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a couple of days for a newbie


flearider

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hi 

after having that human malware... i'm thinking of changing my life style ..

and after watching in the cut and prob 100 other you tube shows on narrow boating. i'd like to give it a go .

is there anywhere you can go to do 2-3 days have a look inside or sleep on one for a night or so ..

not looking to rent for a week just to get the feel over a few days .. 

i'm in the nw of uk .. blackpool .. 

thx for your help and direction ..  

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It's not clear from your post if you are asking for someone to let you use their boat for a few days for free to see if you might like it - if so I'd be extremely surprised if you got any answer. Although I loathe the thought of boats used for AirBnB you can probably find one to rent for a price -  even for as little as one night. Hire firms might be prepared to do a short-term hire too, but with Covid and the essential cleaning/disinfecting involved even that is not too likely just now.

 

Tam

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1 minute ago, Tam & Di said:

It's not clear from your post if you are asking for someone to let you use their boat for a few days for free to see if you might like it - if so I'd be extremely surprised if you got any answer. Although I loathe the thought of boats used for AirBnB you can probably find one to rent for a price -  even for as little as one night. Hire firms might be prepared to do a short-term hire too, but with Covid and the essential cleaning/disinfecting involved even that is not too likely just now.

 

Tam

lol no not free .. 

having never been on a narrowboat  .. it might be the case of one night and hate the idea ..so not wanting to do a full week rental .. it's more for the wife .. to see if she would be ok ..

if everything go's ok then it would be a purchase of one around july 30-40k.

 

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17 minutes ago, flearider said:

....  there anywhere you can go to do 2-3 days have a look inside or sleep on one for a night or so ..

 

As you are probably aware, currently it is against the law to spend the night away from your home, or, to travel to a boat (otherwise many of us here would be away 'boating' instead of being locked away in a house with the boat sat all cold and lonely)

 

Once the restrictions are off, most of the hire firms do a 'weekend' deal (Friday afternoon to Sunday)

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1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

As you are probably aware, currently it is against the law to spend the night away from your home, or, to travel to a boat (otherwise many of us here would be away 'boating' instead of being locked away in a house with the boat sat all cold and lonely)

 

Once the restrictions are off, most of the hire firms do a 'weekend' deal (Friday afternoon to Sunday)

thx you 

thats great news..

would you be able to give any hire firms names out ? or is it a case of get my google fu on the go :)

Just now, Athy said:

ABC Boats appear to offer short breaks of 3 or 4 nights. They are a large firm with branches in various parts of the country, including one in the North West (Cheshire).

thx :)

 

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1 minute ago, flearider said:

thx you 

thats great news..

would you be able to give any hire firms names out ? or is it a case of get my google fu on the go :)

 

 

If you want to stay fairly local (so you can nip home if you don't like it), these people do weekend hire in Cheshire (and other locations)

 

Weekend and short break canal boat hire | Black Prince (black-prince.com)

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Just now, flearider said:

lol ...

wow £650-800 for 3 days .. thats some kind of cost (and yes i have Yorkshire in my blood)..

will have to wait for one of these days where we can go down to a marina and have a look round .. 

thx for your help :)

 

 

It does seem a lot, until you look how much a boat costs, depreciation, how much to licence, insure, moor, safety check (MOT), paint every few years, maintenance, pay staff to clean it, etc etc etc and still be in business to make a profit over a very short season its not an unrealistic amount.

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5 minutes ago, flearider said:

lol ...

wow £650-800 for 3 days .. thats some kind of cost (and yes i have Yorkshire in my blood)..

will have to wait for one of these days where we can go down to a marina and have a look round .. 

thx for your help :)

 

Maybe, but if you buy one, hate it and sell it you’ll be out a lot more than £800.

  • Greenie 1
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6 minutes ago, flearider said:

lol ...

wow £650-800 for 3 days .. thats some kind of cost (and yes i have Yorkshire in my blood)..

will have to wait for one of these days where we can go down to a marina and have a look round .. 

thx for your help :)

 

If you baulk at the cost of a short term hire I can assure you you will not think much better of the cost of boat ownership.

