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First Step Towards the Cut


Jimbo435

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OK, I made my first post in another topic about boat builders, but for those that haven’t read that, we are a couple from California closing in on retirement next year (if we don’t have the second great depression).  We are moving slowly (for us) towards CCing 6 months of the year for the next few years at least. I’ve received the requisite advise about buying used and am now leaning towards that as an experience gainer while waiting for a build spot.  In fact, I may purposefully ask for a distant build spot so I can get at least one season out of a used boat before having to nail down specs on a new boat.

 

I have been reading old posts on here for the last few weeks, but still have probably hundreds of questions, but before I jump in, my first question is, do the active members here think someone new to narrowboating can gain enough feedback from forums such as this to get their expected needs significantly fleshed out? I've seen a lot of great information on here, but also a lot of people saying you need to do it to know what you want.

 

I assume every single boater has different needs, so that will have to be accounted for.  I also have read that one could cruise for 40 years, and still not get their boat spec’ed 100% right.

 

I feel like exercising my assumptions about narrowboating, and getting experienced feedback on the tradeoffs of “what I think I want” could get me at least half way towards understanding what we want.  I acknowledge that first hand experience is best, but I also hear my deceased father in my ear telling me that we shouldn’t wait too long to pursue our dreams as things can go down hill fast and before you know it the opportunity will have passed.

 

So what say ye?  Can discussion root out misconceptions and misunderstanding of narrowboating or is this something that can only be learned through doing?

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I agree with Tony as there are often posts on here about folk deciding what they want and buying a boat which fits their wishes then realising that what they really want for living afloat is something different.  

Only you can say what suits you 

 

Haggis

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27 minutes ago, Jimbo435 said:

So what say ye?  Can discussion root out misconceptions and misunderstanding of narrowboating or is this something that can only be learned through doing?

 

 

Given the breadth of opinion on virtually everything to do with boat design, I think you can only develop your own opinion by trying out some boating.

 

Bogs are the perfect example. I'd say most boaters have a firm view on which type they prefer (cassette or pump-out) and the strength of feeling recorded in old threads on the subject show that both types have major drawbacks and which is best really is a matter of personal opinion. Same thing with cruiser stern or trad, open tug deck or cratch with cover, portholes or windows, and on the list goes.

 

Buy a good s/h boat and use it for a year, I suggest, then decide from the position of a little experience.

 

 

 

 

Edited by MtB
Fiddle with it...
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3 minutes ago, MtB said:

Bogs are the perfect example. I'd say most boaters have a firm view on which type they prefer (cassette or pump-out) and the strength of feeling recorded in old threads on the subject show that both types have major drawbacks and which is best really is a matter of personal opinion. Same thing with cruiser stern or trad, open tug deck or cratch with cover, portholes or windows, and on the list goes.

But while some boaters have strong views on matters such as these, others are happy to go boating on whatever boat is available, and regard things which don't match their preferences as but a minor inconvenience to be lived with. In your position you would do much better to 'try before you buy (new)' so that when (or indeed if) you get your own boat built you will have a much better idea of what you want.

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Why have a brand new boat built costing in the region of £200k to be left not being used and depreciating in value for 6 months of the year??

  Buy secondhand if your going to buy. Your probably looking at the “Cut” through YouTube Vloggers, it is changing, it’s getting more congested and at the same time the infrastructure of the network is not being maintained to support the users.
  As said above hire a boat for a few month to get a feel of it, you may realise it’s far different then YouTube and it may not be for you long term. That way you have not wasted thousands of pounds(or even more thousands of dollars) buying a boat.

  Another option might be a house/boat swap for a few months of the year, obviously both parties would be vetted by each other. It may work out interesting, if it could be achieved successfuly.

 

 

  

  

Edited by PD1964
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We did some homework and had spent time on a friend's boat before we starting looking for our second-hand boat. We knew we couldn't afford everything on our wish list so decided what we were prepared to compromise on. As it happened, when we saw the boat we ended up buying the compromise was the exterior paintwork. We've been using it few years in its scruffy state to get our skills up before it is painted at the end of the summer. We are totally thrilled with our boat and there is very little, if anything, we would change about it. So you can be lucky and get it right first time but it's a lit easier looking at boats from the UK than the States.

(My next boat would ideally have a classic engine but himself has yet to be convinced!) 😀

 

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Are you a US citizen ?

Are you allowed to come into the UK for 6 months at a time ? 

 

Have you read the threads from some of our overses boat owners who this year (due to chages in the insurance industry) have not been able to secure insurance unless their primary address is in the UK and they are UK citizens.

