Michigan Maritime Museum, South Haven, Michigan

INSPECTING Wooden BOATS

Developing a trained eye for boats.

To be truly qualified to survey wooden boats and yachts requires a tremendous diversity of experience and expertise. David Jackson has spent years working on boats before hanging out his surveyor’s shingle. David has years of building, repair, and operation experience and has earned a stellar reputation in the marine surveying business.

You will go through boats from keel to truck learning how to look, where to look. You will focus on wooden hull design and construction, the hows and whys of success and failure. You will explore the methods for detection of current and potential problems with rot, corrosion, fractures, and joint failures—how they might be fixed, and how they could have been prevented. You will learn to look at boats in differing terms of the owner, the potential buyer, and the insurer. The course will also touch upon engines, electrical systems, sails and rigging. And you'll discuss the actual business of surveying—writing reports, liability, dealing with owners and brokers.

Our surveying courses have been very popular since WoodenBoat School began back in 1981. Students range from insurance agents with an obvious need to understand what makes a boat safe, to boatyard managers and brokers wishing to provide better customer service and more accurate estimates, to amateurs with shopping plans in mind, to USCG inspectors, and—of course—to people currently working, or thinking of working, in this demanding profession. This particular course is ideally suited for practicing marine surveyors who may need more information on traditional and non-traditional wood construction.

Tuition: $700