It's a common story: a new boater falls in love with an older boat, but taking the helm is a financial stretch. To save money, the would-be captain decides to skip the marine survey, looks over the boat himself and signs the papers.

Few people would buy a home without a proper inspection, yet new boaters make this mistake all the time. What comes next is often a painful lesson in false economy, as the boat's flaws – engine problems, hull blistering or worse – present themselves in coming weeks, usually at the worst of times.

If you find the boat of your dreams, make an offer subject to inspection, find an accredited marine surveyor and a trustworthy boat yard, and when the deal is done schedule a "noon hang." You can expect to pay a few hundred for the haul out and a few hundred more for the survey. Surveyors all set their own prices and charge by the foot, but you can generally get a 30-foot cruiser surveyed for less than $500. It is money well spent and I'll explain why.

LEARNING A HARD LESSON

A client of mine, I'll call him Tom, has a story similar to what I described. He was excited about the idea of having his own boat and found one that fit his budget, though not without the aforementioned financial stretch. But he sold a few mutual funds and was able to swing it without a bank loan. To save money, he decided to look over the boat carefully himself, figuring he would find all the obvious flaws without the additional costs of a survey. He bought a do-it-yourself book.CAPT. ALAN HUGENOTWhen conducting a survey, scheduling is important. Ask for a "noon hang," so the boat is up during the yard crew's lunch break. It saves money and adds survey time.

Tom was street smart. He had purchased his house without a structural survey and never bothered with a mechanic's opinion when he bought used cars. Buying the boat "as-is" on the advice of the yacht salesman, who appeared to be an expert, Tom got a slight reduction in the sales price.

Tom liked the look of that 42-foot, twin-engine, flush-deck cruiser. Standing on the flying bridge during the sea trial must have felt like he was getting pretty close to heaven. But his euphoria was short-lived.

Tom had already made several mistakes. On all but the smallest boats, an offer should always be made subject to a survey. This allows you to back out if the surveyor says the boat has fatal flaws or is not worth the money, and to justify a lower offer if problems are found.

Brokers and dealers may be helpful, but their allegiances often lie elsewhere. When you choose your own surveyor, he will examine the boat for you, be paid by you and will work directly for you. Select a surveyor who has been certified by one of two national organizations, known widely as SAMS and NAMS: the Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors (SAMS) and the National Association of Marine Surveyors (NAMS). Both have multi-year apprentice programs that give new surveyors experience and certify them.

These two organizations also cover their members with liability insurance, and the marine insurance industry recognizes both groups. There are other local and regional surveyors' societies, but most do not provide insurance coverage and marine insurance companies may or may not recognize them. Many boat yards and marinas do not allow uninsured surveyors to work on site.

Be sure to check the surveyor's availability. The best are always booked, sometimes as far as two weeks in advance during the spring and fall. The goal is to haul out when the best expert is available, and it is generally more difficult to book the right surveyor than it is to fit into a yard's schedule. If your surveyor is available anytime, there may be a reason.

As for the yard, make sure that they take proper precautions during the haul out, such as using the right number of slings for your boat and tying those slings together. (For a story on proper hauling procedures, see link below)

REMEMBER THE INSURANCE COMPANIES

Tom paid $200 for the haul out. The boat, still wet from pressure washing, was up on the slings and the salesman said it looks good. Tom has a checklist he copied from the do-it-yourself book, but it was slow going. The yard allowed him only 30 minutes on the lift without charging extra, and the salesman was talking in his ear the whole time. He would have needed four or five hours to complete the survey suggested by the book. Pressured and euphoric, Tom signed the papers without completing his inspection as planned.

He then decided to have the boat yard paint the bottom, because the boat was already hauled, and he began calling marinas to find a slip. The following afternoon, after contacting several marinas, Tom learned that none would accept the boat unless it had a minimum of $300,000 liability insurance coverage. The second morning he called a few marine insurance agents. By noon he had discovered that all of the underwriters required a survey before a policy could be issued for any used boat longer than 24 feet or more than 10 years old. Moreover, they wanted a complete out-of-the-water hull survey performed by a surveyor already recognized by the insurance company.

Hoping to delay the launching long enough for a surveyor to look at the boat, Tom called the boat yard but they had already re-floated his boat. Later that afternoon Tom phoned me to set up a survey, and he arranged to have the boat hauled again.

