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An Overplated Situation


BoatjackHorseboat

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Hi all,

 

My partner and I are in the process of buying a 45ft steel narrowboat off a friend of a friend.

 

The owner has allowed us to boatsit for two months while we await a survey, tootling around a few miles of canal in socially distanced isolation. We've really enjoyed it - especially as 2020's restrictions had separated us before this. The boat has zero mod cons and many resident spiders, but the Isuzu runs smooth and the boat appears in very liveable condition with no internal problems to report.

 

Now we have reached the dreaded post-survey moment. It's not good news.

 

The baseplate was built 6mm and the sides were built 5mm. These are both heavily pitted - down to 0.5mm in places - and not safe to go back in the water. The consensus is that it needs baseplate and sides completely overplating up to the top rubbing band - for which the yard has quoted us 10 grand.

 

The boat was originally ours for £12,000 - which in a rust-free scenario felt like a good deal. Now the owner (who wants it gone) has offered to drop the price to £5,000 - so it'd be £15,000 for us - right at the top of our budget.

 

The boat was built in 1990 by Heritage. Our surveyor reckons it'll be worth about £28,000 when plated, and will be good for another 20 years if taken care of. What we don't quite understand, though, is that both our surveyor and the yard recommend adding 5mm to the baseplate and 4mm to the sides - they both say that any thicker would unbalance/sink the boat. Assuming we should discount the original thicknesses (?) that leaves us a scratch away from <4mm, which would seem to raise not-too-distant insurance and future sale problems. Can anyone enlighten us on the logic here?

 

The surveyor paused the survey after the hull, as the owner hadn't yet offered us the big discount, and we thought it'd be all over there and then. Now we need to decide whether to pull out, or to commit to overplating and get surveyor back asap to do the rest of the boat. If any other big problems come to light, that's another new conversation...

 

Jack

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If you have only got £15k to buy a boat, this might be as good as it gets in the current market.

 

However, if it was yours for £12k before the completely unexpected overplating at £10k appeared, they are not doing you any favours by offering a discount of only half of that.

 

Given that you now know that, even after overplating, it may be difficult to insure, and sell, you have to seriously consider whether you actually want it.

 

I would walk away and take a look at GRP boats, which seem to be much cheaper than steel boats on the canals.

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

If you do buy it and have the work done you will know what you've got 

As long as the yard does a good job with the overplating, and it still remains a bit thin in places ?

Edited by Richard10002
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Turn around, keep your hands in your pockets and walk away.

 

You are not going to find any steel narrowboat for £15k that is not going to require major expenditure on it in the first few years.

 

My recommendation would be either :

 

1) Buy a very good GRP NB for £10k- £12k keeping a 'couple of thousand' in the account for things that will happen.

2) Keep saving and when you get to £30k start looking for a 'cheap' steel NB

3 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

I would walk away and take a look at GRP boats, which seem to be much cheaper than steel boats on the canals.

 

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

1) Buy a very good GRP NB for £10k- £12k keeping a 'couple of thousand' in the account for things that will happen.

 

Great minds think alike (and fools seldom differ).

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If you are committed to that particular boat (for whatever reason) and envisage both having it long-term and putting the effort in to ownership, then as @ditchcrawler says, it will be a known quantity to you. Any boat you buy for £12-15k is going to need money spent on it, so if the boat is otherwise sound (good engine, fit-out isn't falling to bits, etc) then it may be a better option than buying a sound hull that needs a lot of other work done to it for £15k. I assume the fit-out won't need stripping to overplate?

 

If you may end up selling after a few years, you might find that extensive overplating puts a lot of potential buyers off. Regardless of whether it's rationally worth £28k at that point, you may well not be able to sell it for anywhere near that.

 

Also, if the hull is in that condition, what else is knackered? It could be indicative of a general lack of maintenance or upkeep. Any further problems are likely to be expensive — they nearly always are where boats are concerned!

Edited by tehmarks
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A £28k boat for £15k isn’t a bad deal and I strongly suspect the finished article will be a lot better than anything else you could buy for £15k. 
 

As @ditchcrawler says you will have a surveyor on board to specify and check the overplating work. There are risks and it’d be wise to write off the purchase price completely if you intend to keep it for any length of time.

 

It really comes down to how much you want a boat and if push comes to shove that you’re willing to write off £15k in the worst case scenario.

 

For the record I own a boat that was overplated a lot more than 20 years ago, I understand the risks and they are tolerable for my circumstances and in relation to the overall merits of the boat.

