How to be a yacht/sailing boat surveyor?

Become a used car salesman first. No experience required.

I would say it in a bit more friendly way ,

It is a long, long way from an admin worker in a yacht broker office to an qualified marine surveyor, even on smaller sail boats, especially living in your part of this globe. I do not believe, the required education and training can be provided in Asia at all.

The minimum qualification would be, moving to some typical boat building country, have serious training in boat building (GRP, wood and metal) and marine type machinery from the beginning and in different yards, get a skipper licence or at least an engineering licence for the type and size of boat, you want to survey.

When comming home, start working with or for an well established marine surveyor to learn his business and only then start your own business, if at all. Up to this point, I would estimate a time frame of 3 to 5 years minimum, if you are really good.

Sorry, but that is in my opinion the way this business works.

Unfortunately, as HTM alludes there isn't a singular accepted path nor specific training and it's not regulated under one licensing body. Therefore, it's not as easy as saying to go to this school and get this license.

There are also multiple types of surveyors. There are small craft surveyors, insurance surveyors, government surveyors, classification surveyors, cargo surveyors. There are organizations for accreditation such as NAMS and SAMS and many more. There are limited formal programs. Chapman's offers some in the US, IIMS in the UK, and closest to you, the Australasian Institute of Marine Surveyors offers training. Here is a link to their program.

http://www.aimsurveyors.com.au/index.php/training-accreditation#nationally-accredited-training

Also, here is their course outline:

MARM5001A Calculate, assess and report on vessel trim and stability MARM5002A Conduct a range of surveys on domestic commercial vessels MARM5003A Conduct an audit of safety management systems MARM5004A Develop marine survey reports
MARM5005A Participate in investigating marine incidents
MARM5006A Survey hull and superstructure of a commercial vessel MARM5007A Survey vessel operational systems
MARM5008A Undertake a periodic statutory survey
MARM5009A Establish a marine surveyor practice
PUALAW003B Give evidence in a judicial or quasi-judicial setting

Surveyors come from a variety of directions. Some just have worked for other surveyors and often that's the best route, just to gain employment as a trainee with a surveyor. Others were Masters or Engineers. There are courses available to both of those along the way in boat construction and in engines but not a lot of emphasis in surveying. Naval Architecture is an excellent path of preparation and many of the maritime university programs offer courses. But for the most part this isn't a single path profession.

I might suggest you start by talking to other surveyors in your area and finding out the paths they took. Then I'd suggest learning as much as you can about boats and boating and I think licensing of some sort in a maritime position, whether captain or engineer is helpful. From there some specialized courses. I'd say take a formal college program in naval architecture, but then with that knowledge and skill I doubt you'd want to be a marine surveyor, but you'd probably want to use it differently.

The surveyor organizations in the US typically emphasize experience working for surveyors but not formal training and that's unfortunate, in my opinion. Several of them do have examinations. As a result you find excellent well trained surveyors, and you find others who have simply done their time but clearly lack the knowledge and skills.

Sorry if misunderstood. I was not talking about attending specific courses for gaining any licence or certificate. I was just talking about gaining the necessary basic knowledge first. You can only evaluate and check something, if you know how it works and mostly how it is build. How will you otherwise discriminate good quality from bad.

It is like becoming a maritime pilot. You have to be a qualified and experienced commercial master before telling other captains how to operate their ship in a specific area of the seven seas.

The official licence and the way of obtaining it, is different in any specific country in the world and beyond the scope of this question.

I was addressing both a bit but also pointing out the lack of a clear path and requirements.

HTM09, you're an optimist. Unfortunately for many surveyors the only requirement is a good lawyer to write their disclaimer. As with captains, although we're licensed, reputation is everything and the person who ignores that does so at his own peril. I recently had a (no charge) client ignore my recommendation that he not use a surveyor recommended by the broker. My client was disuaded from having a motor survey or even a scoping, but fortunately the broker gave him pictures from a recent warranty job on the motor. To my client the motor was very pretty in the pics, lol. Although the surveyor did disclose the boat's defects he came away still sold on buying the boat. I magnified the pics and saw exactly what I'd warned him of because the motor didn't have enough hours. Corrosion on the pistons and valves, and one of the valves was chipping. (another client of mine ate the same motor from the same cause after 13 hours of running). Thankfully the magnified pics killed the deal.

So to the OP, most jurisdictions I know of have no required training, licensing or certification, but the wise consumer looks for training, experience and reputation. If you don't have those you can expect to hear from some angry customers (or their lawyers) dispite any disclaimers. I'd be a lot more comfortable with a surveyor who was also a working Master, boat-builder, mechanic or engineer than one coming from selling boats.

Hi NYCAP,

If you ask google to translate the word surveyor into German, it says Sachverständiger. Which means, a mind with special knowledge. If you then ask google to translate the German word Sachverständiger into English, it says Expert.

If in my country one of those experts works in court, for (or against ) insurances or any other type of official duties, for example underwrites and stamps the seaworthiness, airworthiness or roadworthiness of any kind of vehicle, he needs to be certified and gets sworn in. And may God help him, if he screws up due to negligence or even worse, partisanship. He will go to jail for years. Thats why we call them independent sworn experts.

Nuff said.