Crewcut

Apart from everything else, if it is (and it looks that way) the boat on ebay, it's too small. Not many individuals could happily live on a boat that size let alone couples...

I think I'd be buying a ball pein hammer and getting underneath with it myself and hammer testing as much as you possibly can. Do it and come back here with how it went. Also as already spoken about get under the floor inside in a few places. By the sounds of it you might struggle to get comprehensive insurance with the existing survey and it's likely that another survey would leave you with the same issue. I wouldn't worry unduly though, plenty of people are insured third party and FWIW I (and others) wouldn't have had a survey and would likely have done a hammer test and looked under the floor wherever feasible. Boat ownership is pretty daunting at the start, you will if you're normal worry about things that down the line you'll come to realise there wasn't really anything much to worry about. If you do what you reasonably can, learn how to do things yourself & are prepared to get stuck in and have a go in all likelihood you'll be fine...

I'm reminded of this... Seriously though, was the surveyor using a hammer to test the hull in addition to using a meter?

There are easier ways for an individual to make money than trying to rent out a narrowboat to random people. Not worth the hassle, even if it is done genuinely just to try to offset some of the costs of a hobby that you are passionate about. In my humble opinion...

The most popular and hence the (potentially) most "overpriced" size would be 57ft 'cos they'll be able to navigate the whole system. You can (potentially) get "better" value by going up to 65/70 because this size is considered too long for some of the locks on parts of the system. Or you might get the same by going smaller. Or you might by going for a tug style because not as many people want that design. You will get better value by buying in the north rather than darn sarf but it's all moot really, you buy what you want to buy, if you paid less for a particular design or size you'll likely get less for it when you sell it & vice versa...

I'd forget the purple and that shade of blue is horrible. Out of those I'd go with the darker green on top, orange under. The turquoise with the darker shade on top are quite good as well. Good shout going for white roof...

The marina where I am which granted is on the sea, has 8m fingers in the 8-10m berths, 10m fingers in the 10-12m berths, etc. We pay according to LOA of boat. Mobos park stern to so they can get off the back, sailyboats tend to park nose in & climb off where their boat is widest, in the middle somewhere... The longer the fingers the more awkward it will be to park...

There's a lot to be said for allowing some time to see how you get on with what's already there/how the boat is already set up before you start messing with things. If you're new to all this you'll have enough to think about without creating work where there's really no need, especially so if things are working as they should. Down the line if you really want to you can make some changes. Personally if it were me I would view the diesel stove as a bonus & use it as intended. Unless, as somebody else said, you have access to free wood or something, even then it still has to be stored and ash disposed of... Good luck with your new boat...😃

Assorted avian apertures...

Dunno if you've seen the waterside moorings site but there's a residential mooring at the bottom of this list in Horbury for £3500pa for up to 57feet. I don't know Horbury at all or whether there are transport links that you could use but that's a pretty good price for an official residential mooring. You'd pay council tax with it being residential, so band A for the local area, single person discount if you're on your own, call it another £1k. That's your rent and council tax for £375/month. Your bills will be quite high in the colder months for heating (work on up to a couple of hundred) but really quite small in the warmer months. Then there'll be your license fee, insurance and ongoing maintenance costs like engine servicing - much cheaper if you can DIY & it's not rocket science. Try to have a contingency fund of a few thousand and start learning about diesel engine maintenance and troubleshooting, basic 12v electrics, etc. Somebody else already said but I'll repeat, go see some boats to start getting an idea what you can get, definitely go and have a look at the one Jax mentions. Good luck with it all...

Have a look in the usual places for Montague folding (full size) bikes, I got an as new "urban" for £500 off ebay, QR front wheel, whole frame folds, I added QR pedals. Their paratrooper folding mountain bike would be great for the towpath...

Not very many do have a watermaker actually, those things cost thousands and need careful maintenance. Carrying bottled water is how most small boats supplement what they have in their tank or tanks which will usually be no more than a couple of hundred litres. We are extremely careful about how we use water when on passage. Some use part sea water for cooking the likes of pasta & spuds, e.g...

For the boater witl less room aboard a speedy stitcher sewing awl is a handy thing. Once restitched sprayhood windows with whipping twine with mine, it took a while but did a good job & was very satisfying...

Couple of boats I've bought where I said I'm not even going to try to haggle because the price is fair and this has the added advantage that the existing owner is kept very much on side which can sometimes be useful. Not so much if you're buying off a broker though. Too many boat sales have fallen through over what, in the grand scheme of things, is not that significant...

An option could be to spend, as already suggested, as little of your existing pot of cash as possible to get a liveable boat, say £40-£50k, invest the rest and you could probably afford when/if the time came to buy a little so-called retirement/over 60s flat. These do usually come with service charges so would be more expensive to live in than a property that you simply owned outright but if you had a half decent pension income (i.e. not solely reliant on state pension but having some occupational pension as well) you'd probably be okay. These flats usually have some kind of on site support so if your reason for moving back to land is health/mobility related you'd have that as well. I've been living full time on boats for 14 years and I still enjoy it, still working FT & still adding quite significantly to my savings pot. This is kind of my plan B...

Will the mosquitoes be arriving on small boats because if they do they will have arrived here illegally & we'll be able to send them to Rwanda...

