We completed the survey, lift-out, and sea trial yesterday on a 1998 405 Aft Cabin (7.4 Horizon engines, Kohler 10 kw genny). I won’t have the written report for another couple days. The Surveyor spent about an hour with me, one-on-one, after the survey answering my questions, and discussing systems, condition, and recommendations. I was pleased with the process and look forward to the written report.

This is my first boat survey, but I draw somewhat of a comparison to a home inspection in that the surveyor/inspector is following a protocol and should be very detailed.

A few pleasant surprises:

- All fuel tanks are operational. Port/Stdb were full and Genny was operating from Port (Might have been Std, don’t remember), engines were operating from Aft/Aux tank and it was half full at the beginning of the sea trial.
- Both HVACs had been replaced, didn’t see the manufacture date but it will be in the report.
- Engines and genny were recently serviced, fluids, ignition, etc. and there was little difference between hour meter and ECM hour meter (hour meter had a few more hours than ECM, but I expected that).
- Slow cruise, (my definition, guess maybe it’s Hull speed?) 12 mph/2k rpm. WOT 4800 rpm/31 mph.
- Bottom paint less than 1 year old and bottom was clean.

It’ll probably be another week or so before the transaction is completed.

I don’t understand why there’s not fuel flow meters at the helm, but guess thats normal? So one mod/addition at the top of my list is a new chartplotter/mfd with fuel flow sensors and engine ECM integration via NMEA 2000 network.

Thanks to many of you for your threads on various topics and detailed discussions. Reading for hours on end about many topics on this Forum is how I derived a list of written questions to ask the surveyor.