Looking for Good Work, Fair Price

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mbravocojr
Bottom Sanding Grunt
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Looking for Good Work, Fair Price

Post by mbravocojr »

I'm interested putting a barrier coat and bottom paint. Currently looking for a yard who does good work at a fair price. I'm located in South Jersey with plans of heading south to the Caribbean this November. So any place between here and there could work.

Additional details: New boat to me. Had plans to do the work myself. Yard told me no problem, story changed once the boat was out of the water and he got paid. Yard won't allow me to do any bottom work. They quoted me nearly 5k for the work. Which is about a third of what I paid for the boat alone. Boat is in good shape, doesn't require extensive work. A family friend who also owns and operates a boatyard nearby tells me I should be expecting to pay closer to 3.5k. I can't get into his yard. I don't mind going a bit out of the way if it means I save a few dollars and have the work done by people I trust.

Any recommendations?

First post here on this forum. Happy to be here.
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atomvoyager
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Re: Looking for Good Work, Fair Price

Post by atomvoyager »

Not sure about good yards in your location. Unless you go to a known do-it-yourself yard it is very hard to find a place that is affordable and that provides consistently good service. From the yards point of view they have huge overhead and needy boats and troublesome customers. From our point of view we get ripped off. Not a good mix unless you find that rare yard that is helpful and reasonable. Sometimes the smaller yards are better.

Even if I didn't want to do the job myself I would look for a DIY yard and then get a quote for the job from either the yard if they have someone available to do the work or an independent contractor that is available to come in. Often there are competent people working on their own boat that you can hire cheap to assist you. Maybe do it all or the easy parts yourself. For example, if you have a lot of bottom paint to remove and don't want to deal with that, hire a guy to strip, sand or peel the paint off and sand the surface. Then you roll on the barrier coat and paint yourself.

There is a popular DIY yard in St Marys, GA that I and many friends have used called St Marys Boat Services:

http://www.stmarysboatservices.com/

I'm sure there are many others along the east coast. Probably several in Chesapeake.
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mbravocojr
Bottom Sanding Grunt
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2018 1:35 pm
Boat Name: La Flaca
Boat Type: Pearson Vanguard

Re: Looking for Good Work, Fair Price

Post by mbravocojr »

Thank you.

I certainly have learned a lot from this experience and the input is greatly appreciated. I'll continue my search for a good place to stop. It may turn out that St. Mary's works. I'll look into them. Where I am now I'm paid up until November and have work to finish by that time. Afterwards I'll be heading south. It seems its still a reasonable temperature to do the work in November at St. Mary's.
CapnK
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Re: Looking for Good Work, Fair Price

Post by CapnK »

Hate to hear such, cannot understand people with 'business ethics' like that, or how they manage to stay in business... Grr.

There is a DIY yard here in Georgetown, SC, at Hazzard Marina. I think they charge $12/foot for hauling and relaunching via Travelift, and that includes a pressure washing of the boat bottom.
There is a daily fee if you are DIY'er, not sure what it is, but if you contract with them to do any work, the boat stays free until they have done said work.
They are good people and trustworthy.
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