I am a new member

[ranger]

Hi to all,

My name is Steve my wife Bev and myself have just started getting interested in buying a narrow boat. We live near to the Leeds/Liverpool and really don't know where to start and what is the best boat to get. I know this is down to budget the more money the better the boat. But where do you start and how do you make the choice of which or who make the best boats or with my budget who did make the best boats. I thought maybe a smallish boat to begin with will I get one in good condition for between 15 to 20 thousand?

Any way hello to all I will carry on reading topics already posted see what tips I can pick up.

Thanks Steve

[pwl]

Get a copy of The Narrowboat Builder's Book by Graham Booth. It is a good insight into planning and fitting out a boat and is also useful even if you are going to buy second hand.

 

P

[andywatson]

Get a copy of The Narrowboat Builder's Book by Graham Booth. It is a good insight into planning and fitting out a boat and is also useful even if you are going to buy second hand.

 

P

I agree. FYI the ISBN is 1-870002-71-7. £14.99 published by Waterways World.

 

Better still if you can lay hands on one is The New Inland Boat Owners Book.

I've got the old Andy Burnett one but I think there's an updated version edited by G Booth.

Probably easier to find in a chandlery than a bookshop.

[bottle]

Hi Steve

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

For us it all started with hiring a boat, silly move caught the bug, we hired for a few years going at the end and beginning of the season, cheaper and the idea was to try to put us off living aboard. Did not work.

 

If you have not hired yet, try, before you spend out on a boat.

 

Read a few of the magazines, get out on the towpath and talk to existing boaters, we are usually friendly and if you happen to mention that you are thinking of getting a boat, lots of advice will be forth coming, you may even get invited aboard.

 

Do search, peruse this forum if the answer is not there ask, we will either answer or point you in the right direction.

 

This link will search the site, probably better than the inbuilt one CWF search

[Machpoint005]

Hi Steve and welcome.

 

If you are seriously looking to buy, be prepared to trawl through a number of web sites and then spend weekends travelling all over the country looking at real boats. There's no substitute for seeing them in the flesh. This forum can tell you all sorts of things about what to look for, what to avoid, and so on, but get involved and you will pick a lot up yourselves.

 

I'd suggest you think about...

 

(1) Size of boat: narrow or widebeam, but probably narrow if you want to go anywhere; length: the shorter, the cheaper, both in terms of purchase and running costs, as a lot of things are priced 'by the foot'

 

(2) Cruiser, semi-trad or trad stern (and all variations thereon): all have their supporters and denigrators, as you will see from the forum!

 

(3) Engine: modern diesel or vintage engine

 

(4) Internal layout: conventional or 'back to front'; corridor style or full-width bathroom

 

That's plenty to be going on with. Go and look at some!

[StoneHenge]

You have had some great advice already.

 

We started with the hiring bug and it went from there.

 

Things to bear in mind if you are seriously considering live on the water. Do all of the suggested things by the other posters, but do try and be on a boat for some time if you can over a winter period. It's very nice when we get good weather, all the wildlife is around, flowers etc, but winter is very different so make sure you consider all the other 'non rosy' aspects as well.

 

Filling up with water in a gale force wind is no fun. The great pump out loo versus cassette looo debate always brings some responses and needs careful thought. Size of boat depending on whether you want to expand the family at some point and can live on a smaller boat.

 

Some prefer bigger, some smaller, it's really personal to you if you can afford the bigger license fee, mooring fees, more to maintain and all that jazz.

 

However, having said all of those things, I wouldn't swap it for the world!

[Digitalis]

Hi and Welcome

 

We have been doing all of that looking for 5 years now and its all just coming to fruition we move on to

our boat on the 12th June to live aboard and continually cruise.

We have loved all off the shows even tho we almost drowned in mud at the IWA at St Ives last august, and

were cleared out of crick after ten minutes on Monday, and all the ones before those, we have loved them all, its a good job about Monday really, as I might have seen a boat that had something that I would have been thinking and moaning at poor hubby, "ahh I need that" or " I want that one"

and since we finished work I've had plenty of time to hang around on this site,in the pub, watching the old hands scrapping about there differerences of

opinions, its great fun.

Good Luck

[grahoom]

Hi to all,

My name is Steve my wife Bev and myself have just started getting interested in buying a narrow boat. We live near to the Leeds/Liverpool and really don't know where to start and what is the best boat to get. I know this is down to budget the more money the better the boat. But where do you start and how do you make the choice of which or who make the best boats or with my budget who did make the best boats. I thought maybe a smallish boat to begin with will I get one in good condition for between 15 to 20 thousand?

