booke23

🤣🤣🤣 This is an internet forum principally about boats that operate on canals, usually under 4mph. It's not the Mafia!

Proven. @TheBiscuits can rest his case!

But how much can you get into a Tesco bag for life? Must be close to £100K!

Thanks! It's just a case of being patient. I've only been looking seriously for a couple of months. It'll happen sooner or later!

Very true.

Oh I see! Thank you for that insight. I will say no more!

Nope. You cannot argue with someone's perception.

I don't agree.

Correct, It's slightly sharp practice.

This is very true and I have heard of this happening. I am grateful that they at least had the decency to tell me. Of course it's not sharp practice to save a wasted journey. I was referring to the practice of booking to view a boat, only for them to sell it to someone who phones after you, and pays the deposit without viewing it. I said it was slightly sharp practice, but that's brokers......I don't blame them. They are running a business and it's in their interest to get their 6% commission for the least amount of work possible.

Very badly! Twice recently I've phoned a broker to make an appointment the next day to view a boat that has just come on the market, and both times the broker phoned back an hour or so later to say someone had put a deposit down over the phone. It's very frustrating and IMO slightly sharp practice......but that's brokers for you. Exactly my thoughts. I'm really not comfortable with committing to purchase just from photos/video no matter how good the boat seems, but at the moment that is how the market is and I may have to bite the bullet. Oh and something else I've learnt is that knackered batteries are pretty much standard on used boats being sold!

I've been looking at buying a boat for the last couple of months in this size range. I think it looks good. It may have 6/5 hull, but crucially it still has nearly all this thickness remaining which is good. Remember there are lots of 6/5/5 aluminium Sea Otters about that get by just fine, and aluminium isn't as strong as steel, so your boat will be more than up to the job. It's got a good modern engine and Victron inverter + solar. Most boats this age are not as well equipped as that. I wouldn't advise pulling out......it could take you 6 months to find a similar boat. Added to that the current market is boat sales (especially in the 40-45ft range) is crazy. Good boats come on with the major brokers and people put the deposit down on the phone without viewing.......usually within an hour or 2 of it going on the market!

There was talk of a one off passage system here https://www.rya.org.uk/newsevents/news/Pages/Hammersmith-Bridge-Closure-Update.aspx Don't think anything has come of it yet. Even if it was possible I imagine it would cost a bit as it involves real time monitoring of the bridge to make sure it doesn't collapse on you! Most of these vlogger's videos are quite behind time. So a video put on Youtube last week may well have been filmed before the closure. I'm pretty sure all the vloggers are in boats big enough to be required to have VHF downstream of Brentford, so they'd soon be told the navigation was closed at Hammersmith. This made me laugh!

I couldn't understand the attraction either. A Kayak seems a far better proposition. Then I twigged.......a paddle board looks much like a surfboard at a glance. But as you can't really surf in most of the UK, all these vanlife wannabes who buy VW campers can take up paddle boarding instead and still look cool on instagram with pics of the paddle board leaned up against the van. So the attraction is that it's cool, and no doubt if you did add them to your product line accompanied by lots of pics of them leaned up against VW campers on Insta, you'll sell a bucket load of them!

Here's another one just posted.