Displeasure Over Repair Bill Leads to Boat Law

A year ago, Brent Clingman was just another guy with a pleasure boat who felt he had been jobbed by a repairman.

When the San Diego man brought his prized 22-foot powerboat in to a mechanic for engine work, the written estimate came to about $2,100. But when the bill arrived, Clingman was stunned. The repair tab had inflated to $4,989.

Instead of simply shrugging it off and paying the bill, Clingman decided to get even.

The 31-year-old San Diego man began a crusade for state legislation requiring boat-repair facilities to stick by their written estimates of the cost for repairs. On Monday, Gov. George Deukmejian signed the bill into law.

As Clingman sees it, his victory is proof that “the little guy can win.”

And it should be good news for San Diego County’s 44,000 recreational boat owners. Clingman maintains that the legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego), will help curb abuses by an industry that is every bit as notorious as its counterpart on dry land.

“I think it’s about time that people have rights as regards marine repair,” Clingman said. “I think I could probably count on one hand the number of reputable dealers in San Diego County.”

A free-lance photographer, Clingman is an avid boater who generally is out on the high seas when he isn’t shooting pictures for Time magazine or other publications. With that strong nautical interest, he often comes across fellow sailors with complaints.

On one occasion, Clingman asked 29 recreational boaters attending a Coast Guard auxiliary meeting whether they had suffered abuses at the hands of boat repairmen. Twenty-six hands shot up.

Stirling agrees that the marine repair business seems to have “a few bad apples that make them all look bad.” And while the assemblyman acknowledged that the vessel-repair law may not have been a high-profile piece of legislation in Sacramento, he insisted that it will prove helpful in California. With more than 650,000 registered vessels in the state, about the only thing outnumbering boats along the California seashore are bikinis.

“We all take for granted that if we’re given an estimate for repairs, that’s what we’re going to be charged,” Stirling said. “For thousands of boat owners to not have that kind of protection was just not right.”

Although Stirling recalls several examples of boaters being taken by unscrupulous repairmen, Stirling said Clingman’s episode was by far “the most outrageous example” of consumer fraud.

According to Clingman, the repairman at first refused to explain why the bill had risen by nearly $3,000 over the original estimate. Finally, after Clingman’s lawyer put pressure on, the repair facility released a breakdown of the costs.

Clingman was outraged with what he saw. The tally showed that the repair facility had charged him for parts that could not even fit on his boat’s engine and labor that was unnecessary, Clingman said.

Clingman said the law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, will have its greatest impact on sailors who tow their vessels on trailers to repair facilities. In such cases, a boat owner may find his vessel impounded “behind chain-link fences with snarling guard dogs” if a dispute arises with a repairman over a bill, he said.

Before, a sailor’s only recourse was to pay the bill, then go back and sue the repairman over discrepancies in the bill, an action that most boat owners avoid because of the high cost of litigation, Clingman said.

Now, however, the boater will have the law on his side, he said. Repairmen will be required to provide written estimates and stick to them. In addition, the mechanic will have to get permission from the owner of a vessel before repairs are made beyond those called for in an estimate. And if the repair facility did not comply with the written estimate, it would forfeit any right to exercise a lien on the vessel.

Boat repair people say the new law will have little effect on their operations, mainly weeding out those facilities that are unethical.

Bob McGarty, owner of the Boat Docktor Shelter Island, said the cost of engine work is generally easy to estimate. But the price tag for mending some problems, such as dry rot in wooden sections of boats, cannot be accurately predicted, he said.

“For that kind of thing, it’d be impossible to give a firm bid,” McGarty said. “We make it plain that what we’re giving the customer is a ‘guesstimate’ and may be subject to change.”

Clingman said hikes in price are fine--as long as they’re justified.

“It’s really a problem when you have repair businesses that are ripping people off,” he said, noting how such occurences sometimes prompt boat owners to undertake repairs that are best handled by an expert.