Any way hello to all I will carry on reading topics already posted see what tips I can pick up.

Thanks Steve

 

 

hello,

 

I bought a 40 foot boat, in (what I deem) good condition for just shy of 20K. This was last november. There are plenty of boats on the market, so my suggestion is to go out and have a look at as many as you can bare to look at. There are plenty of brokers out there who will let you spend some time having a look at what they have for sale.

[pwl]

The other thing you can do is go to local brokerages and just look over the boats they have for ideas. It will give you ideas on size and fitout. We had been hiring large boats (55+ feet) for just the two of us. When we found a candidate we deliberatly looked at smaller boats at the same price and decided a larger (64 foot) that needed work for us was a better buy than a 40 foot pristine boat. If a new build it will stilll give you an idea of what you want size wise, stern design (trad, semi or cruiser) etc. You get what you pay for and you can exchange your time for money i.e work you do v paying someone which is why we went for a refit project to get the length we wanted within budget. Fitout also depends on if you intend to live abaord or use as a holiday boat. Also check out the cost of (and availability of) mooring in the area you intend to keep it unless you inted to go liveaboard continuous cruising. A usefull resource (other than this forum) is http://www.canaljunction.com/ as it list lots of builders, surveyors, chandlers etc. If you go second hand use your own surveyor and try and be there at the survey.

 

Good luck.

 

P

Edited May 29, 2008 by pwl

[ranger]

Thank you all for your info a lot to think about I will try a hire boat however the quite life looks good to me and being able too move to other areas.

Thanks steve

[Windjammer]

Look through the online brokerages to get a feel for prices.

Read as much as you can about the subject.

TBH I think you will learn as much on forums as you will from the waterways mags.

[FadeToScarlet]

At the moment, interesting things are happenning with the boat market, due to the credit crunch; it is getting harder and harder to get an unsecured personal loan so a marine mortgage might be the way to go. For that, you'll need enough money for a deposit, and a mooring too.

 

My partner and I have recently bought a boat; here's the process we went through:

 

-Firstly, we researched. We've got a number of friends who lived aboard, and we had many long chats with them about it. We also stayed on their boat, whilst they were away, to get a feel for boating. I know how cold it can get in an unheated back cabin!

 

-This pretty much took the place of hiring a boat; we decided that, being practical kind of people who don't mind doing things like emptying portaloos and getting our hands dirty, that we'd be able to tolerate boating life. I see it as a boat first and foremost, and a house second- it's a lot more complicated than a house and you have to think about everything. Electricity doesn't just come out of the sockets, you have to have charged batteries etc; you need to have enough water for a shower etc...

 

-At the same time, we also looked at the two big waterways magazines, "Canal Boat" and "Waterways World" every month. "Canals and Rivers" has a useful "Brokers" section detailing boats for sale, so that's worth a look for that alone really. We found out about the different types of boats, how boat systems worked, different manufacturers and a lot of different information.

 

-At about that time, we went to Whilton Marina. Whilton is pretty good for seeing a LOT of different types of boat; you can literally give them your name and address and they'll hand over the keys, and they've got a wide selection of boats. This way, you can actually see for yourself the differences between a 40' boat and a 60' boat, the different types of stern, different layouts inside, and all the rest.

 

-Having done that, we drew up a specification for the ideal boat for us:

 

45' long plus- two of us living aboard, so this is the popularly recokoned minimum length for two; ideally 50' +

Reasonably habitable- not an empty shell, but prepared to get a boat with some work that needs doing.

Ideally a trad stern for maximum living space, but the other two types considered.

Fixed double bed- no faffing with making up beds

Solid fuel stove

Space for guests- either space for an air mattress in the saloon, or a futon or fold-up guest bed

Oven, hob, proper galley

Inverter for on-board electrics

Bathroom with shower and cassette/pumpout

Space for books and a study

Engine room- or way of getting at the engine in the dry, so maintenance can be done in the dry even when it's really raining down!

Less than £30,000.

 

-This seemed like a pretty big ask. There were very few boats out there that had all these features. We found that we could get a long, big boat in poor internal condition, or a nicely fitted out boat that was on the short side.

 

-When looking at boats, it helps to know the market. There is a finite number of boats available in any price bracket, and it IS possible to know them all!

 

-We kept a spreadsheet with the details of all the boats that we saw and that were suitable on them, crossing them off as they got sold. We rated each one and always had a few favourites so we could move in quickly!

 

-We got a shock, seeing that our favourite boat- "Just Maggie II" at Whilton- was featured in "Canal Boat" magazine, so we decided to look seriously for boats a few months earlier than planned.