Edited by Captain Pegg
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My overplating for a 40 foot boat (sounds like yours - when they knocked the bitumen off  you could see through the hull in places!) three years ago cost £9000. For that, I reckoned I got a boat back that I knew well, understood its problems, had worked on and liked a lot. If you get that one, at least you'll know the hull is sound, which you won't if you buy another cheap one -and if you do, it might need that spending on it soon anyway.

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9 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

A £28k boat for £15k isn’t a bad deal and I strongly suspect the finished article will be a lot better than anything else you could buy for £15k. 
 

As @ditchcrawler says you will have a surveyor on board to specify and check the overplating work. There are risks and it’d be wise to write off the purchase price completely if you intended to keep it for any length of time.

 

It really comes down to how much you want a boat and if push comes to shove that you’re willing to write off £15k in the worst case scenario.

 

For the record I own a boat that was overplated a lot more than 20 years ago, I understand the risks and they are tolerable for my circumstances and in relation to the overall merits of the boat.

I see where you are coming from but, you speak about a £28k boat for £15k, swiftly followed by suggesting a willingness to write off £15k.

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29 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

I see where you are coming from but, you speak about a £28k boat for £15k, swiftly followed by suggesting a willingness to write off £15k.

If the OP intends to keep the boat for any length of time was the caveat on that statement since its resale value may well be effectively zero at some point in future.

 

That’s unlikely but it’s the kind of mentality that is needed to enter into buying a boat like this.

 

My equation was whether I was willing to spend £20k on purchase plus another £10k on the hull in say 10 years time. The answer was yes and exactly five years from purchase I have spent nothing on hull repairs. It does impact on the decisions I make regarding the boat such as I am refitting it myself within the existing bulkheads so that I don’t spend money I can’t recover if the fit out has to be stripped for future replating. If that happens I’ll use that as an opportunity to do major internal work.

 

There is no right or wrong here. It’s very much about the purchaser’s personal circumstances and outlook.

 

ETA to add in response to an earlier post:

 

The reason leisure boats are overplated - rather than replated - is so that the internal fit out does not have to be removed.

Edited by Captain Pegg
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As others have said, if you have it done then you will know what you have got. You can then start from scratch with modern paint / coating stuff - epoxy is probably the way to go.  It will then last a very long time, log all the work and photograph it, you will want to sell it at some stage and this is the sort of stuff that helps, receipts and photos of epoxy going on and dates of dockings will help. As other others have said, any relatively cheap boat will have similar issues and bits of overplating that were put on at some unknown time by some bloke with a cheap welder, maybe even me. Don't buy any of those! 

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3 hours ago, Dave Payne said:

Thinking about it for a few more minutes, I would walk away.. 

Personally I would run as fast as possible. If the interior was well fitted with all mod cons I might consider offering £2,000, but certainly not with the problems overplating can cause.

It sounds as if the boat was originally built to a very tight budget and I can't help wondering what else was skimped on.

The suggestion to go tupperware and buy plastic is good. For £12,000 you can get some excellent, well fitted boats that would suit you perfectly.

Edited by manxmike
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2 hours ago, Bee said:

As other others have said, any relatively cheap boat will have similar issues and bits of overplating that were put on at some unknown time by some bloke with a cheap welder, maybe even me. Don't buy any of those! 

Isn't this exact what future buyers could think of this boat?

 

Presumably the painting will be over and above the cost of the plating?

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4 hours ago, Bee said:

As others have said, if you have it done then you will know what you have got.

 

 . . . . which is fine if you, the original poster, have done it. If you've just paid someone to do it then you're into . . . . 

 

4 hours ago, Bee said:

some bloke with a cheap welder

 

As others have said, look into getting a GRP cruiser.

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Hi everyone - thanks for all the thoughts so far - the insight + advice is v helpful. I'll get back re some of your other thoughts in the morning.

 

Just specifically re overplating... is the original steel thickness of an overplated boat taken into account when a future buyer's survey is undertaken? Does a surveyor measure the combined thickness? Or just the new steel added?

 

If it's just the new steel, an overplated hull with 4mm sides and 5mm base wouldn't give much leeway for insurance ie any new pitting could make it uninsurable. This is bad for us, but also perhaps going to put off a prospective buyer in (for example) 5 years time.

 

We're looking to live on the boat for as long as we're happy, but we're in our twenties and have to take into account the resale value. We're not looking to make a profit, could accept a loss, but we can't afford to write off £15k.

