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Building or buying our unicorn boat


Skin

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Before you go any further, I'd suggest instead of wasting time on this forum  - you can see how quickly the discussion degenerates - you go and talk to a few boat builders.  That will put your feet on the ground for as MTB points out you are way out with your budget.  I was talking to the owner of our marina yesterday and he was proudly announcing how they can get a fully fitted 57 foot boat out for under £80k.  That is absolutely rock bottom, once you start taking about custom this and that and power generation and bespoke interiors the price escalates enormously.  

 

 

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10 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

Before you go any further, I'd suggest instead of wasting time on this forum  - you can see how quickly the discussion degenerates - you go and talk to a few boat builders.  That will put your feet on the ground for as MTB points out you are way out with your budget. 

 

 

Excellent advice. Likewise go and look at boats on brokerage - you never know what you might find

 

Richard

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On 15/07/2019 at 13:38, Jen-in-Wellies said:

The most common questions on here are on electricity and replacing it in the batteries. The only way to run a 725W of power for grow lamps is with a generator, running basically every hour that is allowed under CaRT rules. You'll want a built in diesel generator for noise reasons, both you and your neighbours, but this will set you back around £10k and cost a lot in fuel and maintenance. I'd suggest that this hobby isn't going to be compatible and it would be a lot cheaper to just buy in your chillis and St John's Wort. For computing, try to reduce the power usage. What is the real minimum spec you need to do your work?

 

Diesel is the only fuel that won't limit your travelling. Electric has to be generated somehow. Biofuel isn't available on the cut. There isn't the charging infrastructure (yet). With lots of solar panels and I mean a lot, plus lithium batteries, electric boating can be done, at least in summer. Search for @peterboat's description of his wide beam. At the moment you are basically on your own, with engineering your own system with happy fun exploding battery banks and fires if you get it wrong!

 

I totally agree and love the example pictures. You may end up having to do a refit on the interior. You have a reasonable budget, so could end up with something rather good.

 

Yes there are. A recent example in General Boating. Very late 60's, early 70's. Most boats are rather traditional on the outside, but some owners do go wild! The paintwork leads a hard life. Knocked and scratched by vegetation, other boats and canal infrastructure, so it needs to be able to be touched up easily, which s harder to do with an air brushed finished without it being obvious.

 

Oh and welcome to CWDF. May I suggest getting a secondhand boat that is set up for living aboard, living on it it for a year, or so, then going for your ultimate boat. The depreciation will be small and you'll learn a lot about what is practical and what you really want in that time. These will likely be very different from what you think now.

 

Jen

This is the best advice in this thread.

Unless you have a lot of narrow boating experience, you are really not qualified to specify your ideal boat and no one else will ever be qualified to specify YOUR ideal boat.

A couple of years living aboard won't make you an expert but at least you will have an appreciation of the essentials.

If you are thinking of a new build then £100,000 puts you in the sensible/economy class, another couple of year's savings may allow you to build your kitty to afford the extras which you may currently consider to be the essentials.       

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14 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

I am a narrowboat owner and that is tosh ?. Widebeam boats are superior in every way to sewer tubes there is only one reason we all have to buy sewer tubes and thats the poxy narrow locks we have been left with. There are many miles of wide waterways only spoilt by a narrow bit mid England. Widebeams are far more than just acceptable, they are better if used in the correct place. I reckon you have probably only ever owned a sewer tube? I find the most noise comes from those with the least boat type experience. My widebeam was bloomin fab :D

You highlighted my comment about which canals are best, not which boats are best, so you may be a bit confused.  FYI I have plenty of experience of all sorts of boats on inland waterways and out on the big wide ocean.

 

I recently started a thread on which canals people liked best.  Every single answer given by a narrowboat owner was a vote for a narrow canal.  So yes, the narrow canals are the best canal in general and I stand by my statement.  This idea that there's some tiny strip of land with narrow canals just isn't true.  The narrow canal system starts in Oxford in the South to Huddersfield in the North.  The Grand Union from Napton to Camp Hill is nominally wide but very few widebeams go up there, for good reason.  For those who prefer canals to rivers, a narrowboat could head south to north up the Oxford, to Coventy, Trent & Mersey, Macc, Peak Forest, HNC or into Birmingham and onto the Shroppie, taking in the Ashby, S&W, W &B, Llangollen, B&F, Caldon, and Montgomery along the way.  That's a lot of canal.

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26 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

You highlighted my comment about which canals are best, not which boats are best, so you may be a bit confused.  FYI I have plenty of experience of all sorts of boats on inland waterways and out on the big wide ocean.

 

I recently started a thread on which canals people liked best.  Every single answer given by a narrowboat owner was a vote for a narrow canal.  So yes, the narrow canals are the best canal in general and I stand by my statement.  This idea that there's some tiny strip of land with narrow canals just isn't true.  The narrow canal system starts in Oxford in the South to Huddersfield in the North.  The Grand Union from Napton to Camp Hill is nominally wide but very few widebeams go up there, for good reason.  For those who prefer canals to rivers, a narrowboat could head south to north up the Oxford, to Coventy, Trent & Mersey, Macc, Peak Forest, HNC or into Birmingham and onto the Shroppie, taking in the Ashby, S&W, W &B, Llangollen, B&F, Caldon, and Montgomery along the way.  That's a lot of canal.

Just a small point of order..... in your recent thread on favourite canals I did say that if I had to spend my life on only one canal it would be the Leeds Liverpool.  And in that event I would probably have a wide boat though not one of those ugly "fat narrowboat" things.

