No sea trial (sigh)...

[qbynewbie]

I've found a Sea Ray that I'm kind of interested in. It's near here, has the features that I'm looking for and is priced attractively. Bearing in mind the adage that you get what you pay for, I called the owner. He seems like a nice, older gent who has owned it for three years and used in local lakes. He bought it from a guy who kept it on Lake Champlain, so no salt water.

It sounds in decent shape except that he doesn't know the hours on the twin engines (205/V6 MerCruisers). When I asked him how it ran or if it had any problems, he said it ran well except that one of the engines was starting to have some problems at the end of last year. He said "I figured that I'd call a mechanic, find the cost of repairing it and deduct that from the cost of the boat."

He said that he put $4500 into the boat last year and described a whole series of new seals and other items that were new last year. So far, so good.

The bad news is that he doesn't have a trailer and it's up on blocks in his driveway. There's no way to get a sea trial. He's willing to let a surveyor come over and check it (he has the papers from a 2008 survey) but he's not willing to pay to have it put in a lake for a sea trial. He's selling the boat because his wife has developed cancer and "we're in a rough spot right now". (At one point he said, "I was just going to leave it in the driveway and look at it and may end up doing just that.")

I'm interested in the boat and will probably go look at it tomorrow. If it looks good, I may have a surveyor look at it. But how much can a surveyor tell without a sea trial and is there any creative way around this? Also, he bought it himself in the middle of the winter without a sea trial.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[Aviator5]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Conditional sale. Marine survey,run engines off on muffs with mechanic then, if successful - 50% down, 50% due upon successful sea trial

 

[BTMCB]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Conditional sale. Marine survey,run engines off on muffs with mechanic then, if successful - 50% down, 50% due upon successful sea trial

+1 - Good luck, hope it works out for you and for the older couple (hopefully he is NOT playing on your sympathy..........)

 

[qbynewbie]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Got an update: I spoke to a surveyor to see what he thought of the situation. After tossing around a few ideas, we decided to meet at the owner's house tomorrow morning and look at the boat together.

If it doesn't look good, then he'll only charge me his "inspection fee", which is $70 plus mileage. Even if this is what we end up with, I figure that I'll learn quite a bit in whatever time we spend in this phase.

If the boat looks good, I'll need to leave because I'm preparing for a business trip out of the country. But he'll stick around and do a full survey of the boat. If possible, he'll run the engines and see as much as he can. If that all goes well, then he suggested a couple of possibilities:

a. Using a transport company to take it to a local lake, at my expense, for a sea trial -- if the owner was amenable to that.

b. Holding back part of the price contingent on a sea trial.

He (the surveyor) did have on problem with a boat that didn't have a sea trial a couple of years ago -- a Chris Craft that looked great on the survey and had engines that ran well but there were hairline cracks someplace and it started taking on water as soon as it was in the water. The new owner ended up needing to replace both engines and, worse, didn't get to use his boat until the end of that summer. That would be a bummer.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Sounds like a great plan and the surveyor is the way to go.

 

[scoutabout]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Well - sounds like you are doing what you can to get a survey. And if the deal is potentially good enough to make it worth paying a transport company to take to a lake, I'd go that route as long as there was an understanding that anything you don't like can trigger a kill clause on the deal.

Also, the sea trial isn't just to ensure the owner is telling the truth. Very often, the owner has no clue about the issues waiting to bite you.

Finally, make sure you understand the exact scope of the survey. Some of them won't go into the motor to any great degree.

Anyway, if you can get it in the water if at all possible, that would be the best, obviously.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[45Auto]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Where are you at? is it possible to borrow a trailer for a sea trial?

 

[ajgraz]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

If the seller is an honest man, he should have no issue with you doing the legwork and payment for a sea trial. Even if you don't buy, he got some free information.

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

I think an owner would be justified in not sending his boat off with a stranger, but he might, or he might go along, or he might require you to have the surveyor. I don;t know your experience level but that would concern me.

A whole lot will be driven by mutual trust here. That supercedes the "always/never" rules you hear around here concerning boat sales.

Here's something else to keep in mind: sea trials are also for you to see if you like that type of boat. Again, i don't know your experience level, so have you already used a boat like the one you are looking at? you can't take it back (or shouldn't) over "buyer's remorse" if it operates fine, but is too big, too slow, too small, etc.

 

[diesel5599]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Some others have mentioned it as well, but just how much will the surveyor know about the engines? Here in FL surveyors typically ONLY inspect the hull, appearance of the drives, and give you an appraisal value for the boat. Here you still need a mechanics inspection to learn anything about the maintenance past of the engines.

 

[qbynewbie]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Thanks, guys!

When I Googled the seller's address tonight, I discovered that he lives 100' from the lake.

