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Project boat - sail away or old wreck?


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And she forgot to mention "Scotland", she may be unaware that we "assume" E&W type narrowboating,

The average wage in the UK is £20K, therefore two of them should be able to earn £40K, which, realistically is the sort of income needed to build a sailaway in a reasonable time span.

To raise a child on a glass fibre boat, well, I think it is madness. To buy a narrowboat at when you only have £10K cash, ditto. If they borrow another £10K for example, they will still have to repay it plus interest, plus the fettling and the annual running costs.

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Hi everyone!

 

phew yes, quite surprised by how many people are replying, and how interested everyone is...I was at work all night and got up with the kids this morning, not a lot of time.

 

okay so yes we are in Scotland, living on a minimum wage income , hubby looks after the kids and I work every hour I can. So that the finances ;)

 

we’ve loved the idea of living on a boat (of any kind) since we got together about 11 years ago, we’re a pair of hippies. We have been following YouTube channels for the last couple of years or so and love the idea even more. We have very little money and unlikely to be considered for a mortgage so we liked the idea of living aboard also as it would be a cheaper way of owning our own home, plus the freedom etc. We are very aware of how difficult it would be, how little money we have etc. But I think about it all the time, trying new angles to see how we could afford it. That said, we both know it’s likely something we would only get to do once the kids are grown up. This makes me sad as I want the kids to experience it. 

 

 

I ask ask many questions from different angles as I approach the logistics of this to see if we could afford it this way...or that way...or what if we ...? And so on 

 

 

Sorry to those who mentioned I don’t reply on previous threads, I didn’t realise people were interested enough to be annoyed by lack of a reply - I barely have any free time to be honest but I will try to from now on. Researching this stuff is what keeps me going at work as I look stuff up on my breaks and think about it through the tedium of work. It’s easier to read than type on my phone.

 

love the offer of the boat for 10K, not at that stage yet but pleased to see it’s possible.

 

sorry for being an annoying newbie! We all start somewhere though right? Thanks for all the advice :)

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15 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

Neither. You can't afford either. (I just like being cheerful.)

Yeah. One day though, I hope

15 hours ago, blackrose said:

 

Can you clarify this bit please? If your initial budget for purchase of a wreck is only £10k, then presumably your budget for a sailaway is at least double that? Even a budget 57' Collingwood shell and canaline engine will cost that surely?

 

Edit: It might be an idea to look for a sailaway that someone else started and didn't finish. You might get it cheap

There is a 10K budget at the moment, with hopes of saving up to 20K... but at this stage (the planning stage) we are really trying to figure out the cheapest way of feasibly escaping having to live in over priced rented housing and follow our dream we know it will take a while and we can’t currently afford it (as far as I see)

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16 hours ago, LadyG said:

https://www.apolloduck.com/boat.phtml?id=315776

is a nice boat, and it starts off as a good boat.

It is nowhere near complete, but it will always be a good boat.

If you don't know what you are doing you may end up buying a skip which will never be anything other than a skip, no matter what you do.

PS boats are expensive toys

 

 

That's a generic advert for a Tyler-Wilson sailaway, built to order. Probably best part of £50k delivered as shown in the photos complete with engine, fully lined, wired, professional paint job, windows fitted etc etc. 

 

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

?Morning Alan

Quite right - let's not.

Which you accessed through her profile page - so let's not split hairs or (fun as it is) spin those fact ?

A beautifully loaded question ? to which you already know the answer, but is it, in this case, the right question ?

I LOVE this - it's so OTT Drama Queen. I have no idea what it means with in the context of the conversation but I love it. Do you wanna do NaNoWriMo with me this year :D

 

Now much as I would love to carry on chatting I have to go - because I still haven worked out how you lot all do this retirement thing. 

 

TTFN:hug:

 

 

You really aren't and yes we do - We are a really nice bunch but shouldn't always be left unsupervised :giggles:

 

 

 

Yeah you tellim, Tumshie.

 

Donna, don't worry about Alan, he's a bit weird. You only have to look at his boat to realise this, with too many hulls and that big stick in the middle. 

 

The rest of us here are just fine. Well, most of us....  errr...... some of us. 

