It happens

[bluevelvet]

Hi,I have been the owner of various yachts over the last 30 years and always thought I was ahead of the game but came a cropper this year ,bought a yacht that was surveyed ok but turned out to be a turkey,needed a lot more work than was expected.Spoiled the deal for me so I sold the boat for much less than I paid for her.Interesred to hear what others might do?

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[powerskipper]

could you explain a bit what was wrong with her, was it going to be costly to put it right or time consuming.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://powerskipper.mysite.freeserve.com/>http://powerskipper.mysite.freeserve.com/</A>
Julie

 

[snowleopard]

i once owned a boat that had been used for sailing school and charter for many years. when i sold it i was totally up-front about its history and condition but the guy who bought it phoned up several times and whined about various aspects, even to the extent of complaining that the sail cover was green, not blue. he later wrote an article in one of the mags after he had 'done it up' which slagged off its condition.

i had the last laugh though. he paid 4.5K when a typical boat of that model was fetching 5-6K, he spent another 5K on electronics and go-faster bits and ended up with a boat worth 6.5K tops.

you could of course build your own. you may still end up with a turkey but at least you know who to blame!

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[billmacfarlane]

If it was problems that the suveyor said was fine then you could have tried to get some sort of recompense from him. A mate of mine bought a boat that the surveyor gave a clean bill of health to but it turned out to have rampant osmosis. The surveyor said that this was absolutely impossible as he made his own moisture meters. Hmmmmm !!! In the end the surveyor coughed up the money to get the boat treated.

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[Evadne]

A friend at work had a similar experience this year. He recently bought a boat usign the RYA standard contract. There was a lot wrong with the boat, and the owner was in denial about how bad his pride and joy had become after several years' hard racing and two years' plus unattended lay-up. After a survey, which showed upo even more problems my friend made an offer that the broker thought the owner wouldn't refuse. When he did, said friend read the small print of the contract and claimed back the cost of the survey, since the owner had refused "an offer, subject to survey". Owner cracked, and rather ungracefully sold the boat for less than a third of the original asking price. Despite all this there was still more work than expected, but at teh end of the day a surveyor doesn't have x-ray specs and as he was re-glassing in the bulkheads, further work to rectify the shoddy keel re-inforcing was not out of the ball-park.
I'm not sure I would have been as willing as my friend to take on the extra work, if I were in his place, but if a boat needs major work, you should always be prepared to do more than you think. It's a lesson I was fortunate enough to learn from, second hand, and you have my symapthies for having to do it the hard way. Sometimes I think there is more work to restore a boat than to build one from scratch.

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