I've been thinking about this and, if I like the boat, might suggest the following to the owner:

1. I'll make an offer on the boat and, if you accept it, we have a deal.

2. I'll hire a transport company to take the boat from you to Lake George.

3. When the transport company arrives to pick up the boat, we'll put it right here in the lake and do a one-hour sea trial. If all goes well, I pay you for the boat, they take it out of the lake and bring it to my new slip at Lake George. If there are problems, then we'll either figure out what to do or we'll have the transport company put it back on the blocks in your driveway. The surveyor would conduct the sea trial.

I'd need to have insurance on the boat before I was comfortable with moving it, of course, but that should be pretty simple to arrange.

If you were a seller, would you go for this? The only downside that I can think of is that by the time we do a sea trial I've pretty much committed myself to buying the boat short of finding problems.

Also, regarding my experience, it's all from 35 years ago, so if you assume that I know nothing at all about what I'm doing here, you'll be pretty close to spot on.

 

[qbynewbie]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Some others have mentioned it as well, but just how much will the surveyor know about the engines? Here in FL surveyors typically ONLY inspect the hull, appearance of the drives, and give you an appraisal value for the boat. Here you still need a mechanics inspection to learn anything about the maintenance past of the engines.

He said that he could do some tests, possibly including running them in the driveway, doing a compression test and visually inspecting them. We may well need to involve a mechanic, too.

 

[bkwapisz]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

I think whatever you spend on the logistics of the sea trial would be worth it. I'd imagine that if you don't, then end up buying a boat with a lot of problems you'd be seriously out. To me that's money well spent and very wise of you. Even if it doesn't work out and the boat shows problems at sea trial you'll be dodging a potentially huge bullet (and repair bill.)

Let us know how it goes!

 

[qbynewbie]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

I will. One way or the other, I'll know a fair amount more by tomorrow night.

 

[rbh]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

I will. One way or the other, I'll know a fair amount more by tomorrow night.

Make sure you have a copy of the 2008 survey in hand, things will run smoother.

 

[qbynewbie]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

Thanks! I wouldn't have thought to ask that.

 

[scoutabout]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

...If there are problems, then we'll either figure out what to do or we'll have the transport company put it back on the blocks in your driveway. ...

It all sounds good except for this part - too vague. Get an iron-clad understanding, in writing, of what happens at this point, what ALL the options are and which party has the power to choose which option.

I once had an experience whereby a guy drove across the country to buy a classic car I was selling. He mailed me a deposit before he left and I took it off the market and prepped it for sale. He arrived, gave the car a once over, said, "Nah - I'm going to think on it a bit - give me my deposit back."

Well, right or wrong, my understanding of the deal was he was coming to buy it and take it away. Naturally I wasn't happy to have him declaring he was really just kicking tires, was in town for another reason, and was looking to back out.

Neither one of us was really in the right, we just had different expectations of the transaction we had entered into and by failing to write it down and agree to it, we left ourselves open to misunderstanding and bad blood over it.

Sooooo - long winded way of saying....get every element of this venture documented and agreed to - especially the options to back out (including at what cost) if you need to do that.

 

[Friscoboater]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

I would get all that in writing.

 

[Philster]

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

My surveyor had my boat two full weeks in his boat yard. He ran it twice in the water for sea trials.

He did a compression check. He gave me a detailed report that listed everything, even noting a barely visible light bulb in the hatch area that was out. He made recommendations about upgrades, including details around two specific propellers he thought would be good swaps....and even notes on exhaust systems to use or not use.

The insurance company got the paper work and said they know the guy and said, "This guy is nuts. He'll sit in the engine compartment at wide open throttle with a scope and look for trouble."

He did a compression check. He called me 4-5 times over the two weeks. His report detailed the spring start up and how and when to replace fuel filters.

He exhausted me. I had the boat out twice before the season ended and it went flawlessly. My marina where the boat will be used this season winterized it and I told them to crawl over it and fix anything needed.

And... I still worry about my boat with the season coming on strong! I will toss and turn at night hoping all is well when I take 'er out!!! SO, the moral to the story is:

Get a boat survey AND sea trial done!!! If I didn't get everything done, this would be NO fun at all!

 

[Home Cookin']

Re: No sea trial (sigh)...

GBY I like your proposal.

Get your arrangement in writing or leave it to trust and chance. One approach is to say you can walk for any reason. Another is to say that if you find a problem that would cost, say, up to $1,000 to fix, the seller either can pull the deal or he has to fix it and you have to buy it. By putting a $ limit on itm, you won't be forced to take a boat after major repairs.

Although most people would just drop the price by the repait cost, keep in mind that with boats, the predicted problem and cost is usually just the beginning of more work. Not saying don't do it that way; just understand boats, like old houses, are like that.