Once Randy and I decided this DeFever was the boat for us, we made an offer. The negotiating process went well and once we had reached an agreement, it was time to schedule the sea trial and survey.

We googled surveyors in the Sarasota/St. Pete area and found a couple promising sites. Randy called the first surveyor and after a 5-10 minute phone call, he decided this wasn’t the guy for us. I think it was more of a gut feeling than anything else, but Randy mentioned that the guy was short with him and seemed annoyed at his questions. We were later thankful that we didn’t like the first guy and called Adrian Volney.

Adrian turned out to be a gem. He was extremely thorough and was very patient with our questions and comments. He explained various issues with the different systems on the trawler as well as pointed out  how impressed he was that this old boat was in great shape. Adrian also explained to us that we shouldn’t be too concerned with the cosmetic items to be fixed and that we should first focus on the safety issues (like engine maintenance, replacing smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, etc). He said once you get these things done, enjoy the boat for the summer, then in the winter when it cools, we can move on to the other items.

Overall, the trawler surveyed very well and both Adrian our engine surveyor told us that there wasn’t any reason not to buy the vessel.