Your First 30 Days After Buying a Boat
The day you take the keys, you also take on everything the last owner did or did not do. The first month is when the paperwork is still in one pile and the survey is still fresh. Here is how to turn that pile into a boat you know and a list of what to do next.
1. Gather every piece of paper
Collect the survey report, the purchase agreement and bill of sale, the title or USCG documentation, the state registration, your insurance policy, and every old invoice and service record the seller handed over. Add the owner's manuals, keys, remotes and spare parts.
Old invoices are the only history of the boat you have. Each one says what was done, when, at what engine hours and by whom. Keep them all, even the ones that look minor.
2. Turn the survey into a to-do list
A survey report groups findings by severity: safety recommendations, significant findings, maintenance items and observations. That order is your to-do list's order.
Handle safety recommendations first: anything involving fire, flooding, steering or propulsion. Then schedule the significant findings, and fold the maintenance items into your regular service.
Keep each to-do linked to the page of the survey it came from. When you talk to a yard, you can show them exactly what the surveyor wrote instead of paraphrasing it.
3. Read the hour meters and record the serial numbers
Photograph each engine's hour meter, and the generator's if you have one. Every service from now on is tied to an hour reading, so start from a real one.
Write down the model and serial number of each engine, the generator, the transmission or drives, and major systems such as the air conditioning, watermaker and windlass. Parts orders depend on them.
4. Find the manuals and their service intervals
The service intervals for your engines and equipment are in their manufacturers' manuals, not in a rule of thumb. Find the owner's and service manual for each engine and major system; most manufacturers publish them.
Compare the old invoices against those intervals. Anything with no record of service is unknown, not necessarily overdue, but it is worth asking a mechanic to look.
5. Finish the ownership paperwork
Confirm the title transfer or USCG documentation is complete in your name, the state registration is current, and any seller's loan lien has been released.
Keep your insurance policy where you can find it: the navigation limits, the hurricane or haul-out requirements, and the renewal date all shape how you use the boat.
6. Learn the boat's systems
Before the first long run, find every through-hull and seacock, the bilge pumps and their switches, the battery switches, the fuel shutoffs, and the fire extinguishers. Know where each one is without looking.
Test the bilge pumps and float switches, check the dates on flares and extinguishers, and note which batteries feed which bank.
7. Line up your service people
Find a mechanic, a yard and, if you need one, a canvas or electronics shop before something breaks. Ask the seller and the surveyor who has worked on the boat; a mechanic who already knows it is worth a lot.
Just bought your boat? Drop in the survey, the purchase papers and the old invoices. Informed Boating reads them, files them, and turns the survey findings into to-dos, each tied to the survey it came from.
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