Marine Surveyor in New Bern, North Carolina

I am in New Bern every week. Pre-purchase, insurance and damage surveys, power and sail, inboard and outboard. Your report is in your hands the next day, not next week.

New Bern is home water for me. I am in and out of New Bern Grand Marina and Galley Stores regularly, and when a boat needs to come out it is usually Bridgeton Boat Works or Duck Creek. If your boat is sitting at one of those, I already know the yard, the travelift and the people running it.

Boats I see in New Bern

The Neuse and the Trent put a particular mix in front of me here. Cruising sailboats, expedition cruisers, trawlers and express cruisers, which means a lot of diesel inboards, a lot of genset, and systems that have been living aboard rather than sitting on a trailer.

That changes what matters. On a boat somebody has been cruising, the questions are usually about the age of the wiring, how the fuel system has been maintained, what the through-hulls look like now rather than when they were new, and whether the work that has been done over the years was done to a standard or done to get through a season.

Buying from out of state

A lot of the buyers I work for in New Bern are not in New Bern. They are in Ohio, or Florida, or Virginia, looking at a boat they have seen in photographs, and what they need is somebody at the boat’s end who will tell them what is there and tell them when.

Somebody arranges the haul-out, and it is not you. If there is a broker on the deal, the broker handles it. That is their job and they are good at it. If it is a private sale with no broker, you have nobody local acting for you, so I will help you line it up: which yard, when, and how the trial run fits around it. More of these deals are private sales than people expect, and walking a buyer through that process is a normal part of the job. You should not be ringing boatyards from seven hundred miles away.

You do not have to fly in. Plenty of buyers do and it is worth it if you can. If you cannot, the report is written to stand on its own, and I will go through it with you on the phone.

What happens when you call

I give you a price and a date on that call. Because I am in New Bern regularly, the date is usually sooner than people expect. If I cannot get there when you need me, I will say so then rather than after you have made plans around it.

I come to the boat and survey it. You are welcome to be there, and plenty of people are. If you cannot make it, the survey happens anyway and the report does the explaining.

You get the report the next day. Written so that somebody who was not standing on the boat can understand what I found and decide what to do about it. If you want to walk through it on the phone afterwards, call me.

The report goes to you. Not to the broker, not to the seller, not to the yard. If you want anyone else to see it, you send it to them. You are the one paying for it and you are the one who decides who reads it.

If you would rather see one before you commit to anything, here is a survey report I have done.

The surveys

Pre-purchase survey. The full inspection, for a buyer deciding whether to go ahead and at what price. Structure, systems, electrical, propulsion, steering, safety equipment.

Insurance and condition-and-value survey. For an underwriter deciding whether to write or renew a policy, or for a lender. If you are up against a renewal deadline, say so when you call. That is a scheduling problem and it is usually one I can solve.

Damage survey. After an incident, documenting what happened and what it will take to put right.

Appraisal. Where a value has to be established and defended.

Credentials

ABYC Master Advisor, with ABYC certifications in Electrical, Systems and Standards. NFPA member. Chapman School trained. SAMS Surveyor Associate. I inspect to ABYC standards, USCG federal regulations and NFPA 302.

Book a New Bern survey

Report in your hands the next day. 919-820-9257 · andrew@marinesurveync.com