going to be cheap to do a good job!

 

[doug748]

I expect we are all thinking the same thing; ask him would he take it offshore and if not can it be repaired to a good standard. The other tack is to buy it without survey, race it round the cans and write the purchase price off over 5 or 10 years.