During the post-purchase survey, I discovered several reasons the boat was priced so low, and no one else had thought it worth buying. For example, he missed the fact that the engine bed strongers, made of fiberglass-encased wood, had completely rotted out and required repair. This involved jacking up the engines, re-bedding them and completely re-aligning both shafts.

If Tom had done the survey first, it may have lowered the price by many times the cost of the survey – or changed his decision to buy the boat. Either way, he would have avoided thousands of dollars in added repair costs. What at first appeared a smart way to cut costs had now cost him much more.

A HOT DAY AND A COLD START

A proper survey takes a few hours - a surveyor may work 8 to 12 hours on the entire job - and covers a great deal of ground. If you have scheduled a "noon hang" with the boat yard, the survey should start about 10 a.m. Noon hangs are less expensive because your boat occupies the lift while the crew is at lunch. Starting well before the yard's 11:30 a.m. lunch break lets you get the topside and interior survey finished prior to the haul out. This allows you to finalize the entire thing after a look at the bottom.CAPT. ALAN HUGENOTBy pressure washing a fiberglass hull and examining it wet, common paint blisters can be differentiated from more troublesome gel coat blisters. A surveyor will know the difference, and be able to tell if the blisters are recent.

Wear old clothes to your survey, because you will be examining the greasy engine, the filthy bilges and the dirty bottom of the boat. And don't keep the surveyor waiting. He will charge you handsomely for wasted time.

Before the haul out, the surveyor will want to see the topside in the bright sun, if possible. This is when you can see the problems in the best light. Your surveyor will inspect the interior structure with a good flashlight, looking in every compartment. He will also want to start the engines cold and observe the exhaust smoke to see how it changes as the block warms up. This will determine much about the engine and its internal condition, without doing compression checks, oil samples or other expensive, complicated diagnostics. (For stories on inspecting a diesel engine and reading exhaust, see links below.)

Oil samples are often overrated in this application, unless you are buying a large yacht where the ship's engineer has kept oil sample records over the life of the engine. All oil samples contain trace elements of metals that show engine wear. Without prior samples to document the engine hours, however, we have no way to determine if engine wear is increasing. There is rarely any reason to spend money on oil samples. Too many times I have seen engine surveys that included oil samples, but told me nothing of value about the engine.

Compression checks are similar. They require a mechanic to disassemble the engine, run a compression check, and put everything back together again, which is time consuming and therefore expensive. But a compression check really only tells you whether or not there is "blow by" caused by wear in the cylinders. Blue smoke in the engine exhaust will show the same thing. A compression check only tells you how bad it is and, in most cases, you already knew that from the smoke so it may not be worth the money.

ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS

You can expect the surveyor to check electrical panels and the shore power inlet to see if they are in accordance with the requirements at time of manufacture. However, a standard survey won't allow enough time for him to check the continuity of all the circuits and to verify that all electronic equipment is working. Usually, the surveyor will test the anchor windlass, the bow thruster and the running lights.

CAPT. ALAN HUGENOTA surveyor will inspect the running gear, and perform a "mallet test" on the hull to look for de-lamination.One place you can cut costs is by taking a hard look at the navigation electronics and whether they are worth the surveyor's time. If you are buying a 12-year-old boat that has not been upgraded, the electronics will be extremely dated. To pay the surveyor an extra $1,500 to spend two days checking the performance of all this equipment makes no sense. A better idea is to take that money and put it toward an upgrade.

If the equipment is modern, you can validate much of it yourself by turning it on and using it. VHF, radar, sonar, weather instruments and spotlights can be tested at the dock. GPS, plotter and autopilot can be tested during the sea trial. Even if a piece of equipment is not working, the replacement value will be relatively modest compared to the overall cost of the boat, and is not likely to be a deal breaker.

The surveyor also will make an inventory of the safety equipment commenting on its condition and whether the proper quantities are carried. Not all of what we might think should be aboard as safety equipment is actually required by law. Amazingly, signal flares and bells are required, but marine radios are not.

When the laws were written, no one had radios or cell phones aboard their boats so they were required to carry other signaling devices. And so it remains that vessels under 65 feet in length and not engaged in passenger service are not required to carry a VHF marine radio. Depending on the state you live in, you may be surprised to find that bilge pumps, first aid kits or fume detectors are also not required. But a good surveyor will tell you which of these "optional" safety items are missing.

