Viking Narrowboats - Build Quality

[Withywindle]

Hi everyone. I’m new to the forum and my wife and I are currently looking to buy our first boat having been hiring regularly for the last twenty odd years. 

This week the search continues we’re hoping to look at a 57’ cruiser stern built by Viking Narrowboats, not to be confused with Viking Afloat the hire company. I haven’t been able to find out much about them other than they they started up in 2007 and are based in Chelmsford but all of their boats are Polish Built. 

Does anyone own or know of someone who owns one who can give me advice about the build quality etc? I know Aqualine are built in Poland and are very well thought of. I’m hoping Viking are of the same quality. 

[Dharl]

Welcome to the forum! Sorry but don’t know much about Viking Boats apart from what you just mentioned, hopefully someone else can be a bit more helpful.    Meantime enjoy the forum, lots of great info on here.   

[MrsM]

Hi. We have a Polish-built boat (not Viking though). It is pretty decent quality in terms of the shell and well fitted out but wouldn't win any prizes for beauty/glamour/style. We are very happy with it nonetheless and were briefly moored next to a Viking owner who was extremely pleased with their boat. Our surveyor was very impressed with the thickness of the steel and quality of welding on our boat. If you are happy sharing a link to your boat I'm sure you will get some useful feedback (is it the ABNB one?). 

Edited to add: I suspect they are focusing on widebeams at the moment from looking at their website and I've certainly seen more Viking WBs than NBs on the water in the short time we've been boating. This doesn't mean anything other than there might not be as many NBs on the market.

 

Edited September 6, 2020 by MrsM