[sailingdog]

Andre-

You might have received less negative response if you had asked for advice on the surveyors. IIRC, part of the problem was that your post in that thread made it sound like you had already had the boat surveyed and that the purchase was a done deal, which it wasn't.

Saying that you're used to paying in NZ$ is just an excuse IMHO, since you knew you were getting a survey done in a different country... your expectation of the costs to be the same or even similar was highly unrealistic. Your three surveys cost less than the low-end for a good hull survey, much less separate hull, engine and rigging surveys.

Also the $600-700 figures were for boats that were considerably smaller than yours. $650 for a 35' boat, and $500 for a 28' boat. Also, given the fact that you were going to be taking the boat on a trans-Pacific voyage immediately following purchase, and not sailing it around the local bay, probably means you should have gone for a more comprehensive survey, rather than less.

If you were just sailing around the bay, and ran into a missed problem, it would generally be no big deal. However, that same problem, encountered on the middle of a trans-Pac journey, could have been a show-stopper. You were lucky in many ways. The rudder stuffing box, deck leaks, badly mounted alternator, cracked exhaust elbow, and non-functional bilge pump are all relatively small things taken singly... however, they could have easily combined to become enough to sink the boat. Most "disasters" aren't a single large event... but made up of a series of small, relatively harmless events that combine to become a huge problem together.

The exhaust elbow letting water into the bilge isn't a problem, unless the rudder is also doing, which isn't a problem if the bilge pump is working, which isn't a problem unless the electrical system goes belly up because of the alternator failing.... and so on...