Some Recent Thermal Images from Surveys

To me those are mostly pretty pictures, because I don't understand a lot of what I'm looking at , but I can definitely see the value of this in suyey and diagnostics work. In fact I'll probably request it in the next survey I'm involved with. Good technology.

If you don't you had better make **** sure the guy holding the camera and writing the report does.

You will find that many if not most of the "surveyors" selling thermographic analysis don't have a clue what they are looking at much less what it means n real life.

You should know by now that I research and learn about things rather than just trusting what a tech of any kind says. I'm a person who's never ashamed to say 'explain it in a way that I understand'. If I weren't my boss would right now be spending 3K for a voltage booster he doesn't need.

Good, because I can assure you that it is a piece of cake to teach a competent marine engineer to capture and analyze a thermographic image but it is a fool's errand to attempt to teach a toy boat surveyor to not just capture the image but know what he is looking at and what it means in context.

The invading hordes of thermographers who gave up selling mold surveys to gullible homeowners are preparing to descend on the boatyards next.

Nothing new there. Boaters are notorious for buying the latest and greatest piece of c---. Fortunately I don't see many more surveys in my future.

Toys

Remember there are lot of pretty big "toy boats" out there and would you consider anybody with less than a combined unlimited Chief Engineers certificate "competent" ?

Of course.

To the OP: What exactly is a "phenolic camera"?

Toys

The kind that toy boat surveyors use

Good question.

So, I asked GOOGLE:

Google

Too funny.

You've said the c word.


The thermal picture is only the final part, the documentation, of the analysis.
Know what you are looking at, what you are expecting, what failure modes you are searching for. Take environment variables like temperature and surface material and finish into account. If it is a machine, how long has it been operating. And so on and so forth.

Not take a look with the thermal camera from all kinds of angles. One you find interesting stuff verify what it actually is. (Is it a hot spot on the exhaust pipe or spot of black paint on the polished stainless?)

Then set markers and take the picture. Take normal pictures too, and a heap of notes. Then write the report.

Yes indeed. The Google search result adds an interesting dimension to this posting. This exact same thread is repeated verbatim on quite a few other boating forums. Perhaps there is an underlying agenda?

Hi,

And it could well be called Self Promotion, the poster wondering if some worried Owner will contact them via PM to get that special survey that could save them from their in laws this thanksgiving.

Seems to be a lot of that going around lately. There is a guy on a Marine Propulsion forum who has posted a series of infomercials harping on the extreme danger of letting anyone except a NASA certificated thermographer look at your switchboards.

He even went so far as to detail how he found a hot fuse on a Naval satellite tracking vessel just in time to prevent the US from being obliterated by a missile that would have sneaked past them when the fuse blew.

The home inspection business must be slow this season.

Toys

Was at a survey on a larger Searay sedan bridge when the buyer had hired a toy boat surveyor to carry out a hull thermal imaging inspection and another surveyor for the rest of the boat.

The buyer had brought along six of his buddies to see the process and they were all experienced boat owners.

The one surveyor with the camera was telling everybody how great it was and would find any problems and his equipment cost over $10,000 and when the other surveyor was asked what special tools he had, he replied he did have a $2 phenolic hammer (yes a hammer, not a camera).

2 hours later and after measuring distances from the boat to set his camera up on a tripod "as that was one of the most important requirements" and disappearing under a cloak to see the images he announced that this was one of the best sedan bridges he had ever surveyed (2 years as a surveyor at the time).

As an after thought the buyer turned to the other surveyor and asked what he thought, he replied "the camera certainly looked fancy however there are hundreds of small blisters all over the underwater hull areas"

The buyer walked away having spent $1200 with the specialist, the seller sent the boat back to Searay who lined it up next to the numerous others sitting up at Merritt Island being repaired and he got it back 4 months later and sold it 18 months after that for $110,000 below the original selling price.

I have to agree with Marmot, way to many toy boat surveyors buy equipment and put themselves out as "experts" but at the same time there are numerous surveyors who can be trained in there use as well as competent marine engineers.

Would you hire a hull surveyor who bought a lap top and the software to inspect an engine(s) but who never had any proper training, had never rebuilt an engine and had no idea on how to read the information he downloaded but could plug his lap top in.

Hi,

I would not but as I see it as an ever increasing part of the world today as is the current trend towards get the Tickets as fast as possible amongst mega yacht crew which is definitely lowering the standards to something I find quite alarming.



I am sure that some "management" companies tell the clients how much they are saving and force the wages down by employing people with the ink still wet on their tickets and sea time testimonials when things go wrong these same managers run to the Owner and either blame the crew or put it down to an operational expense of running a yacht.

Thanks Eric. You've saved me some legwork. The OP is poof!

I sure wish I had some influence over which engineers got hired. I can't begin to tell how many over the past few years were hired by captains because they were buddies of the captain and would keep their mouth shut. Some of them even turned out to have fake tickets. A newly issued real one with wet ink would have been a wonderful thing as far as owner and management liability is concerned.

When it all goes sideways as it always does eventually, we have to fight the captain to get rid of the pretender and then try to explain to the owner that his taking the side of the master of ceremonies was not a wise decision in the first place.

Poor captains who depend on even poorer engineers to help blow smoke up the owner's butt are a threat to the entire industry and the number of them is growing.

I wish more than anything that I could name names and tell the full stories.

Given the caliber of yachtsman out there today and what their priorities are in choosing a boat I'd say they're all pretty well met.