Nobody issues a licence to survey yachts in the US. As The Log's attorney column puts it, marine surveyors aren't regulated by any government agency, and anyone can hang up a sign. What decides whether you get work is who will accept your reports: insurers, lenders, brokers and the buyers they advise. Most of them want to see experience and membership of a recognised body.
So you build two things, in order: a working knowledge of boats and their systems, then the record and credentials that show clients you have it.
Where surveyors come from
Read how working surveyors got started, in How surveyors got into the job, and the same backgrounds keep turning up:
- Boat trades. Boatbuilders, yard hands, engine mechanics, riggers. Norm LeBlanc, a past SAMS president, told Soundings he'd been a sailmaker and rigger and had rebuilt engines and done fibreglass and woodwork before he surveyed his first boat.
- Professional crew. Yacht captains and engineers who know how boats are run and what fails at sea.
- Design and engineering. Naval architects and marine engineers, often working for a class society or a regulator first.
- Career changers. People from other industries who come in through a surveying school and an apprenticeship. It works, and it takes longer.
Step 1: learn boats with your hands
LeBlanc's advice to people who want to survey was to cover all the areas you possibly can, and that general work in a good yacht yard covers almost everything. A surveyor's report covers hull, rig, engines, electrics, plumbing, gas and safety gear, and you're judged on the system you know least.
If you already work in a trade, widen it. If you're coming from outside, a few seasons in a yard teaches what a course can't: what a wet core sounds like and how a sterndrive comes apart.
Step 2: learn the standards
Surveyors judge boats against standards: ABYC and the federal rules in 33 CFR in the US, ISO and the Recreational Craft Directive in Europe. LeBlanc relied on annual ABYC courses for electrical and plumbing. ABYC's own certifications cover marine systems, electrical, corrosion, engines and fuel systems and the ABYC standards themselves, with multiple-choice exams that stay valid for 5 years.
Our standards pages explain what each one asks for in plain words, and the findings library shows how each defect is judged and written up.
Step 3: work under a surveyor
Most surveyors learned the job beside another one. Tarn Kelsey, writing in Good Old Boat, was in boat service and repair when he helped a surveyor with a sea trial. When he asked that surveyor about a surveying course, he was told to hold off. Two days later the surveyor asked him to become his apprentice.
An apprenticeship, formal or not, is where you learn the parts no book covers: what to say to a seller standing beside you, and how to write a finding a buyer can act on. Ask local surveyors whether they take assistants, and offer to carry the ladder.
Step 4: take a course
Courses help most when you already know boats. LeBlanc told Soundings the surveying courses he knew of were generally for people already working in the marine trades, a way to focus on what they'll do as surveyors.
The IIMS Professional Qualification in Yacht and Small Craft Marine Surveying is studied by distance learning: four core units and four specialist units of your choice, with two years to finish, at a level the IIMS calls equivalent to a level 4/5 qualification. In the US, SAMS runs education courses that members take alongside their work. Our courses and certification guide compares the options.
Step 5: join a professional body
Membership is what insurers and lenders look for. Each body has a starting level for surveyors still building experience:
- SAMS takes surveyors who don't yet meet the AMS requirements as Surveyor Associates, after reviewing a CV and survey reports from each year of experience. Accredited Marine Surveyor needs at least five years of surveying within the past ten and a written exam.
- NAMS has three levels, Apprentice, Associate and Certified Marine Surveyor. Every applicant needs a sponsor who is a NAMS-CMS or retired life member, and goes through screening and an ethics test. CMS candidates also sit the NAMS-CMS test.
- IIMS, based in the UK and international, awards its own distance learning qualifications as well as membership.
- YDSA, in the UK, assesses the reports you submit as part of membership. See becoming a surveyor in the UK.
Step 6: get insured and set up
Most clients and bodies expect professional indemnity insurance. YDSA requires its members to hold it, and Australia's regulator asks for proof of cover before it accredits a surveyor. Add a standard survey contract, a report format and the tools. The surveyor's kit covers what to carry and how to read a moisture meter.
Step 7: start with the surveys you know
Begin with the boats and survey types closest to your background: an engine mechanic with engine surveys and small powerboats, a rigger with sailing yachts. Insurance and condition surveys on smaller boats are where many surveyors build the report record that accreditation asks for.
Write every report as if it will be read in court one day, because some will be. Each finding needs the location, what you saw, why it matters and what to do, with a priority. Our marine survey report guide and report templates show the structure clients expect.
Outside the US
The steps are much the same elsewhere, with local bodies and, for commercial vessels, sometimes a regulator. See becoming a marine surveyor in the UK, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Singapore, in Spain, in France and in Italy.