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Fly Navy

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Very comprehensive and mixed bag.  A special thank you to Capt Pegg for going into the sort of detail I was looking for. (Mr Smelly too!).

I guess for many, narrowboats are seen as essentials (liveaboards), for others - a source of fun - both of which 'hierarchy' doesn't feature (thank goodness). As long as the aim is achieved with minimum fuss, what's the problem?

Refreshing responses - thanks.

 

If I could drill down a little deeper- however......are there boats which one 'should' steer clear of, because of their build quality or longevity, etc? Same for engines?  (Feel free to PM me if you don't want to mention a boat builder in public).

This would help me eliminate some of the boats I'm looking at.  As I find marine brokers are just estate agents - reincarnated!

Edited by Fly Navy
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3 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

I guess for many, narrowboats are seen as essentials (liveaboards),

Why would you suggest that NBs are 'essential' for liveaboards ?

 

There are many thousands times more 'proper boats' than there are NB's and given a 'clean slate' no one in their right mind would build a 'boat' (I use the term loosely) from a length of 7 foot wide steel sewer piping.

 

As a generalisation, I'd suggest that in fact the majority of liveaboards do not move a great deal and would be happy to stay within a very restricted area, on the other hand 'leisure users' who want to explore the system from North to South DO need a NB to get thru the 'narrow bits'.

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14 minutes ago, RLWP said:

OK, you are going about this the wrong way. First off, you don't need a boat. We don't need a boat. Most people here don't need a boat - we are not fishermen or delivering bulk cargo. So owning a boat is not a logical thing

 

What's going to happen is, you are going to end up with a comprehensive list of wants and needs and things to avoid. You'll find boats that match that list, and you won't like them

 

Then you'll visit a boat that is well off your list, and you'll love it. You'll make allowances because it's got the 'wrong' engine/inverter/windows/toilet/whatever because you love it

 

Forget the do's and don't, go and look at boats. That way your boat will find you

 

This is not the first (or probably the hundredth) time we have been through this here

 

Get in the car, go and look at boats

 

Richard

This .

 

I bought the first boat I saw, I looked at lots of others but fell for this one.

.

I almost camped out in it on the weekends until I scraped together the deposit growling at others who might show an interest, the broker was very patient 

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16 minutes ago, RLWP said:

OK, you are going about this the wrong way. First off, you don't need a boat. We don't need a boat. Most people here don't need a boat - we are not fishermen or delivering bulk cargo. So owning a boat is not a logical thing

 

What's going to happen is, you are going to end up with a comprehensive list of wants and needs and things to avoid. You'll find boats that match that list, and you won't like them

 

Then you'll visit a boat that is well off your list, and you'll love it. You'll make allowances because it's got the 'wrong' engine/inverter/windows/toilet/whatever because you love it

 

Forget the do's and don't, go and look at boats. That way your boat will find you

 

This is not the first (or probably the hundredth) time we have been through this here

 

Get in the car, go and look at boats

 

Richard

Best advice so far!

I was thinking about starting a forum for mongrel boats,like my own,that nobody has a clue who built it,how old it is,are there that many on the waterways?

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Alan - you've got the wrong end of the stick. First and foremost, I'm not interested in any other type of boat, other than a NB. It's not the topic of conversation.

Secondly, for some....narrowboats are an alternative lifestyle where they prefer somewhere other than a house. For them, "das boat" is essential....

For others - it's a way onto the "housing" ladder (literally). A boat is 'essential' therefore.

For these types of people, what it looks like, isn't top of the list.

 

Richard.  I understand where you are coming from. And I agree, in life, this happens - often.

For me however, I have been around for far too long to leave expensive choices like this - to chance.

I would much prefer NOT to buy a boat that has "found me" only to find that 6 months down the road, it suffers from a design flaw (or something similar), that really pi**es me off.  IF ONLY someone had told me about it beforehand, or my research had identified this flaw - it would have saved enormous heartache.

Having travelled hundreds of miles and seen dozens of boats already, I now know that I need to steer clear of certain types because of what I have been shown, told or read.

How many times have you seen: DYOR. or Buyer Beware. Etc.

This is not a decision I choose to take lightly.

 

Some constructive do's and dont's now will save me: petrol/money/frustration/time.

 

Mad not to.

 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

For others - it's a way onto the "housing" ladder (literally). A boat is 'essential' therefore. 

For these types of people, what it looks like, isn't top of the list.

That is the point I was trying to make - it doesn't have to be a Narrowboat.

A 'practical boat' is probably much more useful than a NB for a liveaboard.

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2 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

 

Richard.  I understand where you are coming from. And I agree, in life, this happens - often.

For me however, I have been around for far too long to leave expensive choices like this - to chance.

I would much prefer NOT to buy a boat that has "found me" only to find that 6 months down the road, it suffers from a design flaw (or something similar), that really pi**es me off.  IF ONLY someone had told me about it beforehand, or my research had identified this flaw - it would have saved enormous heartache.

