The Bells Tolls for Me…and Thee

By Bob Coddington

1989

The moral of this story is that sending a J30 through a Throgs Neck tollbooth can cost you more than two dollars.

Early in the spring of 1985, John Schloss and I went to the Tillitson Peason factory in

Bristol, Rhode Island, to see ourJ30, Windhover, being built. The "I of the workers and their devotion to quality control impressed us, and, confident that everything was to our satisfaction, we returned to New York to await delivery.

Windhover was loaded on a flatbed trailer in April and reached the Throgs Neck Bridge without incident. There it was discovered what J30's were not designed to do: pass through gates. The driver did his best and arrived at Willis Marine in Huntington with the starboard side smashed in. Willis refused delivery and the boat was sent back to the builder. A month later, repaired, and in perfect condition, the boat returned-but not through the Throgs Neck Bridge.  

What lesson did we lean? The next day we began looking for a survey or in the Newport area, where our new boat was being built. After reading a few resumes, we selected Paul Coble. Ms credentials were impressive and his resume went on for pages. We arranged for him to visit the boat while it was still at the factory after the quality control people had signed off on the work and again after it was launched. His first visit resulted in a five-page encyclopedia of faults along with suggestions on how they could be corrected. The survey was passed on to the builder, and when we picked up the boat pretty much everything on the list had been taken care of, except for one item. A possible void had been discovered in the deck. Are we concerned about a costly repair? Not a bit! The problem was documented, and both the builder and the broker have acknowledged their responsibility.

If you were to buy a used boat, would you close the deal without having a marine surveyor appraise the vessel? The same should be true of a new boat. A survey maybe your only defense against a lemon. Can you expect to have every problem revealed on the survey? NO. Continued next issue.