 

Well me, anyway 

 

 

Oh, and Tumshie, mostly :giggles:

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55 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

 

 

 

You really aren't and yes we do - We are a really nice bunch but shouldn't always be left unsupervised :giggles:

 

 

That's very true

52 minutes ago, Donna said:

Yeah. One day though, I hope

There is a 10K budget at the moment, with hopes of saving up to 20K... but at this stage (the planning stage) we are really trying to figure out the cheapest way of feasibly escaping having to live in over priced rented housing and follow our dream we know it will take a while and we can’t currently afford it (as far as I see)

I may have missed it but how many kids and how big. as for cost remember you are going to need to pay for a mooring, I think BW Scotland are very keen to see boats on residential moorings but I dont know the cost but it would need to be in travelling distance of school and work. 

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2 hours ago, Donna said:

Yeah. One day though, I hope

There is a 10K budget at the moment, with hopes of saving up to 20K... but at this stage (the planning stage) we are really trying to figure out the cheapest way of feasibly escaping having to live in over priced rented housing and follow our dream we know it will take a while and we can’t currently afford it (as far as I see)

I think I will give you some life advice, please do not take this as any sort of criticism., not in any way.

The best thing I ever did was to move South, that is where the money is. I bought a house in  1972 and had it paid off  five years later.

 In London, this week [ INDEED   jobs ], a high end family are paying £500 per week for someone 9 to 5 to do their laundry, tidy the house and so on. You will NEVER find a comparable job in Scotland.

There are also live in jobs [ I mean live in good quality cottages or flats for couples who are trustworthy and fun to employ, it's a matter of finding those situations.

Edited by LadyG
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10000 minus 

survey insurance first years licence and mooring.

leaves you 6000 max for boat

 

on a private ( non residential mooring) with historic concession on my licence

my minimum outlay is £3000 year.

thats 50% of the rent I receive from letting out a two year old 2 bedroom apartment in a   popular town.

As for cc ing well, ok but you have a child who will need to go to school, and you need to abide by the rules.

you are choosing a hard life.

Dont get me wrong I cc’d in the 1980s, it was easier then and we both cycled to our work, frequently many miles . Boggy towpaths fog frost and snow.

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57 minutes ago, roland elsdon said:

10000 minus 

survey insurance first years licence and mooring.

leaves you 6000 max for boat

 

on a private ( non residential mooring) with historic concession on my licence

my minimum outlay is £3000 year.

thats 50% of the rent I receive from letting out a two year old 2 bedroom apartment in a   popular town.

As for cc ing well, ok but you have a child who will need to go to school, and you need to abide by the rules.

you are choosing a hard life.

Dont get me wrong I cc’d in the 1980s, it was easier then and we both cycled to our work, frequently many miles . Boggy towpaths fog frost and snow.

It's Scotland, different rules, very few continuous cruisers, they might get some sort of concession from the LA, but it's not guaranteed.

I think there are now at least two children.

Edited by LadyG
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5 hours ago, LadyG said:

And she forgot to mention "Scotland", she may be unaware that we "assume" E&W type narrowboating,

The average wage in the UK is £20K, therefore two of them should be able to earn £40K, which, realistically is the sort of income needed to build a sailaway in a reasonable time span.

To raise a child on a glass fibre boat, well, I think it is madness. To buy a narrowboat at when you only have £10K cash, ditto. If they borrow another £10K for example, they will still have to repay it plus interest, plus the fettling and the annual running costs.

There is no reason why children can not be raised on a GRP boat.

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23 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

There is no reason why children can not be raised on a GRP boat.

Especially on one of the broads wide beam floating motor coaches as long as its well insulated for warmth. two bedrooms, big lounge, galley kitchen toilet/shower far more room that one a narrowboat, even a full length one.

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41 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

Especially on one of the broads wide beam floating motor coaches as long as its well insulated for warmth. two bedrooms, big lounge, galley kitchen toilet/shower far more room that one a narrowboat, even a full length one.

I agree Tony I have a broads cruiser and in Lot's of ways it's way better than a narrow boat, I am still considering a James bondi version to convert to electric next

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

It's Scotland, different rules, very few continuous cruisers, they might get some sort of concession from the LA, but it's not guaranteed.