Most coastal marinas will have few spaces for boats of 68ft & they'll be knocking on for £10k p.a. in some. 52ft more likely but that's still a big boat. Most coastal marinas used to have at least a few quiet liveaboards but it's got harder to do, some have thrown people out & will not "tolerate" any liveaboards whatsoever. Others still turn a blind eye but do not mention the "L" word or they'll just say no. The odd one do an "extended use" contract where you pay more & can stay for up to 12 weeks at a time for up to 48 weeks of the year - effectively liveaboard but you have to have a "home address". You cannot live on a swinging mooring in the UK it's not practical or feasible as Alan has already explained, unless you are a serious masochist. So I would suggest look for something a bit smaller, 39' - 45' (12-14m) would be good, more berths available. Post on the YBW liveaboard forum for suggestions where you might be able to live on under the radar. There is one place on the Medway at Port Werburgh where you might be able to get a residential mooring for a big old tug boat but presumably that will be way too far from work. Best of luck it is not an easy thing to do in the UK I'm afraid... Edit - And don't forget houses tend to go up in value, boats do not, spend all your cash from house sale now on a lovely boat, want to move back to land after 5 years & you can no longer afford to...

As one of the naysayers I should say FWIW that I have a fair amount of experience with fibreglass boats, working on them & living on them full time (13 years, 6 boats), my negativity comes not from the idea itself but from the fact that the particular one the OP is considering is so obviously one to avoid, as already said not least of which due to the boatyard fees which are truly staggering, way more than I've ever paid anywhere, way more than the berthing fees in most south coast marinas in fact. That's berthing fees mind, not boatyard storage fees. They probably think that by telling anybody who might think it's a good idea to buy it that it'll cost that much will have it removed straight away & then they won't have to look at the big orange blob in their yard any more... Projects only really make sense if you can afford the purchase price and the cost of materials, tools, storage, etc., and you have the skills and the time to do the work and you want to do the work because you enjoy it or like the challenge. If you've got the money to buy it and store it and equip it you might as well buy a boat that's good to go and get on with your new liveaboard life because the project will cost as much or likely more than the cost of an equivalent boat that's good to go. And the best thing to do if you can't yet afford the boat you want is to carry on working and saving until you can. That said I do have a lot of sympathy for those that are so stymied by crippling private rents thesedays that they're effectively trapped. Boat work takes 2-3 times longer & is 2-3 times more expensive than you think & that's if you're DIYing. Start employing "marine professionals", whose work may be good or not good but will be eyewateringly expensive you can be sure of that, is when the fun really starts...

Point taken but surely if you want to try to live on one the best thing to do would be to get an unbutchered one. OK the hull is only £1k but they're apparently going to fleece him of £600/700 a month to keep it there when it would need months of work and a ton of money spent on it to make it remotely useable. However you look at it, it makes no sense...

£600 or £700 per month to keep it in a boatyard is utterly ridiculous. If you must buy a lifeboat and try to live on it buy one that hasn't been butchered and have it shipped down from Aberdeen. Foam sandwich hull already insulates pretty well and the engines in those things have little or no hours on them. Why anybody in their right mind would remove either I'm not sure. George Clarke has a lot to answer for...

But I thought it came off the magic money trees, like the spaghetti...

People do still have surveys on fibreglass boats and if you start reading up about them you'll come across osmosis as a thing with fibreglass hulls. For practical purposes you can forget about it unless on inspection you see a lot of blistering on a fibreglass hull. If there's a bit of blistering it can easily be dealt with & I'll get it in before anyone else does & say no (fibreglass) boat ever sunk due to osmosis... Through hulls always merit inspection - these are holes in the hull to let various things out or in or to vent air, e.g., like sinks draining out, toilet water in/out, engine cooling water in. That particular boat has an outboard and a chemical loo so I don't think there would be any below the waterline through hulls that you'd need to worry about. Any through hulls below the waterline though should have a seacock fitted and their operation should be checked. I had a look at a Highbridge 32 recently and that had heavy wooden beams (I don't really know what to call them - underwater rubbing strakes?) fixed underneath to stop the fibreglass rubbing on the bottom in shallow water. Water in the bilges might suggest these needed refixing/sealing but if there's no water in the bilges when the boat's in the water again I wouldn't worry unduly. That said I would absolutely want to see it out of the water to have a look at the condition of the hull below the waterline and the beams underneath (assuming the 27 also has them). Other things to check would be the integrity of the mounting for the outboard engine to make sure it's strong and properly fixed in place and the same thing for the rubbing strakes down the sides. With fibreglass you really don't need to worry about the condition of the hull in the same way that you do with a steel boat because fibreglass doesn't erode over time like steel can rust as such. It's very strong, larger areas of it can flex a bit and it's not hard to repair. The oldest fg boat I've had was a sailboat built in 1969, the things that do wear out like the engine and the sails and the rigging was all much newer but the hull itself was original & very sound. Depending on your risk tolerance you might want a survey but taking someone with you who knows what they're looking at & can give you an unbiased view, obviously testing everything to make sure it works as it should would suffice for this sort of boat in my opinion...

Education is free to anyone whether on benefits or not, wherever & however you live, I don't see how anybody could "milk" that, same with the NHS. And why should anyone not claim benefits to which they're entitled?

The longer we go on with the cost of living crisis the more desperate people will get. I bumped into an old colleague I used to work on the wards with as an HCA a couple of weeks ago. He still works as an HCA, has now sold his car, had to give up his rented flat and move back in with his parents. He's 49...

In the circumstances a great idea, something like this? While all boats take time and work and money, something like that would be relatively easy to maintain and keep, you'd learn a lot & have a much better idea for the future of whether or not full time boat life might really suit you...