Caveat Emptor Heads Up

We were hesitant to post this but feel compelled to advise fellow members.

Feb 1st of this year we made the ill-fated decision to engage Dan Ankoma, a detailer known to some folks at QCYC, to do some “minor” gel-coat repairs and detail our boat, AVISCINIS. Long story short, what was supposed to be a relatively small project (10-12 very small gel-coat dings and exterior detailing) was turned into a major project by Dan which he was clearly incapable of managing. The end result was not at all pretty. Gel-coat residue (both sanding residue and globs of gel-coat) was everywhere including teak cap-rail and steps, cockpit cleats, lines, windows, etc. Dan also took it upon himself to expand the scope of the work well beyond what was authorized. And to make matters worse, virtually everything Dan actually did “complete” (less than 50% of the project) up to the point we fired him from the project around April 20th (yes, 2.5 months later!) had to be undone/redone by Brower Boat on Westlake. I would point out here that we found Brower Boat to be professional in their workmanship and we highly recommend Brower Boat for these types of repairs.

Bottom line: a 3 week $1800-$2000 project turned into a 3.5 month $6000 project, almost entirely due to Dan’s lack of diligence, exaggeration of his expertise and inability to manage a project. We've used various detailers in the past, including Dan, and found his work to be of average quality but acceptable given the cost. We are true believers in “you get what you pay for” and we had every reason to believe Dan could manage this project. We had hoped that during the “off-season” for this type of work, Dan would welcome the chance to make a few bucks and he was well aware of our expectations.

We were wrong…so very wrong.  Suffice it to say we will not be using Dan Ankoma in the future. Again, we gave serious thought to remaining silent on this...Caveat Emptor being the operative words to live by. Ultimately however, we felt the level of incompetence was such that we should at least make our experience known to the membership. Dan may have some level of expertise behind a Makita buffer, but he lacks the knowledge, skills and abilities to tackle much beyond that…at least from this boat owner’s perspective.