dereknkathy

i am putting too much faith in surveyor? ins companys wont insure most boats without survey. everybody on here sez if it is over 3000 bucks, get it surveyed before purchase. they find hull problems for a living. now we have a guy who stumbled across hull problems and admits he knows essentially nothing about boat hulls. how can a surveyor not be a help? maybe the boat should be parted out. it could be that bad. maybe it only needs the bulkhead he kicked thru repaired. maybe the stringers will be ok for the season. maybe they are so rotten they are about to pull off the hull as soon as he hits the gas. he doesn't even need a full survey. a lot of what they do is the documentation for the insurance and finance companies. all OP needs is the guy to point out what is bad and how bad. and what is ok.

Unlimited jd

iTrader: (5)

And a fiberglass shop or marina would be the place to do it.
2 examples
First a 242 ss formula, surveyor missed rotted transom and stringer. I found both in 5 minutes, but he did spend 20 minutes tapping on the bottom "checking for a rotted core" there is no core in that bottom.
Second, looked a top gun all over, said "I don't know why the meter is reading high, it looks fine? I believe that stringer is supposed to be hollow" are you kidding me? So if you have no intelligent friends or shop you know I guess hire a surveyor.

BRT

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...ryanspeedracer

I replaced a transom and stringers in a '84 10 meter. Took two weeks of driveway labor. I was out just under a grand all up, all in.

Good luck. I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Bryan

thirdchildhood

iTrader: (6)

I agree that it's time for the OP to learn how to do this. Once the engines are out and compartment derigged that's half the battle. Plenty of people here can guide through the process. Just don't expect someone who does this for a living to provide the guidance.

Too Stroked

Just so you know, the white paint / brush marks you've noted in several areas are quite common on Fountains - right from the factory. After they finished rigging each boat, they would do a fairly quick brush paint job of the bilge area with white bilge paint to make things look nice. In fact if you look up the sides of the boat on the inside of the engine compartment, you'll very clearly see where they stopped swabbing the paint on. So seeing this kind of thing on a Fountain does not always mean the boat has been previously repaired. Hope that helps.

79formula

Surveyors seem a lot like home inspectors, they notice peeled paint on a fascia board but miss the sinking foundation. I had the same thing on both my formulas. First boat I was ignorant, the second boat it was intentionally well hidden. Eithe way, $1000 would cover the material if you aren't scared to try something new. If you worked weekends , you could be in the water by Memorial Day . Good luck!

thirdchildhood

iTrader: (6)

Interesting read and theory here: http://www.donzi.net/forums/showthre...a-valid-theory

Pliant

IF you are somewhat handy this can be a very simple process, simply take a drill to all of the suspected area's and take a core sample. If the bit churn's out white dry wood thing's are ok...now if it pulls wet brown wood well time for recon. To fill the hole's.... actually use a 1/2" bit to do a core then get some 1/2" dowel's to plug the core's. Fiberglass them back in using a mixture of microspheres and resin mix the combo into a peanut butter like paste and fill...drill check if ok...... first use some sort of a large syringe fill the hole tap in the dowel and level off the peanut butter...good as new again.

Diamond Dave

I agree a survey would serve some purpose in my situation but essentially no more information would be obtained other than what a reputable shop could tell me in regards to my rot and the repairs needed. Whatever I agree to with any shop or person you can bet I will be wanting to SEE exactly whet they find as far as rot goes and have it all explained to me while I'm in the bilge going over it with them! As you can tell I'm not afraid to ask stupid questions as long as I know WHAT to ask!

In reading everyone's postings about surveyors it looks like some do a good job and some miss a lot of super important things... hit or miss I guess which I would not have expected being that IS their job and all! For me at this stage in the game it's too late I own what I own and I screwed myself in not knowing what I was buying. I take full responsibility and have learned a good lesson for sure about "boats" lol.

Me and the wife sat down last night and agreed we aren't in a position to get rid of it, take a huge loss and then try our luck in finding something else we like as much and hope it pans out. I brought up to her getting rid of it but she wasn't having that so I guess we are fixing it. (The wife is always right if you are married lol)

You know I 100% agree with you on this I would love to learn how to do this. Mostly I just have a REAL hard time paying someone to do something I can do myself. It doesn't seem overly hard (at least from internet pics) even though I have never done it. I'm sure everyone here would be over the top helpful in walking me through it if I went that route.

There is just one thing..... The wife! I would be DEAD if our family missed this season and possibly the next with the amount of spare time I have to fix it. My wife would kill me especially after only using twice since we got it. I'm going to talk to her tonight and see if I can't convince her but I don't think it's going to fly AT ALL. I think fixing it myself would be a very rewarding experience for me in learning something new and a big middle finger to this boat to say TAKE THAT you floating S.O.B.!

Diamond Dave

So assuming I want to start drilling and checking myself, specifically where on the transom will I want to do this to gauge if it is bad? I'm sure there are some "key" areas particular to this boat where it typically rots and that I would want to check? I will pull the rest of the exhaust tails and check those openings (the one I checked was ok) if you guys think that would be helpful also?