 

Maybe a good idea to check out the 'paperwork' before committing to any costs.

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Are you a US citizen ?

Are you allowed to come into the UK for 6 months at a time ? 

 

Have you read the threads from some of our overses boat owners who this year (due to chages in the insurance industry) have not been able to secure insurance unless their primary address is in the UK and they are UK citizens.

 

Maybe a good idea to check out the 'paperwork' before committing to any costs.

If you are talking about the thread I read a few days ago, the Aussies were able to eventually find an insurance company, correct?

 

So am I hearing correctly?  Are most suggesting "Don't ask us what you might want/not want on a boat and why, just rent/buy a used one and you'll eventually find out for yourself"?

Edited by Jimbo435
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8 minutes ago, Jimbo435 said:

So am I hearing correctly?  Are most suggesting "Don't ask us what you might want/not want on a boat and why, just rent/buy a used one and you'll eventually find out for yourself"?

Not exactly. By all means ask on here about what you might want/not want, but expect to get a range of views - only you can decide which ones seem right for you. Then look for a second hand boat that ticks most of your boxes - you might even find one that ticks almost all of them, but that would be lucky. That way you should get much of what you want (or at least what you think you want), which means there shouldn't be too many compromises with your first boat. And then with some experience under your belt you can decide whether to keep the boat you have (with or without some changes along the way), or whether you want a different second hand boat or a new boat to your own specification.

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We had about a dozen hire-boat holidays in the decade or so before we bought our boat, and used that experience to draw-up a list of things the boat must have and things it must not have. It was a useful exercise, but the boat we actually bought was a rubbish fit to that list. We still have the boat 7 years later, cruising for about 6 months a year and leaving it in a marina over winter.

 

I’d say “hope this helps”, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t!

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I take it you’ve never been to England or anywhere near a canal or Narrowboat, It’s difficult to answer your questions without maybe telling you what you don’t want to hear. As you may have a view of what you believe life on the canal is like through YouTube, you need to try it first before totally committing and the best way to do that would be to hire, or on the other hand you could take no notice of people on here and just go for it and have a brand new boat built £200k plus. In any case it makes no difference to to anyone on here.

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2 minutes ago, Col_T said:

We had about a dozen hire-boat holidays in the decade or so before we bought our boat, and used that experience to draw-up a list of things the boat must have and things it must not have. It was a useful exercise, but the boat we actually bought was a rubbish fit to that list. We still have the boat 7 years later, cruising for about 6 months a year and leaving it in a marina over winter.

 

I’d say “hope this helps”, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t!

It does help.  It seems that your desire to be on the canals has overridden your dislike for things on your boat.  Crossing my fingers.

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I think you CAN research things fairly well and be informed on the various choices, but then each option has advantages and disadvantages. For example, let's take something fairly benign: TV aerials. Omnidirectional or unidirectional? You'll save the hassle of setting up precise direction with an omni, BUT the signal strength isn't quite as much and you'll get worse reception and/or fewer channels. The advantage of not needing to point it may personally for you, outweigh the fewer channels, if you happen to land on the channels you tend to watch, and/or stop in the rain more, etc. While you can take on someone else's opinion, you don't know their precise circumstances which weigh those advantages/disadvantages towards one or the other. Or they might simply have a preference and not want to change, because they don't have much money, and don't want to reveal they don't have much money etc etc. So the final evaluation must be yours alone.

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1 minute ago, Jimbo435 said:

 It seems that your desire to be on the canals has overridden your dislike for things on your boat.

 

 

Its not so much a case of "dislike for things on your boat" as a balance of compromises. For example my last boat had a lovely big saloon and large cratch area at the expense of it being a 68ft boat. The boat could have been 10ft shorter with the associated easier handling (for a solo boater) and lower mooring and licence costs. 

 

So would you say I 'disliked' the extra space? Well I didn't, I loved it, at the expense of running a bigger boat than I actually needed.

 

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1 minute ago, PD1964 said:

I take it you’ve never been to England or anywhere near a canal or Narrowboat, It’s difficult to answer your questions without maybe telling you what you don’t want to hear. As you may have a view of what you believe life on the canal is like through YouTube, you need to try it first before totally committing and the best way to do that would be to hire, or on the other hand you could take no notice of people on here and just go for it and have a brand new boat built £200k plus. In any case it makes no difference to to anyone on here.

Been to England/UK many times.  Never have seen a narrowboat in all those trips, not that I've taken notice of.  I've been aware that they existed since reading some old NG magazines my dad had, and I seem to remember looking into hiring one when we first got married back in the 80's, but it was very expensive at the time (to us).  

