Mengi Yay, Tuzla, Istanbul
What do you want her to become?
Longer legs. A quieter night at anchor. Room for grandchildren. A hull that can go north. The answer is rarely a drawing at this stage, and it should not have to be — that is our work, not yours.
And what is she actually made of?
Not what the last survey said, and not what the broker wrote. What the steel measures today, what the moisture meter finds under the deck, what the borescope sees inside the tank. Desire sets the direction. Evidence sets the budget.
Opinions are cheap. These are not.
A survey is only worth the instruments behind it. Each of these answers one question we refuse to guess at — and each reading goes into the report with a location, a date and the name of whoever took it.
A grid of readings over the whole hull, logged by station and frame, so plating loss is a map rather than an opinion.
Decks, coring, bulkhead tabbing. The difference between a coating job and a rebuild is usually found here.
Dry film thickness read across the topsides and boot top. Under spec means a strip; over spec means weight and cracking.
Pull-off dollies to ASTM D4541 on sound and suspect areas. A fair-looking hull can be holding paint that will let go in a season.
Substrate temperature against air and dew point, logged hourly in the paint hall. Half of all coating failures are a weather record, not a product.
Insulation gaps, hidden leaks, hot bearings and loaded circuits — the faults that only show under load.
Shafts, bearings and engine beds measured to hundredths, which is where most unexplained vibration lives.
Consumption, noise, handling and every system run in anger, with two of our engineers aboard taking notes.
Eight of the instruments that go aboard. The kit that travels with a survey team runs to several dozen — holiday detectors, surface profile tape, hardness testers, endoscopes, sound and vibration meters — and it grows every time a yacht asks a question we cannot yet answer.
One document, and no surprises after it.
Condition report
Every reading, photograph and observation, located and dated. Written to be read by your captain, your surveyor and your insurer without translation.
Priced work list
Three tiers — must, should, want — each line priced and hour-counted. Nothing bundled into a single figure you cannot interrogate.
Schedule envelope
A start date, a redelivery date and the named contingency between them, with the items most likely to move flagged before you sign.
A recommendation
Our honest reading of whether the refit you are imagining is the right one for this hull — including the version where we advise you not to.