 

But in general I agree with the sentiment expressed.  Mrsmelly may be engaging his usual tongue in cheek drive mode (and making a shedload of assumptions about forum members), but I only ever hear words like "sewer tube" expressed on this forum where occasionally owners of wide craft can't resist a pop at those who choose a different style of boating.  The narrow canals of England and Wales are a unique gift which should be celebrated not derided, and you only have to spend a few minutes in the company of one of the many visitors from overseas to discover how envious the rest of the world are that we have this wonderful, charming, historic facility.  

 

I'm with the guy who said "Boats, like whisky, all are good." but to truly appreciate all the inland waterways of England & Wales you have to have a narrow boat, it's just not debatable.     

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1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

  Every single answer given by a narrowboat owner was a vote for a narrow canal. 

Well, partly. I did indeed nominate a couple of narrow canals, but also mentioned the Canal de Garonne, which we have travelled on several times in a 10-foot-wide pénichette.

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2 minutes ago, Athy said:

Well, partly. I did indeed nominate a couple of narrow canals, but also mentioned the Canal de Garonne, which we have travelled on several times in a 10-foot-wide pénichette.

In a thread about UK canals!!!!

 

And if the OP had enquired about exploring the canals of France, I wouldn't be recommending a narrowboat.  But he didn't, he enquired about exploring the canals of this country.  In fact he made it quite clear that wanted to explore the whole network.  Then up pop a couple of widebeam cheerleaders, ignoring the wishes of the OP and dismissing his budget, claiming he should get a widebeam instead.  In the light of the OPs enquiry, this was a daft suggestion.  Nobody has suggested that widebeams don't provide a more comfortable living environment but the OP was clear in their request.

 

The internet generally is full of this sort of nonsense.  No sooner has someone asked a question like, can anyone recommend a nice place in Spain to go on holiday, then someone jumps in with 'don't go to spain, go to greece!"

 

Totally unhelpful.

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3 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

In a thread about UK canals!!!!

 

 

Yes, that's why I cited the South Oxford and the Ashby.

3 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

 

 

Totally unhelpful.

You are fully entitled to your opinion.

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OP.

 

I understand the idea of having something different, not the norm if you like.

 

Problem a builder would have is time and space. There will be a builder that will build the boat you want, however it all depends on time it takes and the space your boat stands in, in the workshop. That will all translate to money/cost.

 

Perhaps something to think about would be a lined sailaway, perhaps with a galley/loo as temp. Then let loose a joiner to do what you want. Time is just his/yours and the space will probably be on your mooring. That way, you may get the boat within your budget.

 

Edit and just to add. My ideal boat would be a Tardis.. Narrow on the outside.. Widebeam inside.. ;)

Edited by 70liveaboard
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8 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Thanks for letting me know.  I wasn't sure.

My pleasure. 

I would add that two-thirds of my response to your thread was on-topic and, I hope, helpful. The third third was added through enthusiasm.

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On 15/07/2019 at 12:59, Skin said:

 

- Paintwork, I see so so many of the same colors and designs on UK narrowboats, is anyone doing custom paintjobs?, is it frowned upon?, we know through our work quite a few artists and a couple are interested in doing a full airbrushed finish, but not if we are going to get egged and booed at every overnight stop, a strange question I know

 

 

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50 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

 

Just to say we haven't been egged or booed at all since we had the new paintjob. Lots of positive comments and smiles - I think most people like to see something a bit different, even if it wouldn't be for them.

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33 minutes ago, magictime said:

Just to say we haven't been egged or booed at all since we had the new paintjob. Lots of positive comments and smiles - I think most people like to see something a bit different, even if it wouldn't be for them.

I wonder if it would be different if someone did some kind of wacky paintjob on a well known historic boat?

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3 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

I wonder if it would be different if someone did some kind of wacky paintjob on a well known historic boat?

Yeah, I can imagine so - and fair enough. Although I personally like the look of Caldy in that picture, I can see that it means something of interest and value has been lost.

 

But if we're talking about modern leisure/liveaboard boats, any attempt to look 'traditional' seems basically futile to me. You can't make a typical modern narrowboat look 'traditional' just by painting it red and green with cream coachlines and nice signwriting, because at the end of the day it still has a whacking great steel cabin all the way along, full of windows through which you can peer in at modern kitchens, living rooms etc. It could never look like a 'traditional' narrowboat, any more than a yurt could look like a 'traditional' English house if you only printed a pattern of bricks on the canvas. The painting of modern boats is more a matter of convention than tradition, I would say, those conventions having been established only in the last thirty or forty years.

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1 hour ago, magictime said:

Yeah, I can imagine so - and fair enough. Although I personally like the look of Caldy in that picture, I can see that it means something of interest and value has been lost.

 

But if we're talking about modern leisure/liveaboard boats, any attempt to look 'traditional' seems basically futile to me. You can't make a typical modern narrowboat look 'traditional' just by painting it red and green with cream coachlines and nice signwriting, because at the end of the day it still has a whacking great steel cabin all the way along, full of windows through which you can peer in at modern kitchens, living rooms etc. It could never look like a 'traditional' narrowboat, any more than a yurt could look like a 'traditional' English house if you only printed a pattern of bricks on the canvas. The painting of modern boats is more a matter of convention than tradition, I would say, those conventions having been established only in the last thirty or forty years.

Yep, that about sums it up. To finish, if it aint being pulled by an orse then it aint " Traditional " innitt.

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