 

I am really tempted to just blow as much cash as I can on a boat, and make it as outragous as possible just so that when I go to sell it in a couple years you all would have something to talk about...  lol

 

Yes, we have a plan in incrementally increasing costs before making any commitments.  We will be in the Cotswolds in the fall and will seek out some boats to get aboard.  If that doesn't put us off, then we will not cancel our hire boat I just put a deposit down on for May.  If after a week living on that and hopefully a bunch of locks, swing bridges, a tunnel or two and what not, than we will start looking for a boat/builder.  Fingers crossed we will be retired by then so can stay as long as we want to make that work.  I do think we will have trouble finding what we want on the second hand market (that the missus will agree to live on), so plan to schedule a new build maybe 2 years out (might have to be whether I want it or not) and then look for a used boat while we wait.  Not sure what the build schedule is like, but hopefully if the slot is 2 years out, they won't really start asking what we want for 6 months to a year.  By then we should have more empirical experience.

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10 minutes ago, Paul C said:

I think you CAN research things fairly well and be informed on the various choices, but then each option has advantages and disadvantages. For example, let's take something fairly benign: TV aerials. Omnidirectional or unidirectional? You'll save the hassle of setting up precise direction with an omni, BUT the signal strength isn't quite as much and you'll get worse reception and/or fewer channels. The advantage of not needing to point it may personally for you, outweigh the fewer channels, if you happen to land on the channels you tend to watch, and/or stop in the rain more, etc. While you can take on someone else's opinion, you don't know their precise circumstances which weigh those advantages/disadvantages towards one or the other. Or they might simply have a preference and not want to change, because they don't have much money, and don't want to reveal they don't have much money etc etc. So the final evaluation must be yours alone.

Exactly.  I learned that in designing my houses.  Everything is a tradeoff.  I was just explaining to my wife not an hour ago when she said "I really want a nice well deck and a cratch cover"  I explained some of the tradeoffs of that: loss of space elsewhere, reduces security, the need for access eliminating options in the bedroom (in a reverse layout), etc.  And that is what I don't know not doing it for days on end, is exactly what the tradeoffs are.  

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13 minutes ago, MtB said:

So would you say I 'disliked' the extra space? Well I didn't, I loved it, at the expense of running a bigger boat than I actually needed.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.  

But it illustrates to me at least that even with experience, I might get the spec's wrong.  I've heard it said it takes 3 boats to get it right.

 

At first we thought we wanted a flashy boat.  Saw a video by a boatbuilder in Liverpool showing a closeup of their red paint job.  There was a post deep on an unrelated topic hear showing it being lifted in.  Shiny as glass and the paint seemed to be poured over the boat, very smooth.  But then after reading about boat security, maybe flashy is just a big sign saying "Expensive stuff here, come on in!"  So thinking a more toned down boat might be in order.

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This is another good example: it is "said" that a reverse layout is good for cruising, because the kitchen is next to the stern area so communication and nipping down for a cup of tea etc are easy. And that a conventional layout is good for mooring up, because the kitchen in the middle makes sense, the lounge is at the front and the bow is an extension of that, etc. The bedroom at the rear can be a little cooler and more isolated.

 

So, you might now decide on reverse layout being best, because you want to cruise a lot.

 

But after 3-4 years, you slow down cruising, now doing 1-2 hours every other day rather than 4-5 hours per day. You've cruised the local canals 5-6 times, and the local area 10-20 times, some far away places but you end up with an area you prefer, etc and get to know it more and more. Then you explore further and further away from the canal itself, deeper and deeper into the surrounding area, getting trains 10-20 or more miles from the canal etc etc, now you're staying in one spot for 14 days at a time, then moving on just 1-2 miles.

 

That conventional layout starts to make sense, and the reverse layout means you're constantly walking past the bathroom to go from lounge to kitchen, or something like that.

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But we have a reverse layout with kitchen in the middle, not at the rear. Our cruiser stern is an extension to our living space when we are moored up and we don't have to walk through the bedroom when cruising. The cratch is a nice extension to our bedroom - which is extremely peaceful being far away from the engine. Cruiser stern is great for friends and for relaxing on when we stop, but we have to stand out in the rain when cruising in bad weather. Horses for courses. OP, when you are next over look at as many boats as possible - you will soon get a feel for what you and your partner are comfortable with. 

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Perhaps look for a hire company with a number of boats with different layouts. And do a deal with them to hire 3 or 4 over successive weeks?  That could give you some ideas of what suits you on that front. But it won't address the issues that don't arise much on hire boats: pump-out/cassette, battery management, maintenance, supplies, etc

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