[sailingdog]

Omatako-

Given the magnitude of the upcoming voyage after your purchase—from the USA to NZ, I would have expected that you hired your own, competent surveyors and asked for recommendations on competent surveyors in the area the boat was located in. Using surveyors chosen by the broker was IMHO rather foolish, and could have cost you the boat and your life...

A low-cost surveyor is often that for a reason—often he will be less experienced, less thorough, and less competent than a good surveyor, who is charging market prices. A good surveyor can charge market prices, or a slight premium, because he will often save the boatowner at least that much in the price or in repairs with his survey. A low-cost surveyor's lack of thoroughness may be a good reason for a less-ethical, sales-driven, boat broker to choose him, since a less thorough survey will generally affect fewer sales negatively—can't negotiate about a problem if the surveyor doesn't tell you about it, can you???

Given that you've been a member here for almost four years, I can't see why you didn't ask how much a survey in that geographic area should cost. Even a rough ballpark number would have told you that three surveys—rigging, engine and boat—for less than the price of a competent survey might be questionable in quality.

While you can blame the surveyors and say that they didn't really do a survey... the truth is that the ultimate responsibility for the shoddy survey lies with you, the prospective boat buyer, and given your particular situation... where you were taking the boat on a lengthy and demanding trans-Pacific passage shortly after purchasing it... any problems not caught ultimately lie with you. In the age of the internet, where there are resources like sailnet, not asking for at least rough costs on a survey, much less not asking for names of competent surveyors in that area, is unwise at best.

I am not saying this to attack you, but to point out that you had a choice in what surveyor you used. You could have chosen to get someone other than the broker chosen surveyors, but did not.