Nearly New Boats, Snagging and Surveys

[Blue Knight]

15 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

Andrew, glad you came to the same conclusion as us. Buying a new boat for a novice is not for the fainthearted. Glad to see you have done your research very well.

I'm glad you got down to Hanbury wharf as seeing a Collingwood alongside an Aqualine allows you to see the difference in a £90K to £140K boat. Why would anyone buy a new Collingwood?

We tried hard to find a 1-4 year old boat to avoid the snagging list issues but there were just none on the market in the 6 months we looked hence the need to go for new.

Good luck in your search. I reckon you do know what you are looking for now!

Everything you said was correct. The market is strong at the moment for good boats but what I've found is that these 'sub £105K category new boats' are bought by newbies like me and not by the experienced folk as they have the sense (and the relevant boating knowledge) to see them for what they are. 

 

All the best,

 

Andrew

14 hours ago, MrsM said:

Gosh you really have been busy and I expect you are both exhausted! I thought we were being thorough after looking at a dozen shortlisted boats. I do hope you find your perfect boat and I'm sure all the effort you have put in will be well worth it. Many thanks for sharing your experience with us. Mx

A week in a motorhome with so much stress almost tipped us over the edge. 

 

I thought at one point that we would be seeing a marriage guidance councillor on our return home and not a boat surveyor as what I expected to happen

[matty40s]

16 hours ago, Dr Bob said:

 

I'm glad you got down to Hanbury wharf as seeing a Collingwood alongside an Aqualine allows you to see the difference in a £90K to £140K boat. Why would anyone buy a new Collingwood?

 

Believe it or not, there are waiting lists at brokers for 2nd hand Aqualines....

Edited September 6, 2020 by matty40s

[Blue Knight]

4 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

Having looked inside 50 boats, and the outside of another 35, I am surprised that one hasn't said "BUY ME!!!", and the deal done.

 

Having said that, I started looking a year before I bought, but the money to buy didn't materialise, even though a few were real contenders. (as a matter of interest, the contenders all sold very quickly).

 

A year later when we had the money, having watched the market fairly closely for the year, I was able to home in on 4 or 5 boats to view in a day, and it was actually the first we saw that said "BUY ME!!!", so we offered the asking price there and then, and didn't bother with the rest.

Hi Richard,

 

Yes, we've been there and done that in terms of being seconds away from purchasing a boat.

 

Example-1:  The broker showed us one boat (it's still our favourite) but then it soon transpired that the overseas seller had not instructed the broker to sell it so in theory is was a speculative sale. We're still in a state of limbo with that particular boat so we've shelved it for the timebeing. 

 

Example-2:  We saw a boat on Friday afternoon after travelling 320-miles miles to view it. We were the first guys to see it and the only ones that day. The boat had a great exterior but the interior needed some attention so we returned home to think about how to improve it before offering on it.  We phoned the next day at 11 to discuss an offer (including the need to have it placed on a 6-month hard standing for renovation purposes), only to be told that someone had wandered in to the brockerage and had bought it an hour ago. 

 

Example-3: A different broker had a fantastic boat advertised on his webpage but as it turned out it was privately moored and 100-miles away from his own marina.  It became most apparent to us that his only priority was with the sale of the boats located at his own marina and that he couldn't give a stuff about the boats which were located elsewhere. We then tried to get in touch with the seller privately only to find it had been sold.

 

..........and on and on it goes.

 

One of the many conclusions formed during our expedition is that there is a whole load of crap boats being sold at the moment and that any potential purchaser needs to spend the time to help distinguish between the good, the bad and the workable.

 

All the best,

 

Andrew

Edited September 6, 2020 by Blue Knight

[Richard10002]

59 minutes ago, Blue Knight said:

One of the many conclusions formed during our expedition is that there is a whole load of crap boats being sold at the moment and that any potentual purchaser needs to spend the time to help distinguish between the good, the bad and the workable.

Nothing more certain than that

 

The boat we bought looked terrible in the pictures, but the price looked good, so we added it to the list to view on the day. It was also a bit further away than my arbitrary distance limit, but because it was at Barton under Needwood Marina, I looked closer because I thought it was somewhere near Barton Airport, which is only a few miles from our house - so it kind of conspired to get us to take a look.

 

When we got there it was way better in the flesh than in the pictures and, once the broker had left us to have a coffee and a think, we both said "Let's buy it" almost simultaneously. At £18,000 it was nowhere near the money you are looking at but, given that we would have paid more, (maybe £25,000), if it had been asking more, we just offered the asking price there and then.

[MrsM]

@Blue Knight we had a similar experience to your second example, but in our case the boat was very tatty outside but nice inside. It ticked enough of our boxes to make it a serious contender and we bought it following a 7 hour test cruise & positive survey. We have had it about a month now and have put on over a 1/4 of it's engine hours in that time! I still feel the need to apologise for it's scruffiness to people we chat to in locks etc but we couldn't be more thrilled with it. I'm sure your boat will be out there waiting. You haven't mentioned private sales - don't rule those out, we saw a couple of really super boats that were for sale privately through Apollo Duck and also one on eBay that we just missed out on (prefer the boat we ended up with though). Happy days and look forward to hearing your updates.