The 'ARK', an 1887 Galway Hooker, afloat in the Solent in the 1970's. The ARK was jointly owned by Mike Buggy and John Stansell and was subject to much restoration work throughout the decade. A steep learning curve for any future surveyor!
================================================== Now for the painful bit! What do our surveys cost? ==================================================
Market research shows typical surveys cost in the region of £9 to £15 per foot LOA.
VAT, overheads, and travel may or may not be included, and this, will vary from surveyor to surveyor.
Costs must be seen as somewhat subjective and may depend on the nature of the vessel, its location, its condition, difficulties with access, unusual materials etc. Length itself is not a good measure of the actual work required and the effort involved in surveying a 40 foot boat could well be double that of surveying a 30 foot boat. In practice each vessel must be quoted taking factors such as age, volume, hull type, and complexity into account.
We will aim to charge around, or just under, the 'mid-market range' for typical production boat surveys, but unlike many others we will also aim to include within this all our normal overheads and a reasonable amount of travel.
Reasonable travel is of course a subjective term but perhaps around 30 to 45 minutes by road from Cowes and Gosport might be considered reasonable.
Our overheads include Professional Indemnity Insurance, 3rd Party liability Insurance, Institution Membership/Licence fees, IT & advertising, tools & test equipment, training and professional development, transport & office. In most cases none of these costs will be charged to the client.
What do the Survey charges cover?
Typically we aim to spend around a full working day on a 'representative' mid-life family sailing cruising vessel of around 32 to 34 feet.
Research on the vessel, and then report production, can take up to a further full day.
There will also usually be a need for continuing dialogue with brokers, vendor, insurers, and the client.
Although smaller vessels in general should take less time, this may rarely be the case. A very complicated fully loaded 30 footer with an 'interesting variety' of hull and deck problems, with many older systems, and numerous access problems, may take very much more surveying effort than a nearly new production 36 footer. This is why it can frequently be difficult to give direct pro-rata quotes.
