David Lorimer

Hello electric_nan, and hats off for looking sensibly at your future costs. We expect to become liveaboards later this year, after five years of long (3-5 month) spells on board, so the exercise is of direct interest. You will probably receive many replies from more experienced boaters but here are a few thoughts: a. Mooring fees for 3-6 months look a tad high. We pay little more than that for a 57' boat in a marina near Braunston. b. Paintwork £2,000 every three years sounds very high. c. £100 for a year's worth of gas sounds very low! I'm very much looking forward to what the experts weigh in with. And good luck to you!

Lovely video, congratulations!

I said on the "what do you think" front page that volunteers are the public face of CRT and they need to be treated very well! (Edit: treated very well by CRT, I meant!)

Lovely to hear these stories, magictime and mike the b... because it reminds us that (for a change these days) there are real people at the other end of the line. And it puts all the other CRT-bashing in perspective.

I replied to the survey. On the whole I think C&RT are doing a good job; I was a bit surprised at the "how happy are you" questions but understood why and answered honestly.

David Mack, thank you. That's what I suspected, and it looks like too much work on a boat we may well be selling next year.

Back to the practicalities of replacing a pump-out system with a cassette one, I wonder if anyone here is familiar enough with Thetford cassette toilets to say how one might fit the toilet so as to easily remove the cassette itself. This is a picture of an identical bathroom to ours; the waste tank is on the other side of the bulkhead with the mirror on it, under the bed. All the diagrams of Thetford cassette toilets I've seen show the cassette being removed from the BACK of the unit, i.e. reached from the other side of a bulkhead. Is that the only way they work or can the entire unit swivel for removal?

Mike, I'm a long time out of the industry but I think those orange blobs you refer to are just launches used to transport pax and crew to shore when the ship can't actually come alongside. Evacuation at sea would more likely be via rafts - those pods you can see below the orange boats.

A sensible post at last! Agree entirely, with emphasis on "very close thing". Transferring mostly elderly persons from a ship to a boat in still water is perilous enough; doing so in a 2m swell is close to suicidal and, in the weather this ship was in, unthinkable. I do rather doubt whether any changes to safety regs will come about. Quite simply, difficult to imagine how much safer cruise shipping can be made without putting it far beyond the pockets of its market.

Alan de Enfield, quoting from fitoutpontoon?

Scary territory for buyers, particularly those of new wide beam boats with dimensions making them exempt from 20% VAT. Best to be leery of indemnity clauses where the buyer's responsible for errors and omissions concerning VAT. roland, that went over my head. Were you referring to 156 current wide beam adverts on AD and, if so, "slightly tarnished"?

Alan thanks, I get it. You've just described how my house makeover was paid for! matty40s that 5:1 ratio of wide beams to narrowboats looks more credible than 9:1. Even so, where are they all going to fit!? What are the marinas doing to accommodate them all?

Thanks for the updated replies. Alan de Enfield, thanks for the cottage industry explanation and the comment on the VAT threshold, turnover of £85,000. Although I'd be interested to meet someone who could turn out 2-3 sailaways or even shells a year and still live on what's left over! Anyway, the consensus appears to be that it continues to be a seller's market for narrowboats. But my curiosity's still piqued and I'll continue digging when we get back to the UK this summer. The logic of the SE England housing shortage fuelling demand for alternative housing is easily understandable, but there must be a bunch of other factors influencing prices. Brexit, early retirees/redudancies, homeowners cashing in on the housing shortage, and more. Something I heard in one of the narrowboating vlogs a few days ago was that a boatbuilding mate of the vlogger had told him nine out of ten boats being built today were wide beams. Exaggerated?

David Mack, are you saying that small builders don't report sales to the government? I rather think they're obliged to, irrespective of size, and that their data eventually reaches the Office for National Statistics. By the time it does reach the ONS, I'd agree with you that narrowboat data is mixed in with other types of craft. Membership in industry associations, though, is usually optional, and will involve membership fees; a small builder might prefer not to participate. The UK industry body is British Marine, who say: "BM Members represent over 75% of the UK marine industry revenue, which annually is worth in excess of £2.8 billion, of which 33.1% is exported." BM represents the UK industry and is, in turn, a member of EBI, the Europe-wide association and again in turn, of Icomia, the world federation. Look what EBI say about statistics. From: https://www.europeanboatingindustry.eu/facts-and-figures Quote The boating industry in Europe is a dynamic and competitive sector and a significant contributor to the European economy. The industry is made up of boatbuilders, engine manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, trade and service providers and consists of approximately 32,000 companies, directly employing over 280,000 people. Prior to the financial crisis, the boating industry achieved an annual average growth rate of 6% and a turnover of over 23 billion euros (today its turnover is approximately 20 billion euros). The boating industry is mainly made up of small and medium-sized enterprises (97% of businesses are SMEs) and a small number of large companies (over 1 000 employees). On its own, the boatbuilding sector consists of 3,000 companies employing over 66,000 people. The production of recreational craft is very diverse and ranges from series to one-off boats, which are built-to-order. The boating industry is also a highly internationalised sector. Traditionally, European companies have exported mainly to other countries within the EU and to the US where the export ratio is 3:1 in Europe’s favour. New markets are emerging, however, and European companies are increasingly exporting to Asia, South America and Russia. With over 27,000 km of inland waterways and more than 70,000 km of coastline, Europe offers the perfect environment for the 48 million European citizens who regularly participate in recreational marine activities (36 million of whom are boaters), as well as countless numbers of tourists. Over 6 million boats are kept in European waters while 4,500 marinas provide 1.75 million berths both inland and in coastal areas. Source: ICOMIA Statistics Book 2010 - For sale on www.icomia.com Boat Sales Statistics Programme In view of the lack of reliable and accurate statistics for boat sales in Europe and in most of the export markets, boatbuilding companies proposed that EBI run a specific programme. The Boat Sales Statistics Programme started in 2015 and is fully compliant with the EU and US competition Law. It is run by European Boating Industry for a group of companies meeting the participation criteria set in the Competition Law Guidelines of the Programme. Under this Programme, companies provide sales information to an independent third party contracted by European Boating Industry, which will process, aggregate and disseminate the anonymised results to the Participating Companies for statistical purposes. The report, available only to the participating companies, is a an important tool for business intelligence. For more information, please contact sd@europeanboatingindustry.eu Unquote Frankly, I think the CRT would be a better source of market information, if it were made public. After all, it is with the CRT that we register our boats.

