Lifeboat or small narrowboat ?

[Grotty Thumberg]

If you only have 30k to spend and want to try living on a boat for a year, is buying and converting a lifeboat a terrible idea? I see them on the canals sometimes, and they they always look depressing. However, the fact that they can go offshore, is attractive, and I imagine if you only spend 10k on such a boat and then put another 20k in it, maybe it doesn't have to look like a crusty homeless shelter.  Alternatively, there are rather aged 30-40 steel boats at that price point, which I imagine I'll find a lot easier to sell if and when the novelty of boat life has worn off. 

[PD1964]

14 minutes ago, Grotty Thumberg said:

If you only have 30k to spend and want to try living on a boat for a year, is buying and converting a lifeboat a terrible idea? I see them on the canals sometimes, and they they always look depressing. However, the fact that they can go offshore, is attractive, and I imagine if you only spend 10k on such a boat and then put another 20k in it, maybe it doesn't have to look like a crusty homeless shelter.  Alternatively, there are rather aged 30-40 steel boats at that price point, which I imagine I'll find a lot easier to sell if and when the novelty of boat life has worn off. 

You seam to be answering your own question about NOT getting a Lifeboat for the canals. I doubt they would be stable sailing offshore, as designed as a short term rescue/emergency craft not for doing the Fastnet yacht race.

  Forget a lifeboat and look for a narrowboat or even better if you want to do offshore a GRP.

  I’m sure those with experience of inshore/offshore boating will point you in the right direction with suitable boat choice.

Edited March 20, 2022 by PD1964

[Tony Brooks]

If you are happy with a doer upper then I am sure a GRP cruiser would suffice, and you could get a narrow beam one that will fit all the canals. An Ex lifeboat may be too wide for many.

[reg]

Based on the lifeboats I've seen on the canals I would say they appear to be very well suited to saving life's at sea in an emergency.

 

In my opinion they have very little going for them apart from price.

 

If you only want to try one for a year then perhaps as you could possible get the purchase price back when you sell up. So as a 1 year experience it might be a cheapish way of doing it.

[TheBiscuits]

5 hours ago, reg said:

Based on the lifeboats I've seen on the canals I would say they appear to be very well suited to saving life's at sea in an emergency.

 

Pretty much, yes.

 

They are very crap boats, but they beat the pants off either staying on a burning oil rig or trying to swim in the North Sea in January ...

 

I'd still fancy one go on being dropped in one though.

[enigmatic]

As Tony says, you can buy a good GRP cruiser for a lot less than £30k. All the downsides to GRP cruisers (most of them won't fit on narrow canals, many of them don't really have the insulation/heating to live aboard in winter, most of them are a bit small, many need a separate power generator because the outboard engine won't cope)  also apply to lifeboats. But GRP cruisers aren't *as* bad to walk on when you're going to lock ladders, handle better, have windowns and might already be bearable inside, and some of them are even less than 7' wide so you can take them everywhere. Cruisers are likely to be easier to handle offshore too, assuming you mean crossing the Wash on a calm day, not taking it up to the Shetlands in a storm.

[Scholar Gypsy]

28 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

Pretty much, yes.

 

They are very crap boats, but they beat the pants off either staying on a burning oil rig or trying to swim in the North Sea in January ...

 

I'd still fancy one go on being dropped in one though.

Yes, it does look quite fun.
 

 

And here is the world record drop -  60 metres!  I am not sure if there was anybody on board for this one, I rather think not!
 

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

10 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:

And here is the world record drop -  60 metres!  I am not sure if there was anybody on board for this one, I rather think not!

 

It looks like it comes out of the water under power - a few seconds after surfacing it's making a wake.

 

That could be under remote control, but I reckon there was at least one crew onboard for that drop.

[TheBiscuits]

 

Don't fancy this one though ...

 

 

[roland elsdon]

The problem with a life boat is it’s a single use device designed to get you onshore when your alternative  floaty device has failed off shore.

 

In that role it’s admirable and useful. However for living on the canals or  boating off shore I suspect they are a huge compromise.

[LadyG]

If you want to have something suited to canals, wide or narrow, and take out on the sea, it's not going to come in at £30K, unless you are extremely lucky. 