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7 minutes ago, flearider said:

lol ...

wow £650-800 for 3 days .. thats some kind of cost (and yes i have Yorkshire in my blood)..

will have to wait for one of these days where we can go down to a marina and have a look round .. 

thx for your help :)

That will certainly give you a good insight to living on a boat 24/7 summer and winter alike

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

It does seem a lot, until you look how much a boat costs, depreciation, how much to licence, insure, moor, safety check (MOT), paint every few years, maintenance, pay staff to clean it, etc etc etc and still be in business to make a profit over a very short season its not an unrealistic amount.

What Mr. de E. says. Boat hire HAS to be expensive because of the costs involved. Even a smallish narrowboat will cost the hire firm £50,000 or more to buy or build, and many firms replace them about every five years.

Edited by Athy
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Just now, The Happy Nomad said:

 

If you baulk at the cost of a short term hire I can assure you you will not think much better of the cost of boat ownership.

now this part i've looked into .. after an outlay of £30-40k  the costs are not that bad £3.5-5k depending on mooring..

 

2 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

That will certainly give you a good insight to living on a boat 24/7 summer and winter alike

living .. not yet  but disappearing for 6-8 weeks seems a good shout  :P

 

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4 minutes ago, Athy said:

What Mr. de E. says. Boat hire HAS to be expensive because of the costs involved. Even a smallish narrowboat will cost the hire firm £50,000 or more to buy or build, and many firms replace them about every five years.

i'll do a bit of looking about see if there's some nice soul out there that will do a private hire for a few nights .. fingers crossed  

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6 minutes ago, flearider said:

now this part i've looked into .. after an outlay of £30-40k  the costs are not that bad £3.5-5k depending on mooring..

 

Excellent then you obviously have looked into the other costs too.

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14 minutes ago, flearider said:

now this part i've looked into .. after an outlay of £30-40k  the costs are not that bad £3.5-5k depending on mooring..

 

 

 

I think you are understating the running costs.

 

It very much depends on your philosophy for maintenance - you can leave it to 'fall apart' and do not maitenance and eventually have a boat valued at less the £0, or you can maintain it correctly and retain (or even increase) the value of the boat.

 

Once every few years you are likely to have a 'major expense' running into several £1000s, other years you will have minimum maintenance, most years you will have £1000

You will have ~£1000 per annum for licence, insurance and BSSC (MOT)

Mooring fees can be anything from £1500 for a farmers field to £15000 for a London mooring

 

 

10 minutes ago, flearider said:

i'll do a bit of looking about see if there's some nice soul out there that will do a private hire for a few nights .. fingers crossed  

 

 

Not trying to rain on your parade, but it has become more of a struggle - You cannot legally rent out your 'leisure boat', renting out a boat means it become a commercial transaction, and that requires a different licence, a different (much more detailed) safety certificate, different insurance, and a Landlords Gas safety certificate - you may say its only a couple of nights I'll risk it but there have been a number of cases where the 'renter' has done serious damage to the boat, and / or the boat has sunk and the renter loses everything (worse case even their life)

 

 

Few private boaters will rent out their boat to a 'random person on the internet' - its not worth the risk for both parties.

 

Getting afloat | Renting a boat to live on | Canal & River Trust

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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4 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Excellent then you obviously have looked into the other costs too.

is/would that be maintenance/blacking engine service ?electrical  or could you plz do a quick list so i can look into those to .. 

it would be very helpful if you can ..  

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3 minutes ago, flearider said:

is/would that be maintenance/blacking engine service ?electrical  or could you plz do a quick list so i can look into those to .. 

it would be very helpful if you can ..  

 

 

Use the search at the top RH side of the page, there are 1000s of threads covering that subject - I think you'll find that the general conces=nsus is £5000 per annum + moorings.

 

 

Narrowboat Budgeting - New to Boating? - Canal World

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1 minute ago, flearider said:

is/would that be maintenance/blacking engine service ?electrical  or could you plz do a quick list so i can look into those to .. 

it would be very helpful if you can ..  

 

Well I could but my costings will be well out of date. They will be more than it was 6 years ago when we sold our boat. We were leisure boaters not liveaboards and one of the reasons we fell out of love with boat ownership was it felt like we were constantly throwing money and time at the thing just to keep on top of it.

 

But there is your licence too don't forget that.  You can get that on CRT's web site.

 

Somebody else will have a go I'm sure.

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