Hurricane damaged boats - bad idea?

[Scout 30]

Generalizations are like statistics. They can give you a broad indication of the market but could be completely wrong when talking about a specific example. If you're really serious find a boat & then come back & ask this question. You'll get more reliable responses that way.

[docwood]

Like wrecked cars what hidden problems will show later on due to stress caused during the action of the damage? I remember seeing a picture of all those cats piled on top of one another in a corner of the bay. Me, I'd pass. Now I'm a rookie in the boat world so I'd take the advice of the more experienced sailor and most them are at least throwing up huge buyer beware signals.

[sailingchiro]

I really wanted a hurricane boat. Really bad. I looked at the value to purchase and possible value later and couldn't believe the forced appreciation that could be accomplished. But...
When I put the numbers to it, my time was too valuable. I can force more appreciation in a house than a boat. Therefore I put effort in houses.

I purchased a repo-boat (already in Florida) with no fiberglass damage but had no mast and engines were beyond their useful life. Since then, I have put over $80,000 into the boat. Don't worry, I got an excellent deal on the boat.
The Mooring boats have a big disadvantage-their location. Getting the boat to the States under own power will cost minimum of $40k (propulsion, GPS, clean diesel, transmission, props). To ship will cost $25-35k.
The rig will cost roughly $25k when you get to the states. Sails $10-20k, Electronics (most have been stolen off these boats) $10k-15k. Rewire with new pumps etc. $5-7k (owner labor). This hasn't covered refrigerators, batteries, plumbing, transmissions, thruhulls, or furlers. Fiberglass repair could be very expensive and if you did it your self, would you feel safe with your repair in 50 knot wind with waves knocking you around. Catamarans hit hard on the bottom with crossing waves. Will your repair come apart?
Where are you doing all this work? In a yard that is hot, humid, with flying insects, and surrounded by many others trying to find the same parts as you.
Doable but doubt you will have less than $200k in the boat after fixing it. And possibly alot more. Versus, finding a $200k boat you can enjoy now.
And now the kicker: can you find insurance and a buyer when you need them on a hurricane boat?

[thruska]

Paul28- fixing with your skills is probably a task you’re up to .
Any figure you estimated for repairs double it .
Then add the botyard rent and the bs you’re going to face and have to deal with.
Remember where the boat is , and youcan seeit yes but you need to touch it before you even think of having it given to you . Even a freeboat is not free.

[ebs001]

Originally Posted by paul28

This is example of what I've seen

https://www.yachtworld.com/boats/201...nced%20listing

says already repaired. Obviously would need my own survey but just was inquiring as to feasibility of taking this route

This yacht is fully serviceable and has been for some years now. It’s service time with Moorings is up. You can probably get a number of years of use with nothing other than the usual maintenance cost.

Most of the responses seem to think the boat is a complete project boat and are talking nonsense. The pictures show a pretty sound boat with reasonable electronics. It is however a charter boat and that means it has been used hard and sometimes abused. I think the asking price reflects this but only a survey will tell all.

If you are considering this boat find yourself a buyers broker and have him arrange a independent survey and take their advice.

[Yes maybe]

Originally Posted by paul28

I see the Moorings has several cats for sale indicating hurricane damage that the surveyor says is repairable. Is this a bad idea to even consider?

I've been in Caribbean for one yr. Seen it firsthand. Unskilled, unsupervised, labour from as far away as Albania (that famous sailing country).
I can’t begin to tell you just how bad the condition of boats was. The scale of the damage that has been hidden.. And the “repairs” that were performed, freak show.

If you do buy one. Motor sail it to mooring balls and don’t go out in sea state more than 1.5mt.
This statement goes for some of the other production cats, once they are over 5 to 7yrs old. If you sail them in sea states above 1.5mt for any period of time, they crack at the flex areas. The big give away in this, is the leeward standing rigging being loose (extremely) in anything over 10knts. Your hull is flexing in all sorts of directions.

[Snore]

Originally Posted by paul28

I see the Moorings has several cats for sale indicating hurricane damage that the surveyor says is repairable. Is this a bad idea to even consider?

Paul,

It is difficult to provide meaningful comment, without knowing the purchase price and condition of the vessel.

Back in April or May I was contacted by someone looking at buying an Irma-damaged cat. His plan was to get safe enough for the trip back to the states where complete repairs would be made. As a delivery “capt” my concerns were 1)who was inspecting the boat, and 2)who was overseeing the repairs to make her seaworthy. The answer was a former naval architect or engineer with credentials.