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Only the thickness of the new plate will show. There are many boats out there that will have had the treatment proposed for your prospective boat. My point was that over the 20 year lifespan your surveyor/fabricator predicts for the overplating a safe assumption is that it will depreciate to something close to £0 in value. However if your surveyor is correct that’s from £28k not £15k.

 

That’s because overplating carries some risks and a 50 year old boat with a knackered hull won’t sell. I doubt though many folk here can tell you of a first hand problem they have experienced despite stated views against, which I feel would be more help to you if they could elaborate. I know of some genuine problems relayed to me second hand but they occur some years down the line. Steel does not corrode quickly unless electrolytic and that can ruin even a new hull quickly.

 

I have a 52 year old boat built with 1/4” inch steel baseplate with 33 year old 6mm overplating that largely defies the common wisdom on overplating, I think because most of that wisdom is backed up by very little evidence. I don’t kid myself there isn’t a potential imminent expensive problem or that I will ever see any of the purchase price back again. That’s OK because it’s a boat worth keeping and looking after and that’s my intention. Nonetheless two independent people with professional knowledge of the market have suggested to me it’s currently worth up to 50% more than I paid for it five years ago (which was £23k). To be fair though that increase is about what I’ve spent on it and that value would mostly go out of the window with a problematic survey, and that is a more likely scenario than with most boats.

 

It’s fully insured and I haven’t had to provide another survey since the one provided to insure it in the first place five years ago. I’ll probably have another one done for my own benefit sometime soon.

 

For you it’s about what other palatable options you’ve got.

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6 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

 Steel does not corrode quickly unless electrolytic and that can ruin even a new hull quickly.

 

 

Don't forget MIC (see other threads on this site). Depending on the canal you're on it can eat the hull in a couple of years, aided and abetted by electrolytic action.

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Something has caused the extreme pitting. Until you know what caused it, you might as well gamble the money at the betting shop.

I’m in the “walk away” club.

 

eta - £15 grand is not a huge amount of money in rent terms. If the boat could struggle along for 5 years, you would save way more than that in rent, and have fun doing it - the gamble here is what if something else goes wrong (and there are lots of other things!). It’s a gamble however you look at it. Sorry to stir it up even more!!

Edited by Mike Tee
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3 minutes ago, manxmike said:

Don't forget MIC (see other threads on this site). Depending on the canal you're on it can eat the hull in a couple of years, aided and abetted by electrolytic action.

Lots of reasons a boat can fail, be it a new or old boat. The problem is that using examples of problems found on the internet gives no indication of the scale of such problems. There is always a risk involved in buying a boat and in direct terms it is higher with an overplated boat, but relative to the outlay it may be less of an overall risk.
 

There are lots of overplated boats out there, so where are the first hand experiences to demonstrate the risk is likely to be intolerable for this prospective purchaser? If it were so obvious I think we would have those examples.

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11 minutes ago, Mike Tee said:

Something has caused the extreme pitting. Until you know what caused it, you might as well gamble the money at the betting shop.

I’m in the “walk away” club.

This is relevant. In normal circumstances a 30 year old boat would not pit in excess of 5mm. Corrosion is a product of environment - both internal and external to the boat - so if there is nothing obviously changing in that respect that risk remains.
 

Equally the same problem could afflict any other boat that is moored in the same place and/or uses the same electricity supply arrangements.

 

Edited by Captain Pegg
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9 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Lots of reasons a boat can fail, be it a new or old boat. The problem is that using examples of problems found on the internet gives no indication of the scale of such problems. There is always a risk involved in buying a boat and in direct terms it is higher with an overplated boat, but relative to the outlay it may be less of an overall risk.
 

There are lots of overplated boats out there, so where are the first hand experiences to demonstrate the risk is likely to be intolerable for this prospective purchaser? If it were so obvious I think we would have those examples.

Couldn’t agree more Captain, but this one has a known history of severe pitting - it could well have been caused by recent (last few years) work, so could be eaten quickly. That specifically needs investigating before another penny gets spent.

 

crossed posts!!

Edited by Mike Tee
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If you go the overplating route i'd discuss if 8mm base/5mm sides would be viable, but before you decide give the engine some thought. The Isuzu is generally a great engine but they often suffer from head gasket faliure in later days, and a repair is often unsuccessful. On top of that parts are either expensive or unobtainable. At the very least it would be useful to have an assessment made before you go ahead. 

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