Trident 24 - any good?

Would you have a survey for a boat costing £3,000

The ST article suggests prices for Tridents from £3,500 and I have seen them for less. Everything I read about buying a boat says you must have a survey done. Would you really have a survey done on a boat costing £3,000 - or less? If so, how much would you expect to have to pay?
 
It depends on how competent and confident you are to do your own assessment. However there is always the question of the insurance, because the Insurance Company may well insist on a survey anyway, bummer really.
 
Two Tridents - no survey

kelvin said:
Would you really have a survey done on a boat costing £3,000 - or less? If so, how much would you expect to have to pay?
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I've bought two Tridents without surveys - the first when I had very little experience of boats and the second after 30+ years of boatownership. Part of my reason for buying the second was because I knew Tridents to be simple and strong boats that not much can go wrong with.... or not much I couldn't fix. The second time round I subsequently had to have a survey for insurance purposes and as by then I'd pulled it apart and put it back together again, I can honestly say I did not learn a single useful thing from the survey (unless you count that I should not sail at night without the nav lights which I had yet to fit)...

As others say, it depends on your confidence that you would be able to spot anything drastically wrong (or how serious it would be for you if you didn't spot it). I guess it also depends to some extent on your ability to put right any fault you might miss. Though surveyors often don't or can't tell you about expensive faults like that the engine is knackered.

I'm sorry I can't find the bill for the survey so can't help with the cost question. I do know I shopped around and got it done for half what some surveyors charged.
 
kelvin said:
The ST article suggests prices for Tridents from £3,500 and I have seen them for less. Everything I read about buying a boat says you must have a survey done. Would you really have a survey done on a boat costing £3,000 - or less? If so, how much would you expect to have to pay?
Click to expand...

For cheaper boats like the Trident - particularly 'bargain' boats there are other ways of getting a professional opinion about a prospective purchase. The expensive way is the 'Pre-sale survey'. There the Surveyor will look at everything he can get at without dismantling things, and the survey tells you all the faults he can find. Note : not necessarily ALL the faults there are!

Or you can ask a Surveyor to look at the boat and give his 'opinion' of the boat. This will be a fraction of the cost of a full survey, because the surveyor will just walk round and look for obvious defects. Probably less than 30% the cost of a full survey. This can be very useful. I was once looking at a very nice looking home built wooden Eventide, at a reasonable price: I asked a surveyor for an 'opinion'. He noticed the central ballast keel had been put on out of line, otherwise a "very nicely built boat but only worth half the asking price" I did not bother to find out how that affected the handling!

The third way, if you know a local boat builder, or the yard has one who will do it, he will for a relatively modest fee, inspect the boat and report his 'opinon' of its condition. again not an exhaustive survey, but a report that can usually be relied on to highlight any serious defects.

I have gone down both the second and third routes, saved a great deal of money over full surveys, and in the case of the Eventide, been saved from buying a 'pup'.

Increasingly Insurance companies seem not to be asking for full condition surveys for boats in the sub £5k price bracket. They simply have a clause requiring the owner to make 'every reasonable effort to maintain the boat in seaworthy condition'. This means in the event of a major claim they will send their own surveyor in with the instruction to prove that you did not! If he can, then the claim is void. See you in court! Which of course you wont, because you risk legal costs at least twice the value of the boat if you lose the case. The 'opinon' reports would count for a lot in this scenario, as an independent professional will still have seen and reported on the condition of the boat prior to the accident.
 
Basically, you can instruct a Surveyor to do as little or as much as you want. My understanding is that if you ask a surveyor to 'look at a boat' this means you want a full survey. But if just want him to confirm or otherwise that the boat is in generally good shape, and to tell you of anything he would be concerned about, then this takes a lot less time and work, so costs much less.

I didnt get any Survey done when I bought Spin, but asked the Bosun of the Club she had been based at for 20 years, and the local Boatbuilder who had at various times done work on her, for their opinions. Roddy the boatbuilder would have charged me around £50 a couple of years ago if I had wanted it in writing, as he already knew the boat quite well. Should I have a claim contested on grounds of seaworthiness, I could still ask him for a condition report.

I wasnt sure about the Eventide, so I told the Surveyor what I was worried about, and asked him to take a look for me. I Saved even more with a verbal 'wouldnt touch it' and why, over the phone so he didnt have to draft a written report.
 
