recommendation for a toms river, nj surveyor
- Thread starter btoran
- Start date
I highly recommend Al Prisco. I've used him twice and it was a great experience both times. He's a great advocate to have on your side when making a major purchase. He's not only very professional (extremely professional) he knows his stuff!! Many ROs have used him and recommend him.
guys - thanks for the recommendations. i had actually sent al an email even before posting this. good to see my suspicions confirmed. it was also nice waking up this morning and having an email reply from al already.
al - i sent a reply email with a few clarifying questions and will be in contact probably tonight. thanks again.
al - i sent a reply email with a few clarifying questions and will be in contact probably tonight. thanks again.
I just thought id post this so that everyone can see how far a man will go to get his one and only dream boat. Bruce is a great guy and went the full distance to get what he really wanted. Best of luck to you Bruce.
By Bruce Toran: warning.....really long post....
our beloved fourwinns vista is for sale (hint, hint if anyone is looking for just such a marvelous vessel), because we bought a new (to us) boat.
i've been searching long and hard for my ideal boat and despaired that i would never find it because it didn't exist. i even went so far as to design it on graph paper to scale myself. after some additional searching, i finally found it! it's almost exactly what i designed (perhaps i chose the wrong career).
i was looking for a boat with a BIG flybridge (capable of comfortably seating 6 real-sized adults), a big cockpit, twin inboards, room to sleep at least 5, a real sized refrigerator, no more than 35 ft loa and it couldn't cost much more than 60k. i also wanted it to be mid 1990's or newer. so, what boat fit the bill?
a carver voyager 320, built between 1996 to 1999 (ones built prior to 1996 had a different interior). seabuddy and al can attest to the fact that i drove them nuts with questions in a private message that covered 6 pages of posts and included such wide-ranging topics as multi-zone stereo controls and armenian weddings (don't ask).
so, armed with the knowledge that my ideal boat existed, i set about trying to buy one. there were about a dozen for sale on yachtworld, but only 3 that were in my price range. the closest one was a 3 hour drive and after seeing it, i was convinced this was the boat i wanted ( or rather, the model boat i wanted). this particular boat had sat for a while and was pretty well neglected. i had the boat surveyed and during seatrial, we lost both engines. oil analysis of the engines and transmissions indicated severe internal problems. btw, i highly recommend springing a few hundred bucks more for an oil analysis during a survey and i can heartily recommend al prisco, a surveyor from somewhere up the hudson a bit. he is top notch all the way. anyway, he placed the value of the boat way lower than the agreed upon price based on the engines alone. unfortunately, the marina that owned the boat would not budge on the price and i did not trust them to fix the boat. so, after losing lots of time (not to mention the cost of a survey), i reluctantly walked away from the boat. the whole time, al and seabuddy were telling me to RUN away (and they were right). so, that left only 2 boats remaining.
one was in the finger lakes and after speaking with the broker, i knew exactly how low the seller would go. unfortunately, since the boat was used only in fresh water, it was raw water cooled. once i factored in the cost of adding fwc to both engines and shipping from one of the finger lakes to ny, the boat was out of my price range.
that left only 1 boat and it was located 2 hours north of seattle, washington (on lopez island), which is a bit of a hike from long island, ny. it was actually the cheapest carver 320 voyager for sale and i expected there was a problem with her, so with low expectations i contacted the marina. i explained where i was coming from (literally, from ny) and that i didn't want to make the trip unless i knew exactly what condition the boat was in. i dealt with brian krantz from island marine center on lopez island and i can also heartily recommend him and his marina as well. he explained that even if i lived in the state of washington, it would take me a long time to get there and they had to tell all their customers the real condition of the boats. i spent literally hours with brian on the phone puring over pictures of everything wrong with the boat (which, btw, wasn't much). so, why was it the cheapest one? it turns out that they want to move the boat, so they found the one with the cheapest price (the disaster boat 3 hours from my house) and undercut it by $5k.
so, with al (the surveyor) in tow, we made a lightning fast trip to lopez island, wa. we left on a friday morning at 7:30am (est) and arrived friday night at 10:30pm (est). the marina put us up in an apartment on site for free and we surveyed and sea-trialed the boat saturday morning from 8am (pst) to 3pm (pst). we then grabbed the last ferry for the mainland, had some dinner, drove 2 hours towards seattle and stayed overnight near the airport. we were on an early flight out sunday morning and back home by 8pm sunday night (est). the oil analysis came back 2 days later, we haggled a bit over price and items to fix and closed the deal. so, the boat will take a few weeks to prep and then it will be shipped on a semi to nj, where she'll get wet for the first time on the east coast, and i'll sail her around to her new home on long island. it turns out it's much cheaper to ship a boat to nj then to ny. shipping will be expensive, but since the boat was so cheap (relatively speaking), it's still a much better deal than buying the closer one and having to repair engines and transmissions. the boat i bought also comes with an 8 ft inflatable dinghy with an 8 hp outboard. it's got 2 new starting batteries for the engines and a kicking house battery system comprised of four 6 volt golf cart batteries (read LOTS OF AMP HOURS) and a BIG inverter / charger. it's got a decent stereo system with a 6 cd changer and a lower helm station.
what? you guys read this really long post and expected pictures? ok, here they are.
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/btoran/album/576460762387351106
btw, i didn't have a good shot of the flybridge, so i used one from another carver 320 for sale. the rest of the pics are from our boat.
