| Just for grins, I called a guy I've known for years who does marine
insurance surveys and marine accident investigations - Naval Academy
graduate, ships engineer for Lykes, etc. Here is what he told me. As the boat gets older, the chances of mechanical cable steering
failure increase, if not exponentially, by an increased factor. After
ten years, that becomes problematic even with steering systems that
have not known, or to have shown evidence of, problems. That is not
to say that it will fail or that there is something wrong with the
steering - it's the increased chance of something going icky balooky
at exactly the wrong time that increases. In his opinion, based solely on the repeated facts, that the surveyor
was correct in his call to have the steering replaced. Then he said this. Let's say that the surveyor didn't call for steering cable replacement
and the buyer purchases the boat and when leaving the marina,
experiences steering failure and runs into a multi-million dollar
yacht causing the yacht to sink. Whose fault was it - the seller or the surveyor? Or the steering fails and the boat runs up on a reef sinking the boat.
Whose fault was it? The simple truth is that you and the surveyor are in for a fun time in
a legal sense and it will probably cost a ton of money in lawyers. Simpler and cheaper to just replace the cable or to recommend
replacing the cable. That way, if the buyer elects to purchase the
boat without replacing the cable, it's his responsibility. So there you have it. |