Having travelled hundreds of miles and seen dozens of boats already, I now know that I need to steer clear of certain types because of what I have been shown, told or read.

How many times have you seen: DYOR. or Buyer Beware. Etc.

This is not a decision I choose to take lightly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK, good luck. Because I don't think your list is ever going to help you. I have no idea what kind of thing is going to piss you off in six months that a/. you won't spot immediately, b/. you can't get fixed or c/. you won't put up with

 

Don't buy an ex-Alvechurch hire boat with a badly cross winded hull and a BMC engine. You'd be mad to, it fails most tick lists. The fact we own and love one shows how silly we are.

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Alan - Perhaps I was not circumspect enough. Wideberths too, of course.  But people who live onboard through necessity, need surrounding infrastructure to be able to continue to function. So I am not talking about a family who have a 2nd home off the Amalfi coast in a quaint little harbour on their 6 berth Sunseeker.  This isn't a "practical boat" for the purpose of this discussion.

 

Richard - "silly"? why silly?  You have different aspirations / time frames to me. I like to minimise risk in everything I do. (Don't mix this up with being risk averse) - I have a life time of taking risks and minimising risk is now  a default for me.

 

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1 hour ago, RLWP said:

Shiny purple boats and their owners are the worst

 

See, not contentious at all, is it

 

Richard

It certainly isn't no. It is an opportunity for an exchange of views, some serious, others frivolous.

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3 minutes ago, Ray T said:

No ones mentioned the lovely little Barney Boats.

Lots of character, gorgeous Saab engines.

LE sect GU 014.jpg

A good friend had one, in fact I met him when I was looking for my first mooring and ended up on the same mooring.

Cracking little boat

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2 minutes ago, RLWP said:

 

OK, good luck. Because I don't think your list is ever going to help you. I have no idea what kind of thing is going to piss you off in six months that a/. you won't spot immediately, b/. you can't get fixed or c/. you won't put up with

 

Don't buy an ex-Alvechurch hire boat with a badly cross winded hull and a BMC engine. You'd be mad to, it fails most tick lists. The fact we own and love one shows how silly we are.

I like your boat because its very honest, and because i like boats that their owners care for and enjoy, regardless of their pedigree. I am less keen on shiny clonecraft that sit in mariners, or boats that are a temporary dwelling bought specifically as a residence . ( thats how i started though)

Part of the pleasure of owning a boat like mine is that you have to be absolutely besotted with them, otherwise you would do the sensible thing. Pedigree is pretty meaningless, all boats are compromises, and there are few total basket case builders.

if i wrote down the list of impractical annoying things about my boat it would take a toilet roll, instead mrs S and I agreed on the worst 10 and started working on them.

 

its a mongrel, built by the builders of the titanic, shortened and abused by the waterways, as a mobile tea room and bridge gantry used as a fuel boat and then tarted up to flog on to us. How we love it.

 

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8 minutes ago, Ray T said:

No ones mentioned the lovely little Barney Boats.

Lots of character, gorgeous Saab engines.

LE sect GU 014.jpg

Some may indeed have been fitted with Saab engines, but I think that more of them has the Norwegian Sabb units (as still to be seen and heard in some Union Canal Carriers hire boats).

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3 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

Richard - "silly"? why silly?  You have different aspirations / time frames to me. I like to minimise risk in everything I do. (Don't mix this up with being risk averse) - I have a life time of taking risks and minimising risk is now  a default for me.

 

 

Because this is a risk you don't need to take. Why buy a steel box and leave it outside floating in water. It's madness! 

 

Nothing about owning a boat makes sense, it's all a risk. Just accept that and buy a boat, like everyone else does

 

Richard

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For the same reason I choose to leave this country to go on holiday when i could stay here every year. For the same reason I buy a car and leave it outside every day when I could use taxi's.

Boating, like any other hobby (for me) is an extension of my enjoyment...QED...I want to enjoy it, not spend days or weeks holed up alongside trying to repair or undo flaws that I couldn't be bothered to look for beforehand.

One gets what one deserves, I guess.

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8 minutes ago, Fly Navy said:

What did you mean by "practical boat"  (something other than a NB) earlier?

Something wide enough so that it doesn't hurt watching TV from 3 feet away (across the boat)

Something wide enough to have a proper bedroom with en-suite facilities.

Something wide enough to have a separate kitchen and dining room.

 

For a liveaboard - "a floating flat".

 

Now can you tell me what you mean by the 'surrounding infrastructure to be able to function' ?

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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Just now, Fly Navy said:

For the same reason I choose to leave this country to go on holiday when i could stay here every year. For the same reason I buy a car and leave it outside every day when I could use taxi's.

Boating, like any other hobby (for me) is an extension of my enjoyment...QED...I want to enjoy it, not spend days or weeks holed up alongside trying to repair or undo flaws that I couldn't be bothered to look for beforehand.

One gets what one deserves, I guess.

Well, good luck with your list. If you listen to everyone, you'll have a checklist that excludes just about all the boats on the market

 

And it won't make a blind bit of difference when your boat finds you

 

Richard

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