Finding a Surveyor

Being an ex-plastic boat owner --  things where easy !  You simply went to the shop at your local marina and there you would find someone who claimed to know everything about your fiberglass boat.  Well - it's not quite that easy with a 49' wooden trawler.

I started this task by going to the BoatUS site   

There I found lists of surveyors in the Chesapeake Bay area and I chose a half dozen or so around Annapolis.  It wasn't long after calling a few that the list was narrowed down to three men.  Call it gut feeling, or perhaps just the attitude of the person answering the phone, I quickly settled on Mike Kaufman NAMS-CMS of Kaufman Design, Inc. (410) 263-8900 to perform our survey.

Quickly the whole idea of the survey became a nightmare.  I had already spent hundreds to visit the boat for a personal survey, and it was now time that Stephanie see her for the final approval.  Scheduling the surveyor, the yard, the owner, my work and Stephanie's teaching schedule proved almost impossible.  Yet I felt it so important that I be there for the survey.  As a first time wood boat owner, I had an opportunity to talk with Mike during the survey.  To pick up small hints on how to prioritize my maintenance and to get his sense of the overall condition of the trawler.  One important technique I learned quickly was to let the surveyor and the owner talk directly.  For the first day or two I tried in vain to convey the conversations between all four of us.  But I soon realized I was getting in the way and asked Mike to talk with Charlie (the owner) directly.  Within a week we had a Friday scheduled where the nearby yard would provide a travel lift for the hull inspection portion and I could arrive late Thursday night to meet them the next morning.

The survey itself is a whole other story to be told.  So I want to close with this comment.  Listen to others in the wooden boat community.  Recently (7/12/01) I was speaking with Steve D'Antonio at Zimmerman Marine regarding repair work.  Steve had reviewed the pictures on the site and we where discussing the pros and cons of electrical bonding of though hull fittings on wooden boats.  Steve commented that I had chosen one of the best surveyors of wooden boats in the Bay area.  I let out a sigh feeling better about a decision I made with so little knowledge.