Worth going outside the US for refit work?

[zigzag930]

I am considering taking our 58LRC down to Guatemala to have refit work done on her.

Why? I'm tired of paying for sub-par quality of work here in Florida at $120-150/hr. I'm on the West Coast and haven't had a good experience yet with any of the yards over here.

This is a list of potential repairs:

- flybridge deck that is soft over the back 1/3 (under the tender), cut, recored, regales and paint
- strip the bottom and restart from scratch with interprotect and 2-3 coats of paint
- possibly paint the boat hull & superstructure
- New Bimini top, possible aluminum framed, soft top
- Dingy chaps
and a list of smaller items.

There appears to be some really nice quality work being done at some of those yards - with labor rates a small fraction of here in Florida.

I am wondering if anyone else on the forum has taken their Hat o-us to have work like this completed? If so, what was your experience?

PS, I have plenty of off-shore experience, so there won't be any issues with the trip itself - provided we get the weather window correct.

 

[bigbill]

maybe try over towards alabama, mississippi or louisiana. i know that saunders opened a big yard to compete with florida yards for bigger boats, labor is cheaper up this way is what i am told.

 

[Timeless72]

Head north. We paid average of $117 for same work in 21 and 22. Happy overall. Concerns were handled reasonably well. Some of the subs were awful but that's typical. Doing this again, i would hire a third party project manager. Yard is NEB in RI.

 

[Eddieclemons]

This Gentleman did what you are thinking, but in Mexico. Several videos on his repairs.

https://youtu.be/I5jQJr7m934

 

[Scarlett]

People in San Diego and even Orange County regularly take their boats toEnseada Mx. for work. Prices and quality are pretty good. I think more will be doing so in the future now that Safe Harbor has taken over the best yard in San Diego and raised prices on all the work. I wonder what is going to happen when they own all the marinas and boat yards in the whole country. They seem to be heading that way pretty rapidly

 

[jim rosenthal]

No kidding. Last I looked, they had taken over more than a hundred marinas- a lot more than a hundred. Doesn't bode well for competition.

 

[Pascal]

I think it s easier to look for the right yard and the right contractors than taking the boat all the way to some third world sh… hell hole. Shop around and you can find the right people doing great work at a reasonable price. Usually that means avoiding full service yards instead finding yards where you can bring your own contractors.

As to prices going up, I m not familiar with safe harbor and I hate to see rates going up but unless you believe in the liberal fairy tale it’s not about corporate greed. It’s all caused by government bureaucracy.

A month ago I got a call from my hydraulic / Stabilizer guy asking whether we did charter on the 116 or if were private. I told him we do some charters in the exumas but were mostly private. When I asked why he needed to know, he lamented that he is now required to fill out reports detailing how much work his staff does on private vessel vs commercial/charter. Takes him about a day a month…. And that’s just one example… property tax on boat yard has been going thru the roof. EPA and OSHA BS red tape is getting thicker. Diesel cost has been going up. Health insurance… everything. Not trying to defend the big massive corporate sharks but they re not why costs are going up. Unless you believe that former waitress who know goes by a three letter acronym.

 

[q240z]

I've been fairly thoroughly disgusted with the low quality of very high priced paint, wood worker, canvas, and welding contractors here in the Chesapeake. That's why I started learning how to do most of that stuff myself.

And though I've generally been complimentary toward the 'Boatamalan' paint crew that worked on my boat, that's because I bite my tongue a lot about really stupid, wasteful, and damaging things they've done over the years to my boat.

In my experience, if you're not babysitting them constantly, they'll (for example) drop open cans of paint on the deck and do a half-assed job cleaning up. That's after they destroy (e.g. cut with razors) the protective plastic layers I put down to protect my teak deck from exactly that sort of thing. Taping is hit or miss. The same crew repainted a buddy's boat...they literally taped a good sized spider's legs to a fitting, then painted over the spider. Then they pulled the tape, which means they HAD to see that they'd painted over a spider, but they didn't say a word nor did they volunteer to fix it. They also liberally use lacquer thinner, even when cleaning their overspray from acrylic switch plates...which destroys the plates. I could go on.

Can they do good work? Yes.

Can they make a helluva mess? Absolutely, yes.

Be prepared to babysit full time.

 

[piripucha]

Just be sure the country you are taking your boat to, does not have major impediments to import the materials you will use. The manpower may be capable but with out the materials they will non be competitive. Good luck

 

[zigzag930]

Yes, I heard it's a good idea to bring all the materials you can with you.

 

[rsmith]

My dad used to say “you think your the only one that can do anything?” But growing up I watched the people he hired not show up show up rip stuff apart and never come back. The worst was after he had the 34 repowered with Cats we took the boat over to the Chesapeake to get painted over the winter. Sassafras boat works was supposed to be the best paint shop then. So end of the season we ran it over from Cape May. They were going to keep it in their heated shed while they painted it over the winter. Since it was in the shed until spring we didn’t winterize anything. Come February presidents weekend I had just turned 16 and got my drivers license. Hot to go somewhere I drove down to see the boat. It was like 4 hours from where we lived in Pa. I get there everything is locked up no one around but I can see in the windows of the shed and no boat. I looked out at the pier and the boat is all the way out on the end looking half sunk with a big mustache of ice around the waterline. I get the batteries connected and the pumps running then headed to the pay phone to call the old man. He really didn’t need the phone cause I could hear him screaming all the way from Pa. The old man was a screamer, when he got mad his face turned bright red and veins popping out of his neck. I didn’t tell him at the time but the boat looked like it was painted with a broom. Brush marks everywhere and runs. We went back the next day which was president’s Monday and again no one was there thank god because I really think the old man would have killed the yard manager. We had enough fuel to get to Shaffers on the C&D canal. So we took off and my mom met us there with the car and found someone to pump fuel. It had been in the 30’s but a front went through that night and temps were dropping into the teens and the wind was howling out of the NW. wen we came out of the Sassafras we we’re taking spray every wave over the bridge. Thankfully we had a full enclosure. We had to beat on the eisenglass to knock the ice off. By the time we got to Shafers the boat was covered in ice. Back deck had 2-3” and couldn’t walk on it. The dock master came up with a bernzomatic torch so we could melt the ice off the fuel fills. The rest of the tri back to the house was uneventful. But as you can imagine the old man sued them and lost Judge said “quality of work is like beauty it’s in the eye of the beholder”

I've been fairly thoroughly disgusted with the low quality of very high priced paint, wood worker, canvas, and welding contractors here in the Chesapeake. That's why I started learning how to do most of that stuff myself.

And though I've generally been complimentary toward the 'Boatamalan' paint crew that worked on my boat, that's because I bite my tongue a lot about really stupid, wasteful, and damaging things they've done over the years to my boat.

In my experience, if you're not babysitting them constantly, they'll (for example) drop open cans of paint on the deck and do a half-assed job cleaning up. That's after they destroy (e.g. cut with razors) the protective plastic layers I put down to protect my teak deck from exactly that sort of thing. Taping is hit or miss. The same crew repainted a buddy's boat...they literally taped a good sized spider's legs to a fitting, then painted over the spider. Then they pulled the tape, which means they HAD to see that they'd painted over a spider, but they didn't say a word nor did they volunteer to fix it. They also liberally use lacquer thinner, even when cleaning their overspray from acrylic switch plates...which destroys the plates. I could go on.

Can they do good work? Yes.

Can they make a helluva mess? Absolutely, yes.

Be prepared to babysit full time.