david909

So, finally, a sort of Post Script. Just ended my third straight week living aboard. All seems reasonably OK. Gone through my first Elsan clean out. Engine starts on demand. Sorted the leaky chimney stack - wood burner works beautifully. Hot water in the taps after the engine's been running a while. Slowly getting the hang of things. Leisure batteries are corpses I suspect. That's next on the list. Had my petrol generator stolen out of the front porch while I was aboard last night. I didn't hear a thing. My own fault for not chaining it to the boat. Another lesson learned. It was a small, relatively cheap thing, not a four figure priced one. Happy as a pig in muck, as the saying goes.

I have a broadband aerial and wifi router on the boat - as yet uninstalled. It just needs mounting, which is just a couple of holes drilled somewhere appropriate. Not a thing I need help with other than not drilling holes in the wrong place. It's not a work thing, or at least, not yet. I have been writing a lot online recently and getting, for me, silly numbers of views (over 2 million), but it's not generating income. It might, in time, become that if it fell inline with other things I'm involved with. Time will tell. When I'm in the bricks and mortar world I'm online a lot. Serious internet junky for over 20 years now. Over the last few days on the boat I haven't touched it, or even thought about it that much. 5G is good enough and my phone contract has a ton of data in expectation of it being a router for the boat. However, there is no 5G in the wilds, and by wilds I mean no more than 15-20 miles from Birmingham. So what use would a broadband aerial be under those circumstances? It's very much an urban thing. Ahh, the penny drops. CRT is Canal & River Trust. I've been sitting here thinking, "what do Cathode Ray Tubes have to do with this?"

Duly noted. Avoid rivers - check. Maybe leave going far North until next spring. Marina - internet is preferable. Proximity of food shops would be helpful. Proximity of trains would also be ideal. It can be localish to Birmingham. I have some commitments here that require two weekly presence. My first trip on the canals (canal boat holiday in the 70's aside) was moving a converted lifeboat from Liverpool to Leeds. That was an adventure too. We broke down in the middle of nowhere. A fisherman walked past so we asked if he knew where we might get a little help. Turned out he was a marine engine engineer and it took him 5 minutes to sort us out. Sometimes it's better not to know that you're about to do a really silly thing, because innocence can carry you further than fear. (Obviously when it goes wrong you have many eggs on face.)

I have all invoices now. Many thanks to all who have replied. Holy **** what a learning curve! I don’t care that the windows look weird, or that it’s begging for a coat of paint, or that I’ve yet to find a way to keep the spiders out (a ships cat may be in order). She’s mine! And when she’s purring and the green is sliding by, I am happy. Any good suggestions for where to hole up for winter? Preferably north of Birmingham. Hull Marina or perhaps Beverly are very much on the “to go to”list. My daughter and granddaughter live in Hull. I’m already (vaguely) looking for work up there.

When the boat works for more than 24 hours without a breakdown I’ll start to relax. If it goes a week without issues I’ll be on cloud nine. Happy to chalk it up to experience. Happy to learn. Was expecting to have to replace the leisure batteries. Hadn’t appreciated the extent of the required change of mindset. I need to get a fold away bike for when civilisation is a bit too far to walk. It’s on the list with the other odds and ends required. The brokers name was Ivan Jones.

I was promised a meeting with the owner on hand over. I was expecting to be able to ask all the relevant questions but when it came to it, “last minute hold up, sends his apologies, can’t make it”. The sale was closed and the promises on repair prices were made by a woman, “who also works for the same company and will cover while I’m away”. iIn retrospect it seems obvious now that it was a setup. At the time it just seemed

When I get back to dry land I can lay hand to the Bill of Sale. I’ll get back to you when I have an answer. Yes, that’s been confirmed.

All I wanted was a summer on the canals. Get away and and get some headspace in which to process the previous few years which contained, losing both parents, losing everything in a major house fire (escaping in my pyjamas at 1:30AM), my youngest graduating and leaving home, Seven funerals during Covid, a profoundly impacting health diagnosis (not terminal or anything like that), and all the bullshit that arises from a failing marriage. I looked at hiring a boat longer term but the cost was daft. I tried the holiday route, but the cost was even higher. So I thought, "buy one, spend the summer on it then sell it, and keep the losses down." The whole issue of boats more or less brought my failing marriage to its knees, which changed it from buy, use and sell, to buy and live aboard. The thing that put me off most boats is that they're so dark inside. Whereas this one, with its obviously made for a house windows, is full of light inside. And having the full width bedroom at the rear and side doors means it lacks that "living in a corridor' feel. I visited the boat. It was afloat. It was dry. The engine started. "It has eight leisure batteries". Awesome, I thought, I'll be using those, what with laptops and lights and so on. It has two leisure batteries. Two old leisure batteries. When she broke down yesterday morning I tied her up and have sat on her since. A single side light being the only power use. At around 4AM this morning that leisure battery failed, requiring an hour of running the engine at first light. (This may be entirely normal. I am keen to learn. But it does seem like not much of a drain on such a battery to kill it.) I've been living in a housing association property for 30 years. If something goes wrong a phone call is placed and someone comes and fixes it. I realise this is not a housing association boat. Just hadn't expected quite so many issues so early on, having spent so much money. The assumption being once this is spent and the work is done she should be good to go. It seems to be not unreasonable to think this way. Already contacted a Barrister's firm, who thought I have a case, but who wanted £1000 for a letter outlining the details. Even worse than the boat yard! I could represent myself. But even were I to do either - pay someone or self represent, it will be 2025, at least, before we see the inside of a courtroom. The legal system being on the verge of collapse. And the risk is even higher. If I lose I'm liable for their costs. This would bankrupt me. There's also no legal aid available for such a case. Or I could go the route of taking her to a different yard, getting the work done assessed and sorted and then send the original yard the bill. Which they would of course refuse to pay so back to Courts again. Not a useful solution. For what it's worth - the boat yard had the boat before the 6 months was up, though they didn't start work until early this year. They had her nearly 11 months. Don't know if that speaks to the 6 month limit mentioned above.

