There are certainly plenty of cheaper NS 38's about but that one certainly has all quality gear. Electronics date of course but the choice says a lot about the original owner.

It must be heartbreaking to be a yacht owner selling at the moment, try putting that boat together for that sort of money, that is a lot of boat for the price.

Who says 1st offer take of 20% ? Is that a reasonable amount to reduce in your offer?

pumpnjump said..

I offered 40% less when I bought mine, got told where to go, but after a month of negotiation ended up 25% below asking price.

Did you get a survey done?

pumpnjump said..


Yes had a survey done, but as I am a boatbuilder by trade I felt this was a waste of money, but for insurance purposes later I found you have to have one thats independent.

What you have said raises some questions. There are shipwrights and boat builders and marine engineers and marine electricians and riggers and sail makers and of course "marine surveyors".

Most so called "marine surveyors" have no technical trade qualifications, have done a brief TAFE course (less than a year) and are armed with little idea of what they are doing and a .doc or .pdf template with which they just fill in the blanks and print it out and say ChaChing like Woolies, that will be $5,000 thanks.

If an insurance company throws a survey requirement at me I will say fine I will do it for you as I am a marine engineer and master class five and have owned timber, aluminium, fibreglass and steel vessels.

If they say no, the survey has to be independent of the purchasor and vendor, I will say fine, send your first surveyor along and I will see if he knows what he is supposed to know. If he doesn't, I will send him back to you and by the way, you require the survey, so you pay for it.

So pumpnjump, you say you are a boat builder by trade. Without denigrating the skills you have, does that mean you have served a proper apprenticeship and been issued a trade certificate from a government and industry recognised training provider and such certificate could be shown and recognized anywhere in Australia or the Commonwealth for the purposes of gaining paid employment??

I am just curios to know what a boat builder is these days. I know some old school boat builders and they are all in demand and few and far between.

cisco said..

pumpnjump said..


Yes had a survey done, but as I am a boatbuilder by trade I felt this was a waste of money, but for insurance purposes later I found you have to have one thats independent.

What you have said raises some questions. There are shipwrights and boat builders and marine engineers and marine electricians and riggers and sail makers and of course "marine surveyors".

Most so called "marine surveyors" have no technical trade qualifications, have done a brief TAFE course (less than a year) and are armed with little idea of what they are doing and a .doc or .pdf template with which they just fill in the blanks and print it out and say ChaChing like Woolies, that will be $5,000 thanks.

If an insurance company throws a survey requirement at me I will say fine I will do it for you as I am a marine engineer and master class five and have owned timber, aluminium, fibreglass and steel vessels.

If they say no, the survey has to be independent of the purchasor and vendor, I will say fine, send your first surveyor along and I will see if he knows what he is supposed to know. If he doesn't, I will send him back to you and by the way, you require the survey, so you pay for it.

So pumpnjump, you say you are a boat builder by trade. Without denigrating the skills you have, does that mean you have served a proper apprenticeship and been issued a trade certificate from a government and industry recognised training provider and such certificate could be shown and recognized anywhere in Australia or the Commonwealth for the purposes of gaining paid employment??

I am just curios to know what a boat builder is these days. I know some old school boat builders and they are all in demand and few and far between.

You are a skeptic Cisco, I am lucky to be a qualified boatbuilder, I served my apprenticeship under Eric White in Cowes on the Isle of Wight, he was apprenticed under Uffa Fox, I have worked for the likes of Westerly, Camper Nicholsons, Fairey Marine and even McConachy here in Sydney in the early 90s, I have lofted many boats, built in clinker, carvel, glass, aluminium, steel and high tech carbon composite, we had to serve a 5 year apprenticeship, with City and Guilds qualifications and finally obtain our passport to work photo attached! with which I can obtain employment anywhere, I am proud to be a boatbuilder, unfortunately I can earn more money building houses. As you rightly point out the survey issue for insurance is a con, the guy who surveyed my boat had very little expertise except in the engine compartment, but I wish to have my boat insured so have to play the game!!

Geez Cisco,you having a beer with that humble pie? lol

Its all a con really, see this is how it works.

You want to insure a boat, get a survey on hull and rigging the say!

But what the insurance companies have done is raise the professional indemity insurance for the
guys doing the hull and rigging surveys.

For example; a couple of years ago a boat surveyor I know was approaching retirement, so he had heaps of experience.
His proffessional indemity insurer said bring your books in. He said "why?"

They said "So we can determine what you are earning as our fees will be 40% of THAT!

He retired on the spot!

So for the insurance firms to protect themselves now only have to say to the guy who did the survey "You stuffed UP, you pay"
Which means his insurer actually pays for that oversight, not your insurer!

So the real question is "Which insurer is making the money as your insurer hasn't paid out!"

nswsailor said..

Its all a con really, see this is how it works.


So for the insurance firms to protect themselves now only have to say to the guy who did the survey "You stuffed UP, you pay"
Which means his insurer actually pays for that oversight, not your insurer!

So the real question is "Which insurer is making the money as your insurer hasn't paid out!"

Exactly. A double shuffle.

Cisco said:
"There is a new word these days and it is "tradies". There are so many young guys getting around these days saying they are "tradies" as if that says it all, yet when it comes to the crunch, all they have done is a bunch of "modules" at TAFE and they really don't have much idea about what they are doing and at best can only be regarded as semi skilled workers. Too much ego talk around these days."

I worked for almost forty years as a boilermaker/welder, at times to lloyd's standard, ASME 9 tested, sometimes work was x rayed, ultrasonically tested even had some work tested to destruction, but that was then.
Son in law is a tafe teacher, Heavy engineering and was telling me that some of these modules are done online... couldn't believe it when he said some welding training and examination was done using a computer mouse with a welding simulator on a pc... WTF! A big company I can't really name has recently realised some of it's "tradies" couldn't actually weld with real electricity/gas or metal. Their failures are currently being hidden.