I think there are now at least two children.

In Scotland NO continuous cruisers. All boats  must have a mooring and I have heard of boaters being told to go back to their official mooring if they stay too long on another one. The cost of living on water moorings seem to be a lot higher than similar to mooring down south 

 

Haggis 

Edited by haggis
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7 hours ago, Donna said:

 

 

we’ve loved the idea of living on a boat (of any kind) since we got together about 11 years ago, we’re a pair of hippies. We have been following YouTube channels for the last couple of years or so and love the idea even more. We have very little money and unlikely to be considered for a mortgage so we liked the idea of living aboard also as it would be a cheaper way of owning our own home, plus the freedom etc. We are very aware of how difficult it would be, how little money we have etc. But I think about it all the time, trying new angles to see how we could afford it. That said, we both know it’s likely something we would only get to do once the kids are grown up. This makes me sad as I want the kids to experience it. 

 

The words highlighted above worry me, as I don't think they have really looked into ALL the costs involved, especially considering "haggis's" words above.

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8 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

The words highlighted above worry me, as I don't think they have really looked into ALL the costs involved, especially considering "haggis's" words above.

Certainly not cheap living on a boat. I have never sat down and worked it out, but I feel certain that the overheads on the boat are greater than when we were living in our small house. However, we had no mortgage for many years, and with a full mortgage at the current price, I feel that the house would be much more expensive than the boat. I believe that this is the reason why many people are living aboard; you can get a decent boat for around 25k but not many brick buildings at that price
Everybody has different circumstances so it is hard to say really.

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1 minute ago, catweasel said:

Certainly not cheap living on a boat. I have never sat down and worked it out, but I feel certain that the overheads on the boat are greater than when we were living in our small house. However, we had no mortgage for many years, and with a full mortgage at the current price, I feel that the house would be much more expensive than the boat. I believe that this is the reason why many people are living aboard; you can get a decent boat for around 25k but not many brick buildings at that price
Everybody has different circumstances so it is hard to say really.

 

 

Exactly this. I suspect Donna simply meant a two bed house costs perhaps £80k-£100k in Scotland, while a 'two bed' boat can be had for a quarter of that. 

 

The reason the boat is so much cheaper a home than a house is the annual costs are so very much higher. 

 

 

 

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8 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

 

Exactly this. I suspect Donna simply meant a two bed house costs perhaps £80k-£100k in Scotland, while a 'two bed' boat can be had for a quarter of that. 

 

The reason the boat is so much cheaper a home than a house is the annual costs are so very much higher. 

 

 

 

You can’t compare a 2 bed house with a two bed boat, cost wise. If you took whole of life cost, rates/ moorings/ depreciation into account no one would live in a boat. 

However

Live on a boat end up in council care, live in a house end up with house sold to pay for care. It’s the journey between that makes some choose boats

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This is a little off topic but it is an example of kids on a fibreglass boat. 

 

This is the link to an article on board panda about a family of 5 (3 x toddlers) living on a sailing yacht. The family have a website which it listed in the article. 

 

https://www.boredpanda.com/extreme-parenting-raising-three-kids-under-age-three-on-a-sailboat-in-the-caribbean/

 

 

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I'm not one of those who dismisses the idea that living on a boat can be cheaper than living in a house or flat - of course it can. If you were in a position to move out of a small rented place and on to a boat as a continuous cruiser, you might easily save £6k-£8k a year on rent. Now even if you earmarked £2k of that for maintenance and all your other costs balanced out - utilities bills becomes gas & diesel costs, council tax becomes licence fee, etc. - that would still be a significant saving.

 

BUT - as has been pointed out, I don't think it's legally possible to live on a boat in Scotland without paying for a mooring, which is going to significantly eat into that saving. And cruising options are very limited too, so if 'freedom' is what you're after, that tips the cost/benefit scales too.

 

Is there a way you could enjoy some of that freedom without going 'all in' and living aboard? A small GRP cruiser should only cost you a fraction of the £10k you mentioned, would be relatively cheap to licence, moor and maintain on an annual basis, and would give you the freedom to do as much weekend and holiday cruising as you had time for. 

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