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Boat survey

S

SeanRhone

New member
Working on setting up a day to look at a Hobie 33 in South Carolina (about 2 1/2 hours from my house) and wondering how do I find someone to survey the boat for me? I'm sure in a large sailing community it's easy to find someone but the boat is on a lake in a not so big town.

Any advice on where or how to find someone in or near Ballentine, South Carolina?

Thanks
 
http://www.marinesurvey.org/us-regions.html

You might also contact the claims department of Boat U.S. and other insurance companies who write a lot of boat insurance (Travelers, Progressive, etc.) They would have lists of approved surveyors by location.

If the boat is listed with a local broker you could ask him/her. There's a risk a local surveyor would be biased towards helping to sell the boat, but also a chance the surveyor already knows the boat and has even surveyed it before. I tend to trust people.
 
Question - The seller is hemming and hawing about spending time for the survey. Am I just way off base asking for a survey of a Hobie 33? I realize the boat is very basic but just seems like the smart thing to do.
 
You're driving five hours round trip and paying for a survey to possibly buy his boat, and he's hemming and hawing?

I'd move on.
 
I'm driving 2600 miles round trip (this boat is in Corpus Christi Texas) and paying for the survey. The boat that is close to me, just get a bad feeling about it when we talked on the phone and emails; guy acts like he's doing me a favor buy selling it. The guy in Texas isn't much better at this point.
 
Guy in South Carolina finally sent me more recent pictures of his Hobie 33 and it's a mess! He's been talking up this boat for a week about all the great work he's done and all the upgraded items and the pictures really show a partial project boat in 26 different pieces.

On another note, driving to Texas next Friday to hopefully buy the Hobie 33 in Corpus Christi.
 
If you really have your heart set on a Hobie 33, you could try approaching local owners, one may be interested in selling, or know of one. You might pay a premium, but save a lot on shipping and headaches.
 
SeanRhone said:
Guy in South Carolina finally sent me more recent pictures of his Hobie 33 and it's a mess! He's been talking up this boat for a week about all the great work he's done and all the upgraded items and the pictures really show a partial project boat in 26 different pieces.

On another note, driving to Texas next Friday to hopefully buy the Hobie 33 in Corpus Christi.
Click to expand...

Just a heads up, I brought a Freedom 30 pulpit and rudder from the East Coast recently and in doing so investigated a new service called Roadie which is a "sharing" package delivery service. If you happen to be going to Tex (and coming back) with an empty car you can take a package for someone and cover some of the trip costs.

In the end I just found someone on Craigslist driving from Boston to SF and paid them some gas money to bring my stuff (amazing how they jammed my pulpit railing into the back seat of a Subaru Imprezia) but Roadie would be a way to connect with a "sender" if you have any interest.
 
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Sorry I thought you were in California. There are a couple here that have not seen much use in the last few years.
 
Didn't see that one; thanks for positing the link. At this point my focus is on the trip to Texas next Friday and buying that one.
 
Inorder to become a Muslim you only need to repeat three times (and be sincere), "There is no God but Allah and Mohamed is his prophet." It's basically the same to become a surveyor, "I am a surveyor." Say it three times and mean it and you are one. Saves a ton of money when buying boats.
 
Just backed out of the deal :( The seller was dragging his feet and really ticking me off in general. I was supposed to start driving out tonight and as of right now I still do not have all the needed information to give to my insurance company so I can get insured for the drive home. Very disappointed, it is a very nice Hobie 33 but it just didn't feel right.

Anyone here have ideas on another boat I should be looking at? It has to have less than 8 1/2 foot beam so I can trailer it myself. I have not found any Express 27's on this coast for sale and other than a Hobie 33, not sure what else to look at.
 
Merit 25? Several of them have done the SHTP - though not recently - and it's 8 feet wide. Much slower than a Hobie or Express though, and you need to look carefully at the keel-hull joint. It gets soft, letting the keel wobble. There is a fairly standard fix; finding a removable cabin sole would be the tipoff that it's been done.
 
You are so right, Bob. Along with surveyors, I think most belong to some associations of riggers, but there are no criteria that I know of that they have to meet to call themselves "rigger".
 
I think there are a lot of Olson 30s on the Great Lakes, probably cheap too.
 
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