BLISTERING AND DELAMINATION

Some insurance companies seem little interested in whether the engine runs, the varnish and upholstery are neat or navigation equipment is installed. Compared with the question of seaworthiness, those concerns are minor. But the better marine insurance companies want to know the condition of all the equipment because it tells them much about the boat's prior treatment. Your surveyor will be able to tell you – and your insurer – many things that add or subtract from the value of the vessel.

The haul out will determine whether there is major blistering, de-lamination or problems with running gear, such as the shaft, strut or propeller. While the boat is in the slings, the bottom should be pressure washed prior to the survey. As she dries out, paint blisters, which are not a major problem, will disappear. But gel coat blisters, which can be a problem, will remain.CAPT. ALAN HUGENOTA good surveyor will want to run the engine cold and then watch the exhaust as the block heats. Simple visual inspections are often just as effective as more costly testing.

These need to be examined carefully. The surveyor should determine whether they are new blisters or previously repaired blisters, which often show up as a "bump." The surveyor will also mallet test or "tap" the entire hull to listen for the sound of de-lamination, which appear as a lack of "fairness" in the curve of the hull. Evidence of major blistering or de-lamination can substantially devalue the boat.

A surveyor will also diagnose topside gel coat chalking; the difference between crazing and stress cracking; and the difference between pox blisters, gel coat blistering, manufacturing voids and delaminating. He can also detect where the boat has had major fiberglass replacements, and whether or not it has an epoxy barrier coat under the anti-fouling bottom paint.

A survey also will turn up structural problems in the hull like partially glassed wood panels; engine beds that are hollow; structural tabs that are not bonded to the hull; exposed glass roving and roving aligned with the structure that may crack as the boat ages.

If you are looking at a wooden boat, carefully question the surveyor in advance about his background in wooden hulls. This is a very specialized hull type. Most wooden boat construction stopped long ago and the technology is quickly being forgotten. I have owned 14 wooden boats and I believe it is not a good idea to consider wood for your first boat. You will have enough to learn about without the additional complications. If you do, be sure to read up on different types of wood rot and other typical problems, and choose a surveyor who has deep experience with wooden hulls.

If you boat is a sailboat, you will have to think about the condition of the rigging. It is expensive and dangerous to send a surveyor aloft to look at rigging. Most shipyards simply will not allow it. You, the previous owner and the boat yard all may be liable if the surveyor injures himself. Instead of an aloft survey, I show the new owner how to do periodic rigging inspections himself and what is right and wrong with his rigging. There is much that can be seen without going aloft. If a qualified surveyor inspects your rigging and pronounces it sound, be skeptical of yard salesmen who tell you otherwise. Rigging upgrades are a large money maker – and many of those guys work on commission.

If you are present for the survey, you can learn about these problems first-hand, see them for yourself and, if you chose the right surveyor, have them explained in simple language. Some surveyors in the industry are reclusive nuts-and-bolts engineering types who don't want the client on hand for the survey. They'd rather concentrate on the task without the distraction of naïve questions. But I think the best surveyors welcome the customer looking over their shoulder.

In my experience, it is easier to explain something when we can both see it in front of us than it is for the customer to attempt to understand it later from the written survey. Surveys are written in precise technical terminology that the shipyard understands, but may be unfamiliar to a new buyer. Simply having the new owner on hand avoids misunderstandings.

There are several extra things surveyors can do, such as creating a plan view drawing of the hull, taking oil samples in the crank case and transmission, or surveying aloft. But most of these cost extra and are not worth the price in most cases. Taking the surveyor on a sea trial does make sense if he is a licensed captain or experienced sailor, and they usually only charge for the additional time. He can run the boat through all its drills to see what is not working properly.

When the survey is complete, you will know what needs to be repaired on the boat. The surveyor can list the items for you and you can ask the yard for an estimate, or get competitive bids. The surveyor will not yet be able to give you his final estimate of insurable market value, but he will know if the selling price is fair. Your surveyor will have access to "blue book" prices, available in publications such as the BUC and NAPA guides, and should be able to run a ballpark price based on needed repairs. Usually, there is enough information available to make the buy decision.

Capt. Alan Hugenot is a naval architect and marine surveyor based in San Francisco,whose writing has appeared in Sea Magazine, Latitude 38, The Log newspaper, 48 Degrees North, Go Boating and many other marine publications on the Pacific coast. He serves as National Chairman of the Motor Yacht Technical Committee for the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.