In my opinion that is the logical way to go at these boats. Purchase price should be less than the diminished value of the boat LESS the cost of repairs, LESS a contingency, LESS the value of your time to manage the project, LESS the cost of getting her to the states.

To clarify “diminished value”, if that model of boat has a market of $400,000, a repaired hurricane-damaged boat have a value of less than $400,000. That lower value would be the diminished value.

Interestingly, the gentlemen who contacted me, to my knowledge, didn’t buy one of the damaged boats.

[jmschmidt]

Where is the boat? BVI? Tell me and I'll give you the name of the surveyor that all Moorings brokers hate. Just kidding, all the Moorings people I have every dealt with are great. Bought two boats from them, would like to do another.

Surveys are just for the insurance company anyway. Get your own expert if you are not one yourself. Do independent oil sample analyses and compression checks on the engines and hire your own rigging guy.

[Jim Cate]

On the other hand, you could hang around waiting for this season's storms and look for fresh road kill boats. Be first in line!

Jim

[riki]

Originally Posted by paul28

I see the Moorings has several cats for sale indicating hurricane damage that the surveyor says is repairable. Is this a bad idea to even consider?

As many others i had this idea too. I ended up buying a used, smaller cat and i can tell you one thing: after i saw the expenses and the hard work involved in a good condition vessel, i can imagine what kind of sorrows and adventure a hurricane damaged boat can be. Go smaller, go older, but buy a seaworthy boat.

[Gin-N-Sonic]

Foreword: Worked with composites all my life, have helped with composite boat repair dozens of times, no longer own a boat, saving up for a large catamaran/condomaran for my first cruise after establishing my own family. Have spent almost 5 years cruising before settlings down, now the itch is too great.

Can you do it? If you're crazy enough and have the skills, time and funds, you can. Let's do an egregiously simplified scenario.

First, you need land, and since you're going to be doing a lot of sanding, resin/epoxy and paint, it should be a sheltered, lockable or livable area from the get go. Proper ventilation and using plastic to section off areas is a must. Get comfortable, you're going to be here for a while.

Resources:

People are a great resource, the more people you have involved the less time you will spend overall, I find crews of 4 work extremely well, usually there is what I call "lay-lay time" which is essentially everyone sitting down waiting for epoxy/fairing/barrier coat/paint to dry. This, is a good thing, take this time to align yourself to your crew and thank them for their work.

Materials. Buy 150% on everything you estimate, this includes cloth, resin, etc. It is better to have extra left over to recover from mistakes than it is to run out at a critical time.

Candidacy:

The perfect repairable composite boat is essentially one where people can tell you exactly what happened to the boat. Candidate hull MUST have already hauled out and land stored before you even consider it. Don't do that "oh that poor half floating catamaran there" that's a money trap, feelings don't pay for West Systems products.

A perfectly repairable composite hull is one where you can infuse epoxy to the point where voids don't exist. Basically, look at the damaged section and look at the undamaged section, do you have the necessary skills and time to get the damaged section looking as good and as strong to about 98% of the original? If no, move on to the next hull.

Catamaran repair has a unique problem, dual hulls connected by a bridge deck, this means you need equipment to properly verify if there are no internal cracks or delamination going on in areas where the torsional loads like to play, stress delam does not happen just on upper layers, especially where collisions are concerned. Prepare to have an ultrasound NDT done, do not proceed without this. If delam is noted, move on unless you have advanced composites repair skills and are crazy enough.

Cockpit and deck, you may be able to salvage some parts and reuse. Salon, cabins and heads? Prepare to tear everything out and rebuild. By this point, you should be down to bare hull and bulkheads. Cabin soles out as well.

Standing rigging, and running rigging. By this point, you're doing a custom boat, if the manufacturer cannot help, it may be time for you to consider aftermarket or salvage. There are solutions out there and a lot can be done with a machine shop, but it's not going to be cheap.

Engines, in my opinion, unless you know how to fix or have someone who can do it for you, better off changed along with saildrives, props may be salvageable. If there is a boat sitting for salvage and someone has not claimed the engine already, that's what I call a "no-go" unless it's a Yanmar but even then, I'd be careful because people are hawks for engines and engine parts.

Then comes the onboard equipment, you pretty much should replace everything, pipes, wiring, electronics, engine management, nav, etc, etc. This adds up really fast on the financial scale.

For interiors, Nidacore is wonderful stuff, light and integrates nicely with curved plywood to make really high end looking, performing and feeling surfaces, however Nidacore is expensive.

Lastly, competition, there is mounting competition for the best candidate hulls, I know of at least 3 private rebuilds and two professional style outfits doing the same thing, hence, unless you intend to dive down like a Peregrine Falcon after a storm to pounce one a good hull, slims the pickin's my friend.