I met a lad, prob ex forces who had bought a solid GRp project boat for £700, fishing boat style hull, it was a bargain, sound and good engine, but only suited to wide canals. Essentially a sea going vessel  but without mast, sails, and so on. I would imagine that propulsion suited to canals would be grossly underpowered at sea. 

Needed a solid fuel stove and good insulation to make it comfortable. 

Probably needed to be fitted out with salty water stove, seating, bunks etc, quite easy to spend £10 to £15k on fit out, and still a rather quirky boat, so probably not too easy to sell on, but an excellent project for a fit young man to work on for a couple of years, but it takes time, determination, quite a few skills, and it takes cash. 

 

Edited March 21, 2022 by LadyG

[Mike Adams]

Doing up an old boat is usually a loss making and frustrating activity unless you have something special or historic. Lifeboats do not make for good conversions and you would still spend the same amount of money as fitting out a new purpose built narrowboat shell and probably more because of the complex shape. GRP cruisers such as Broom and Princess can be found at reasonable prices if you fancy going to sea otherwise ex broads grp cruisers say 36ft by 10 ft are the best bet for a project with enough room to live on and unlikely to have the problems of an old steel boat.

[Mad Harold]

2 hours ago, Mike Adams said:

Doing up an old boat is usually a loss making and frustrating activity unless you have something special or historic. Lifeboats do not make for good conversions and you would still spend the same amount of money as fitting out a new purpose built narrowboat shell and probably more because of the complex shape. GRP cruisers such as Broom and Princess can be found at reasonable prices if you fancy going to sea otherwise ex broads grp cruisers say 36ft by 10 ft are the best bet for a project with enough room to live on and unlikely to have the problems of an old steel boat.

Having 'done up' three fairly cheap boats (and numerous cars and motorbikes) I agree it is usually a loss making excercise.

In nearly every case I spent more money and months of time getting these things into decent condition than if I had paid the going rate for a boat or car in decent condition to start with.

I think there is only one advantage in buying a 'doer upper' in that it takes your money in small bites.

 

[BilgePump]

3 hours ago, Mike Adams said:

Doing up an old boat is usually a loss making and frustrating activity unless you have something special or historic. Lifeboats do not make for good conversions and you would still spend the same amount of money as fitting out a new purpose built narrowboat shell and probably more because of the complex shape. GRP cruisers such as Broom and Princess can be found at reasonable prices if you fancy going to sea otherwise ex broads grp cruisers say 36ft by 10 ft are the best bet for a project with enough room to live on and unlikely to have the problems of an old steel boat.

^^^ What he said!

 

A lifeboat won't fit the narrow canals so if you are restricting yourself to wider waterways with the budget for a 30k project narrowboat, then a far more cautious approach would seem to be a decent GRP boat. There is a 32' Princess twin diesel looks tidy on ebay BIN of under £20k https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/144463278958 . You can get narrowbeam cruisers like a Creighton for less. Broads cruisers ain't mega-pretty but they offer good space. Such boats aren't perfect for liveaboard but I would rather try and live on a dry GRP boat for a year than inside a damp and leaking building site inside a steel shell. A good GRP cruiser will be easier to maintain on a budget with DIY skills and there should be a healthy resale market for it, should you decide to give up the boat or upgrade to something bigger.

[Tony Brooks]

If going for wide beam and it's main use would be inland waterways then I think the engines in Broads cruisers would be more amenable to canal use than those in a seagoing wide beam. You only have to look at the exhausts on the wedding cakes on the Thames to see what tends to happen.

[Opener]

On 20/03/2022 at 22:33, Scholar Gypsy said:

Yes, it does look quite fun.
 

 

And here is the world record drop -  60 metres!  I am not sure if there was anybody on board for this one, I rather think not!
 

 

 

The lifeboats illustrated do seem to offer a solution to the perennial problem of finding a slipway to launch from ......

[ditchcrawler]

You could have a proper one 

[Momac]

On 20/03/2022 at 15:56, Grotty Thumberg said:

If you only have 30k to spend and want to try living on a boat for a year, is buying and converting a lifeboat a terrible idea? 

Yes