 

-Just Maggie turned out to be not exactly ideal, as it needed a LOT of work done to it; so we moved on down the list, viewing boats.

 

-When viewing a boat, be cautious. If you're seeing it with the buyer there, don't be too positive; if they get the impression that you really like the boat, then they'll be more inflexible when it comes to haggling as they know you want it. Similarly, don't be too negative- they'll be put off.

 

-It's worth having a thorough look at the boats you like, with a camera and notebook if necessary. A boat that looks ideal on paper can turn out to be not-so-good in real life.

 

-Look at all the details given. When was the last full survey done? Can you see the results? When was the hull last blacked? When was the engine serviced? Whe did the servicing- the owner's mate Dave down at the garage, or a "proper" certified boatyard? Try and get as much details as possible, and don't be afraid of asking awkward questions. Any genuine seller will be happy to answer them; don't forget, they need the sale! If they're reluctant to answer questions, or are evasive, then that's a sign that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark. Conversely, an honest, open owner with no reservations and the ability to put all his or her cards on the table and say, "yes, it was serviced because X, Y and Z was wrong, it's been fine ever since" is an absolute blessing.

 

-We saw the boat we particularly liked, and made an offer subject to survey the very next day.

 

-Making an offer is the tricky part. Don't be afraid to make an offer that's lower than the asking price- if the owner doesn't like it, they'll say "no". Haggling is all part and parcel of boat buying. A canny owner will probably have put the boat on the market at a price higher than what they actually expect to get for it; you can expect to knock some money off at least, although it does all depend upon the owner and their situation! If the boat's been on the market for a LONG time, for example, they might be willing to accept a VERY cheeky offer! You never know. The owner will generally have a price that they've worked out, below which it becomes uneconomic to sell the boat. So offers for a boat for sale for £23,000 might actually be accepted at £20,000.

 

-Having had the offer accepted, the next job was to sort finance. We'd previously had good things from banks and loan providers, but when it came to officially applying for a loan they said "no"- so we got a marine mortgage instead.

 

-Having had the offer accepted, you need to have the boat out of the water and have a survey done. You look through the lists of surveyors (advertised in the magazines, on the net etc.) and, having got quotes from them, arrange to have them come and look at your boat. You will pay for their time and travel. You'll also have to pay a boatyard to have the boat taken out of the water- surveying is expensive, but it can stop you making an expensive mistake! Better to have a £800 survey to tell you that the boat's rubbish and that you shouldn't buy it at that price, or to show faults that mean you won't continue with the sale, than buying the boat and having the faults come up later!

 

-Having had the survey done, the surveyor will tell you what they believe the boat to be worth. Hopefully this will tally with what you have offered; you can always negociate further to get the final price.

 

-Once accepted, you have to transfer the money and paperwork. DOn't forget to sort out licenses and all the other kit and kaboodle that goes with the boat!

 

And that's it....

 

www.fadetoscarlet.blogspot.com has a lot more detail on the process that we went through, pictures etc., and the spreadsheet and all the stuff.

 

Happy boat hunting!

 

Edited to say: Don't feel shy about using the forums, either! We joined when we were at the same stage as you are now, and I can say that it really does help. There's a lot of knowledge floating round, and obviously different opinions- it can help you to get a far better understanding of the whole process, and to have queries about boats answered. FOr example, we were looking at a few boats which had wooden superstructures on steel hulls. We found out, from the forum, where the problems would be and where to look when examining a boat, to find out the varying pros and cons, and to get more details.

Edited May 29, 2008 by FadeToScarlet

[wrigglefingers]

Hello Steve and welcome to the forum,

 

I joined the forum at pretty much the same point as you and I've had some great help, particularly as I struggle with the thinking aloud syndrome and responses from other boaters help to refine my thought processes. Hiring in winter is a good idea if you're planning to live aboard all year round. Ellen and I discovered that while we loved it, my ex-partner hated it (with a passion too). The search facility is a great help in most cases but it's worth remembering my Dad's saying: 'one boat, two people, at least three opinions'!

 

Go with what you think is right, don't be rushed by anybody and don't worry about asking seemingly idiotic questions - we were all learners at some point and some of us still are ........

 

Good luck,

 

Shep

[ranger]

Thank you all for your replies and information that was a good one FadeToScarlet.

Steve

[interleaf2]

Thank you all for your info a lot to think about I will try a hire boat however the quite life looks good to me and being able too move to other areas.

Thanks steve

I really think hiring first is essential to work out what your personal likes and dislikes are. That applies to the boat and the waterway too. The costs of making the wrong decision in buying a boat are much higher than the cost of a week's hire. And take your time!