By now you have one of two mindsets:

1- I can do what this Gin N' Sonic idiot says, I have the skills and the time and money.

Or

2- What was I thinking?

Either mindset is right, and you could follow it and achieve your goal.

If you ask me what I would do, I'd say skip this whole thing, go get yourself a reasonable catamaran that you like, add what you want on it and update it.

[Dobiegirl]

As a result of Hurricane Ivan in September, 2004 - Pensacola, FL region - our Morgan 46' ketch was rated as 'total loss' by our insurance company. In addition to expected bumps and bruises, she suffered major structural damage, rendering her unfit to sail. In the process of settling with the insurance company - no problems with that - I asked if any records were kept, by hull number/make & model, etc., of damaged boats, especially those that were totaled. The answer was "No." I then asked for my question to be elevated to higher management. It was (so I was told), and the answer was still "No." This gave me serious concern, as we are live aboard blue water sailors and even if we had repaired that boat, we never would have taken her into blue water again, and certainly did not want a prospective sailor, or even an experienced one to take her out either. Bottom line, she was towed to auction without any documentation as to her damage - which was severe.

It seems to me that the insurance companies should maintain a record of vessels they write off as totaled so that if it is submitted for insurance coverage again, the owner and the insurance company would have a verifiable history of her damage and assurance that it had been repaired. Yes, yes, I know...buyer beware, and comprehensive surveys should find major issues. But if records were kept on total loss vessels, later to be sold at auction, at least the buyer, and later, the insurance company would have somewhat better protection.


I have no problem with the purchase of an older vessel. We have purchased four over the years. But if I knew it had been totaled for insurance purposes, I would never buy it. There are always going to be unknowns when purchasing a used boat, no matter how thorough the survey is.


Just my two cents worth. Good luck in purchasing a sound boat.

[Nicholson58]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

I'd worry what was left after years of people picking the best one's and scavenging the best parts. At some point they must have no value but if you go in aware and the price represents good value.

You may find more info searching on here there have been a couple of other threads on it.

Totally true, beware. However, we see places in the Caribbean where someone bought a barge full and hauled them away for resale or repair. Where it is has a lot to do with its value to you especially if you wish to do the work yourself.

Our yard mate in Trinidad acquired a 78 foot aluminum monohull that lost its mast and needed extensive deck work and about 200 square feet of wrinkled hull skin replaced. It was a mini-mega yacht. It was hurricane damaged in St Martin in a fall-over on land. He paid $20,000 salvage, motored it to Trinidad at Power Boat. He spent 8 months and about $200,000 in parts, repairs, paint. It is now a beautiful yacht with minimum $1.25 million value. It is in arctic charter service now.

Many Cats were hauled to Antigua and Martinique. We see crews restoring these. Others are in Puerto Rico. A good buy might be found but only if it was wrecked on land or quickly hauled out and dried. Assume electronics and engines are junk unless proven otherwise. You are buying a hull, not much more. There should be plenty available in the US too.

[Gin-N-Sonic]

Originally Posted by Nicholson58

....

You are buying a hull, not much more. There should be plenty available in the US too.

Ding Ding Ding!

I don't understand why people don't do group builds off molds.

[Gerrit Coetzee]

I did two - simultaneously.
One catamaran and one motor yacht.
Pay the $1500 complete out of the water survey. (Don't skip this, as it will cost you 10 times that, if you don't).

Bought my Cat and MY in BVI. The Cat would have been a great/er investment if the local companies did not strip the vessel from every electronics it had a week after I bought it.

Secondly, after you bought, if you buy it, do not fall victim of doing repairs in the BVI. Get the hell out of there. It has the worst attitude local people I have ever met around the WORLD!! Then their prices are so exorbitant, that nobody actually needs to steal, because they are so busy with daylight robbery.

Just getting parts into the BVI is most of the times EXPENSIVE, many companies (for good reason) don't deliver to the BVI (i.e. Amazon) and then there is import taxes on EVERYTHING, even your shipping expenses are taxed.

Oh, and then there is the ludicrous misconception that "you are in paradise".
If you fall for that quirk , you are heading for hell.

Get the boat for their selling price, minus your surveyor's cost of repairs, minus the $20,000 to get it ANYWHERE ELSE to do repairs.

And if there is no mast, I have spent 8 months of seeing people not getting masts, and those who did, paid $24,000 to $30,000 .

What the seller does not ripp you off, the locals will, and what they don't, the repairmen will.

Caveat emptor!