Originally Posted at www.svsweetescape.com
An important step in the purchase of a boat is the marine survey. This would be like a combination house inspection/appraisal if one were buying real estate. The surveyor goes through every aspect of the boat checking structure and systems. Structure is checked with a moisture meter and by sounding with a phenolic hammer. Systems are checked visually and by powering them on wherever possible.
The surveyor evaluates the boat and then completes a lengthy report listing any problems that were found, the surveyor’s opinion of the vessel’s overall condition and what he/she believes the replacement cost and fair market value to be. Lenders and insurance companies will often require a survey in order to establish loan and replacement value, although this is not the case with us. We chose to have the survey done for peace of mind and to insure that the vessel is sound and to discover any (potentially costly) hidden issues.
There is a professional organization of marine surveyors that handles training and accreditation - The Society of Marine Surveyors or SAM. A good place to begin in the selection of a surveyor is the SAM website. We consulted this website and found Marian Lambrecht of Schuss Marine in Chicago. She is pictured above.
Marian, in addition to being an accredited marine surveyor is also a licensed captain who performs deliveries and yacht instruction. It was the yacht instruction aspect of her services that really piqued our interest. If you will recall from an earlier post, there was a moment of terror once it became clear that we had contracted to purchase a sailboat that to us seemed to be as big and complex as the Queen Mary. Because we are unfamiliar with this boat and her many systems and due to her size we think it is just common sense that we would spend some time aboard with someone who could help us to become better acquainted.
So it was that we made contact with Marian Lambrecht. We found her to be very accommodating and willing to do both our survey and then provide a day or two of instruction aboard later when the boat goes into the water.
The survey was scheduled for this past Wednesday March 14th. We met Marian at the boat at Racine Riverside at 4:00 P.M. She had been there since 10:00 A.M. Marian pointed out a few minor issues but overall rated Sweet Escape in “above average” condition. Great news...and we look forward to working with Marian as we get closer to actually putting her into the water (Sweet Escape, not Marian) and getting to know our new floating home.
And speaking of getting in the water - we now have a slip! This morning, after dodging the Racine St. Patrick’s Day parade, we met with Pugh Marine in Racine and reserved a slip through August 1st for Sweet Escape. This is a slip in a busy section of the Root River but also in a very wide part of the river which will be an advantage for us and provide a much larger margin for error as we become more familiar with maneuvering the boat under power. Plus, the slip is east of the Main Street Bridge so we’ll no longer have to sync our comings and goings with the bridge openings every 20 minutes. This was a pain last year on Integrity.
In other news, today we met with Racine Riverside’s service manager regarding some work that must be done and other work that we’re considering having done. Under the heading of what must be done is the installation of a new genset. You will recall that this was a condition of our offer and we cannot close until this work is done. Riverside happens to have in stock, a brand new Fischer Panda 6.5Kw generator that they have agreed to install on Sweet Escape in the next two weeks. Once the genset is installed we can schedule a sea trial and then finally close and the boat will be ours.
Other work that must be done is the removal of the existing VC17 bottom paint and the application of multiple barrier coats followed by the application of three coats of a bottom paint suitable for a saltwater environment. We have decided to put off the bottom paint until at least June. This will give us time to become somewhat familiar with the sailboat and will allow us time to decide whether or not we will need to have a bow thruster installed - a very costly upgrade, but one that might be prudent given the size of the vessel. It is our intent to sail Sweet Escape short handed most of the time with just the two of us aboard and at 44 feet long, almost 15 feet wide and weighing in at a hefty 23,000 lbs, docking and undocking can quickly provide much more excitement than either of us desire.
If we determine that a bow thruster will be necessary we’ll have that work done in June when we have the boat hauled out for bottom painting.
All in all St. Paddy’s day was very productive.
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