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oldharry said:
Basically, you can instruct a Surveyor to do as little or as much as you want. My understanding is that if you ask a surveyor to 'look at a boat' this means you want a full survey. But if just want him to confirm or otherwise that the boat is in generally good shape, and to tell you of anything he would be concerned about, then this takes a lot less time and work, so costs much less.

I didnt get any Survey done when I bought Spin, but asked the Bosun of the Club she had been based at for 20 years, and the local Boatbuilder who had at various times done work on her, for their opinions. Roddy the boatbuilder would have charged me around £50 a couple of years ago if I had wanted it in writing, as he already knew the boat quite well. Should I have a claim contested on grounds of seaworthiness, I could still ask him for a condition report.

I wasnt sure about the Eventide, so I told the Surveyor what I was worried about, and asked him to take a look for me. I Saved even more with a verbal 'wouldnt touch it' and why, over the phone so he didnt have to draft a written report.
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You've clearly been there and done that Old Harry. I would have expected a surveyor to insist on producing a written report with all the caveats about what they were and were not able to check to protect themselves in case you subsequently sue them when something unforseen turns up.
 
oldharry said:
For cheaper boats like the Trident - particularly 'bargain' boats there are other ways of getting a professional opinion about a prospective purchase. The expensive way is the 'Pre-sale survey'. There the Surveyor will look at everything he can get at without dismantling things, and the survey tells you all the faults he can find. Note : not necessarily ALL the faults there are!

Or you can ask a Surveyor to look at the boat and give his 'opinion' of the boat. This will be a fraction of the cost of a full survey, because the surveyor will just walk round and look for obvious defects. Probably less than 30% the cost of a full survey.

The third way, if you know a local boat builder, or the yard has one who will do it, he will for a relatively modest fee, inspect the boat and report his 'opinon' of its condition. again not an exhaustive survey, but a report that can usually be relied on to highlight any serious defects.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That's very helpful.

Kelvin
 
Kittyhawk said:
You've clearly been there and done that Old Harry. I would have expected a surveyor to insist on producing a written report with all the caveats about what they were and were not able to check to protect themselves in case you subsequently sue them when something unforseen turns up.
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This was 25 years ago when we were less accountable to compensation lawyers, but I told the Surveyor I had seen something I was unhappy about. Could he take a look? I did not want a full survey. I just wanted to know was the boat worth taking a second look. The answer was no: there is a serious structural problem which needs further investigation. He would do a survey if I wished, and I really would need that if I did buy it. But in his opinion it was beyond economic repair. He would "put that in writing if you want to try and get the price down", but if I wanted a boat to go sailing in this year, this was not it.
 
What does a full survey cost?

Can anyone tell me how much I'm likely to have to pay for a full survey of a Trident 24? Is the cost related to the value of the boat in any way? (I'm expecting to pay £3k-£5k).

Kelvin
 
bob26 said:
If the boat is afloat you may also have to pay for it to be lifted out.
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I got my boat surveyed whilst dried out against a wall. Seemed to be enough to satisfy the insurance co. Downside is that the surveyor would only do a visual and tap test for osmosis as the hull moisture reader thingy just said 'wet'. Probably cos the boat had been afloat a couple of hours earlier, and it was December!
 
Robwhelton said:
I got my boat surveyed whilst dried out against a wall. Downside is that the surveyor would only do a visual and tap test for osmosis as the hull moisture reader thingy just said 'wet'. Probably cos the boat had been afloat a couple of hours earlier, and it was December!
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Presumably the same would apply ("wet") if you did pay to have a boat lifted out for inspection?
 
In slings...

bob26 said:
If the boat is afloat you may also have to pay for it to be lifted out.
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It need not cost an arm and leg if you just have it lifted on boat hoist for as long as it takes for the surveyor to do his thing and dropped back in without parking it and removing slings etc. I had this done for £50 once. Of course if the boat is really foul it may also have to be pressure washed before you or the surveyor can see what the hull is like.
 
If it has Bilge keels I have had a survey done on the beach. Bring her in half an hour after the high, and as long as the bottom is clean, the surveyor can do his stuff before the tide returns. Needs a nice sand, shingle or concrete hard in a sheltered corner, of course. You cant expect the surveyor to crawl around in a foot of mud! I have had two or three boats surveyed over the tide like that.
 
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