@ag221 Than you for that. Nice to hear something other than "haha, you got ripped off. What an idiot!". Yes, going top be my home, so - priority - hull and engine. Hull's good for several years. Replated, re-blacked and new anodes. Engine - here's where it gets a bit tricky. They had the engine out, replaced the mounts, were going to do a complete strip down and rebuild but the full gasket set was £1800 instead of £200 so I said, just replace what needs replacing. Filters and hoses replaced, engine put back in and tested. "We ran it for half an hour" obviously not long enough to notice that it was running hot and then very hot. No matter - she runs nicely with no thermostat (one is on order and will be fitted, wherever I am, when it arrives.) I don't understand the damage to the coupling. It looks like a strip of rubber (?) has been torn off it. Why is is connected that way, or is that just cosmetic? Could it be sleeved instead of replaced? I have the email stating plainly what I wanted doing to the doors, and they completely ignored me and did what they wanted. However, yesterday when I went to gather all related emails together to collate the invoices a MOST curious detail emerged. All of the invoices have disappeared. I have a bunch of emails saying "Paid", attached to emails saying "Please see our latest attached invoice", only there's no longer an invoice attached. So I have records, via my bank, of the amounts transferred to them, but no invoices. Have they unsent the invoices? First phone call I had from them was "we've grit blasted the hull and the rust is worse than we thought so replating is the only option." At £17k for the sheet of steel. I tried looking myself to see what steel prices were but couldn't find anyone who sold it in long sheets. I couldn't take the boat back with a raw steel hull with severe rust pitting, so had to say go ahead. Every quoted cost thereafter was way higher when the invoice came. I asked and asked and asked for them to stop work and give me a quote for the remaining work not a guesstimate, each time evasion and subject changes and sudden vagueness. If I refused to pay they have the boat. So, at first I thought, "oh well, it's a good investment in terms of making the boat useable". It upset plans, but plans are just that, plans, and they have to change sometimes. But it just went on and on. I spotted a pattern - phone call bewailing a discovery, with a statement of high cost. Then I'd say, "can it be done for less?". "Yes, if you don't mind it not being Class A work". And then the invoice would arrive for way higher than the originally quoted Class A work. So far it hasn't run for 24 hours without a new problem emerging and I can't help feeling that the money spent in no way equates to the outcome.

The boat's name is Veritas. Attached is the brochure. Veritas-Brochure-2-3-2.pdf

I don’t think the surveyor is at fault.

It’s even more complicated than that. Suffice to say, it’s better to be sitting on a broken narrow boat than where I was before. This is supposed to be a new home. I don’t mind things that are a bit clunky and not Grade A perfect. Very much like me. I’ve been in a few boats and looked at many dozens. None looked like this. What price aesthetics though? And being too trusting. I never learned to drive you see, so zero experience with with buying second hand vehicles.

The issue comes down to me being told by the broker that the repairs might amount to £16k. On the back of that I made an offer of £13k below asking price because of that £16k some were things I intended to tackle myself thinking it would be a good way to learn. The offer was accepted. Also on the basis that I was promised that the work would be arranged by the broker meaning I would collect a repaired boat. All on the phone of course though I might have an email trail asking repeatedly about the promised work. For the record, if it matters, I’m 58.

I need to go through the sales brochure and compare it to the survey and what was found during repairs. The yard said nothing they found would have been noticed in a survey. The broker just lied and lied and lied, I realise now. The yard said it had been a static live aboard for years. I didn’t know to ask, thinking boat = travelling. So, utter humiliation and excruciating lessons aside. Now the boat’s been out and about these two issues have appeared, perhaps expectedly, only one of which will cost me and that not too bad. I suppose the issue is every time something is replaced the next weakest thing then fails? How much further could this go? Prop and shaft replaced, engine out, cleaned, hoses and some gaskets replaced, new engine mounts, clean oil, cleaned diesel tank, all done, new thermostat coming (same as puegot 205 apparently) and now this coupling.

So as I know what my options are… 60 foot, 1994 build, new steel sheet across the whole of the hull. what sort of offer?