Sun Coast Marine Surveying & Consulting

Poor customer service inadequate survey
On jan. 22, 2014 I had J. Chet Stevens survey for purchase my Moody 47. He showed up with his FLIR gun, mallet, and flashlight and proceeded to basically miss every major defect on the boat. I have to say his 100 page book with pictures and arrows was most impressive. He spent all day tapping and Fliring the hull and checking the systems out. The only problem was that all the major systems he checked were in reality bad.
For example on page 13 of 99 he stated that both moisture readings and percussion hammer testing showed no evidence of delamination or blisters were found. Less than five months later during haul out at Embree marine in St Pete massive amounts of blisters were found.
On page 19 of 99 he states he found some voids and says one small area on the rudder needed repair. Embree Marine rebuilt the whole bottom half of the rudder– not one small area.
On page 27 of 99 he tested the windlass using the bow switches and cockpit switch. He noted that the up bow up switch did not work which is great. However he ran out six feet of chain and said all is well but the other 200 feet of chain was welded together in a large rusted pile that took all day to beat out with a five pound sledge.
On page 49 of 99 he states that the single sideband powers up, however he did not try to transmit. Unfortunately, turns out it does not transmit due to a bad ground, oops.
On page 51 of 99 he has the hour meter which shows the same numbers as two previous surveys and did not change after sea trails.
On page 63 of 99 he mentions showers but he did not test sump pumps for showers which did not work for both showers.
On page 66 of 99 we get to the batteries. He says they are all well secured which is true. He states that the five batteries in the main salon are fully charged. Then he goes on about the engine start batteries in the aft sleeping berth and how they read 6.6 volts. It turns out every battery in the boat were wired in series and the aft batteries had No water in them and were totally dead, all of them. All it would have taken to find this out was to pull one cap on one battery.
On page 75 of 99 he goes on about the generator, again the hour meter has not changed through three previous surveys that were available. Also he states the generator started without any excess cranking which is not true as I was there. It turns out the generator had less than 45% of compression when tested. Once it did start it did work. The main engine was less than 50% when it was tested but it did start and run.
I ended up replacing the engine, generator, steering system, all the anchor chain, one ac system, all the batteries and charging system.
I asked Mr. Stevens to update the survey after I had completed above repairs for insurance purposes, paid him and then got a half done update of the original survey with a few things changed. He didnt even change the date on the cover sheet. I supplied him with all the paper work from Embree Marine to the tune of $ 75,000.00 plus a list of all materials put into to the boat and as of today I have received nothing from him. After contacting him a number of times, he finally told me he didnt have time to redo the survey, yet he had time to cash my check. I also had my insurance agent contact him several times to try to get what we needed and had paid for but again nothing.
In conclusion all I can say is that Mr. Stevens should not be allowed to be within a hundred feet
of a boat with his mallet and flir gun. He has a template on his computer that he fills in with a few pictures and descriptions but I do not think this man, no matter what his background, should be allowed to do what he does.
Bill White