About Andrew Gallant

I’m the kind of person who takes a doorknob apart to see how it works.

I’ve stayed up past midnight with the owner’s manual and parts diagram for a Caterpillar 3208 because I saw something on a boat that afternoon and wanted to understand it. Nobody asked me to. That’s just how I’m built.

Eventually that turned into a career.

Before this

I spent a long career in big tech, traveling the world on consulting projects for companies whose products you use every day. It was a good run and I hit the goals I set for it. Then one morning I realised I’d done what I came to do, and it was time for something else.

I’ve been a boater my whole life, and the part I always liked best was the technical side – how the systems work, why they fail, and what somebody did wrong at the factory in 1987 that you’re still paying for today.

Education and credentials

There are minimum requirements to enter this industry. I didn’t want to just meet them.

Before I ever went to school for surveying, I studied for and passed my ABYC Marine Electrical and Marine Systems certifications. Then I attended the Chapman School of Seamanship for the Small Craft and Yacht Surveying program, and while I was there I passed my ABYC Standards certification – which, together with the other two, granted me ABYC Master Advisor status. I stayed on at Chapman afterward to complete the Damage and Claims Survey courses, both basic and advanced.

I’m also a SAMS® Surveyor Associate with the Society of Accredited Marine Surveyors.

I did all of that before I started surveying other people’s boats, because it seemed like the wrong order to do it any other way.

Continuing education is not something I treat as a box to tick. ABYC standards get revised, boats keep changing, and the systems going into them now – lithium banks, electric propulsion, increasingly complex electrical distribution – did not exist in the form they take today when a lot of surveyors last sat in a classroom. I hold more certifications than the minimum, I keep them current, and I keep taking coursework beyond what’s required to stay that way.

A surveyor working from an out-of-date standard is a surveyor giving you out-of-date information about a boat you’re about to buy.

How I work

My years in corporate America taught me one genuinely useful thing: process is what makes outcomes consistent.

Every boat I step aboard gets the same process. The same order of operations for the inspection. The same method for taking notes. The same structure for the report. The same way of walking you through what I found and what it means.

You could call that process-crazy. I’d call it the reason two clients with similar boats get reports of the same quality.

What people actually want from a surveyor is someone who picks up the phone, delivers a clear outcome, and can still answer a technical question about their boat three weeks later. That’s the standard I hold myself to.

Candor

You can’t be a people pleaser in this business.

This is a large investment, and you’re relying on me to tell you what I found in language you can actually use. So things get described the way I see them. Some of that will be good news. Some of it won’t be. Either way you’re getting candor, because anything softer isn’t worth what you paid for it.

I don’t work for the seller, the broker, or the marina, and I have no stake in whether you buy the boat.

What you get is a clear account of the vessel’s condition – findings written plainly, photographed, and measured against the standard each one falls under. No hedging, and no jargon you have to decode.

Then the decision is yours.

What I survey and where

Power and sail, from small craft to larger cruising boats – sportfish, trawlers, cruisers, sailboats and catamarans.

I work the coast out of New Bern: the Neuse and Trent rivers, Oriental, Beaufort, Morehead City, the Pamlico, down to Wilmington, and along the Intracoastal in between. I also cover Wrightsville Beach, Hampton Roads in Virginia, and Myrtle Beach in South Carolina.

Pre-purchase surveys for buyers. Insurance condition and valuation surveys, including renewal surveys when your carrier asks for one. Damage surveys and appraisals.

Beyond the survey itself, I’m glad to act as an advisor. If you have questions while you’re shopping, working through a purchase, or trying to understand what a finding means for your boat, ask me. Walking clients through that is part of the job, not an extra.

Call or email and tell me about the boat – what it is, where it is, and what you need the survey for.