nikvah, the discrepancy probably has to do with how the ApolloDuck search filters were set up. The feeling I'm getting from monitoring both AD and as many brokerages as I can find, is that AD don't really have a high proportion of all the boats available. I.E., many brokerages don't bother to copy their adverts to AD. In sum, it's incomplete data from all sides.

Actually, there is a source of numbers, Dr Bob. Several, in fact. Boat builders and fitters-out all have to submit data to the government and, if they belong to industry associations like BMF, to them as well. I don't know to what level of detail, but when it gets to the Office for National Statistics, homogenisation of all types of vessels makes understanding a particular niche market like narrowboats and wide-beams impossible. The industry association stats are available only to contributing companies and, as such, opaque and, I suspect, incomplete. CRT should have basic data but I've not found anything interesting on their website.

Interesting thought, matty40s. I'm not sure how ApolloDuck work, ie. do the brokerages copy their offerings to AD for listing or do AD fish the web for, say, Rugby Boats offerings. What I've found is that to get a feel for what's on offer one needs to keep looking at AD and at all the brokerages and all the little marinas. I may have the time and patience to do that but, as you say, someone will probably come along to do it so much better. But my question is really about what the market is doing. Is it a seller's or a buyer's market, what are the numbers. Where's the data. Is everyone really working in the dark?

What's the verdict on the market today? Does anyone know where one might find reliable historical statistics on construction and sales? British Marine Federation are opaque on that score. I'm tending to believe that it's still a seller's market since the expressions of interest I've posted on ApolloDuck and to a renowned builder have been simply ignored.

Sas, I think you have a story to tell us all. Something you can share and which, whatever the outcome for you was, will help others who are today in the shoes you wore five years ago. Do go for it!

Great to hear that you're surviving Sas. And yes, our plan is to buy a bigger boat but to be prepared, next winter, if the ideal one doesn't show up. Sheet ice on a jetty? I had a tip from a friend in Boston (US) a few years ago. Check out slip-on crampons on Amazon.

Yes, TheBiscuits, and we have a PortaPotti in the camper van. That's probably the route we'll take as I'm almost certain we will trade up to a boat more suitable for year-round living. Ripping out the pump-out tank and toilet installation isn't an inviting proposition if we're only likely to keep the present boat for a single winter.

I'm curious to learn how things worked out for Sas, as we're facing a similar decision. We will be moving aboard our 57' boat later this year and are weighing up the pros and cons of keeping it or trading up to a longer boat with more storage. Ours is a pump-out toilet and, for year-round living aboard, our preference would be for cassette. For the simple reason that, in the event of a very fierce winter it might not be possible to reach a pump-out station. In a marina we could at least reach the disposal point.

TheBiscuits, indeed, I may be overthinking the drainage issue! I'll watch what happens with other boats when we're up that way later this year. The engine cover drains and the after door seals are fine, thanks. Up forward I keep stuff like tools and spares in plastic boxes in the lockers either side of the well deck so the less water running through there, the better; I won't be increasing the size of the drain holes ?

Thanks dmr, rest assured I'll be on those locks and watching in a month or so. My normal precaution would be to close the stern door, tape over the vents with duct tape, idem engine access covers. Without a tightly closed cratch cover going uphill - nervous? Loddon and peterboat, thanks for your ideas on power/prop ratios. Loddon take note that the thread has skittered away from the Original Poster's question to one altogether different. Not my intention, but welcome. CanalWorld being what it is, quite a lot of members might have a lifetime of boating experience behind them. dmr, good point about fitness. I'm still spry enough at 74 to solo our narrowboat, and I remember meeting an irascible lady of 80+(?) who told my wife when she tried to help at a lock, to get lost but in coarser terms.

I apologise to leeco for the thread creep, while thanking him profusely for starting it in the first place. There couldn't have been any better source of answers to all the questions I've been meaning to start a thread with. TimYoung's post has settled it: 60'x12' is ok for L&L across the Pennines. Which means we don't have to decide between 57' and single cabin, or 60' with a cabin for guests/grandchildren. Well noted re rounded v square stern, Tim. With the thread well and truly sidetracked, a question for those with WB experience. Adverts for used 60'x12' and thereabouts show horsepower ranging from 50 up to 75. I'd expect to feel a bit naked with 50hp on tidal river stretches and estuaries but, given limited propeller diameter, there must be a point at which all possible prop pitch and horsepower combinations just produce more cavitation. Is there an optimum balance?