_________________________
Bruce Toran
En Passant
1993 Four Winns 265 Vista
-----------------------------------------
"Don't Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head"
By Bruce Toran: warning.....really long post....
our beloved fourwinns vista is for sale (hint, hint if anyone is looking for just such a marvelous vessel), because we bought a new (to us) boat.
i've been searching long and hard for my ideal boat and despaired that i would never find it because it didn't exist. i even went so far as to design it on graph paper to scale myself. after some additional searching, i finally found it! it's almost exactly what i designed (perhaps i chose the wrong career).
i was looking for a boat with a BIG flybridge (capable of comfortably seating 6 real-sized adults), a big cockpit, twin inboards, room to sleep at least 5, a real sized refrigerator, no more than 35 ft loa and it couldn't cost much more than 60k. i also wanted it to be mid 1990's or newer. so, what boat fit the bill?
a carver voyager 320, built between 1996 to 1999 (ones built prior to 1996 had a different interior). seabuddy and al can attest to the fact that i drove them nuts with questions in a private message that covered 6 pages of posts and included such wide-ranging topics as multi-zone stereo controls and armenian weddings (don't ask).
so, armed with the knowledge that my ideal boat existed, i set about trying to buy one. there were about a dozen for sale on yachtworld, but only 3 that were in my price range. the closest one was a 3 hour drive and after seeing it, i was convinced this was the boat i wanted ( or rather, the model boat i wanted). this particular boat had sat for a while and was pretty well neglected. i had the boat surveyed and during seatrial, we lost both engines. oil analysis of the engines and transmissions indicated severe internal problems. btw, i highly recommend springing a few hundred bucks more for an oil analysis during a survey and i can heartily recommend al prisco, a surveyor from somewhere up the hudson a bit. he is top notch all the way. anyway, he placed the value of the boat way lower than the agreed upon price based on the engines alone. unfortunately, the marina that owned the boat would not budge on the price and i did not trust them to fix the boat. so, after losing lots of time (not to mention the cost of a survey), i reluctantly walked away from the boat. the whole time, al and seabuddy were telling me to RUN away (and they were right). so, that left only 2 boats remaining.
one was in the finger lakes and after speaking with the broker, i knew exactly how low the seller would go. unfortunately, since the boat was used only in fresh water, it was raw water cooled. once i factored in the cost of adding fwc to both engines and shipping from one of the finger lakes to ny, the boat was out of my price range.
that left only 1 boat and it was located 2 hours north of seattle, washington (on lopez island), which is a bit of a hike from long island, ny. it was actually the cheapest carver 320 voyager for sale and i expected there was a problem with her, so with low expectations i contacted the marina. i explained where i was coming from (literally, from ny) and that i didn't want to make the trip unless i knew exactly what condition the boat was in. i dealt with brian krantz from island marine center on lopez island and i can also heartily recommend him and his marina as well. he explained that even if i lived in the state of washington, it would take me a long time to get there and they had to tell all their customers the real condition of the boats. i spent literally hours with brian on the phone puring over pictures of everything wrong with the boat (which, btw, wasn't much). so, why was it the cheapest one? it turns out that they want to move the boat, so they found the one with the cheapest price (the disaster boat 3 hours from my house) and undercut it by $5k.
so, with al (the surveyor) in tow, we made a lightning fast trip to lopez island, wa. we left on a friday morning at 7:30am (est) and arrived friday night at 10:30pm (est). the marina put us up in an apartment on site for free and we surveyed and sea-trialed the boat saturday morning from 8am (pst) to 3pm (pst). we then grabbed the last ferry for the mainland, had some dinner, drove 2 hours towards seattle and stayed overnight near the airport. we were on an early flight out sunday morning and back home by 8pm sunday night (est). the oil analysis came back 2 days later, we haggled a bit over price and items to fix and closed the deal. so, the boat will take a few weeks to prep and then it will be shipped on a semi to nj, where she'll get wet for the first time on the east coast, and i'll sail her around to her new home on long island. it turns out it's much cheaper to ship a boat to nj then to ny. shipping will be expensive, but since the boat was so cheap (relatively speaking), it's still a much better deal than buying the closer one and having to repair engines and transmissions. the boat i bought also comes with an 8 ft inflatable dinghy with an 8 hp outboard. it's got 2 new starting batteries for the engines and a kicking house battery system comprised of four 6 volt golf cart batteries (read LOTS OF AMP HOURS) and a BIG inverter / charger. it's got a decent stereo system with a 6 cd changer and a lower helm station.
what? you guys read this really long post and expected pictures? ok, here they are.
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/btoran/album/576460762387351106
btw, i didn't have a good shot of the flybridge, so i used one from another carver 320 for sale. the rest of the pics are from our boat.
_________________________
Bruce Toran
En Passant
1993 Four Winns 265 Vista
-----------------------------------------
"Don't Eat Anything Bigger Than Your Head"
What a great testament! Speaks volumes about credibility and knowledge of ones chosen career. Also says a lot about the lengths a boater will go to to make sure their dream is fulfilled. Kudos to both of you [:-apple]
i can whole heartedly recommend al for anyone needing a survey. he does a very fast, professional job and watches out for your best interest. both marinas we dealt with commented that they had never seen a more thorough survey done.
I may be late with a recommendation, but this guy is good.
http://www.bughermarine.com/index2.html
http://www.bughermarine.com/index2.html