Think I might be in trouble.

[Paul C]

You need a reasonable thickness with no "thin" bits structurally, if you're going to do a bunch of locks, especially if its a beginner driving. Some area 2-3mm thick will distort and eventually tear after a few locks. Its not just about water integrity.

[agg221]

Although possibly slightly less naïve than you, we also bought a boat which turned out to have a succession of issues, with a seller who, it turned out, had at best spun a lot of lines and at worst, lied outright. Like you, we also bought the boat we wanted rather than one which might be considered the best commercial proposition. I can therefore empathise to a large extent.

 

For us, the thing to do was revert to the positives. Is the hull sound? Yes, so it's not going to sink. Is the cabin sound? Yes, so it's not going to fill up with water. How about other entry points for water? The stern gland, but that is new and the shaft is new so no issues there (you are one up on us on that one - ours had issues, now resolved). That means you have a sound boat.

 

Everything beyond that is a system which will periodically break, but the issues when it does become increasingly manageable. Propulsion first - I would check the engine oil (do you really trust the boatyard?), see whether it smokes much on start-up or when running and whether it makes any horrible noises, either vibration or grating, in forwards or reverse and across the rev range. If it's OK on all of that it is probably alright. One day it will break down again, but it might be a long time so you have time to plan what you will do when it does - repair or replace, and time to set aside funds to do it. Prop and shaft - well that's already been done. That leaves the coupling - well that will also be brand new.

 

Beyond that, your next systems to work out will be electrics, heating and cooking. Assuming you have a current BSS (you do have one don't you?) then the gas at least shouldn't be leaking.  Yes, things get missed, but you can probably check pretty quickly whether it's OK and if so there is no particular reason to believe it will break rapidly. Things will fail but these will all have been in use while it was being lived on so are more likely to at least be basically functional. You can go a long way with a gas hob, a stove and some very basic lighting. I presume you now have a porta potti, so the only other thing you might ideally want is a  shower. Once you have that lot, you have the basics. You will probably spend a fair bit of time working out why each of them has gone wrong in turn in the first instance, but they will fail progressively less frequently if you fix them properly, and you will be quicker at diagnosing them when they do.

 

When we picked ours up the tiller was missing (used the broom handle), the chimney was missing (lived without heat and used thicker duvets) and the fenders had been swapped for ones which were so rotten that they fell apart. Our first stretch was up the Trent - there was a huge sense of relief in making it to the canal without the engine packing up. The throttle linkage fell apart the next day (not properly secured), the promised topping up of the diesel tank hadn't happened (made it to a boatyard and got some) and there was no water and no gas on board. We ran across a passing fuel boat to sort the gas and used some water bottles until we could sort the tank out. We found the engine hadn't actually been serviced in years (despite the statement to the contrary) but it held up until we got to our mooring, unlike the gear linkage which fell apart completely and the engine cooling system which sprang a leak. We made it in to Norbury with my daughter raising and lowering the gear engagement in response to hand signals and my wife jamming her thumb in the leak in the cooling system while pouring extra water in the header tank. I then found that the gear linkage had fallen apart because it was held to the ceiling with a single quarter inch screw! Some better screws and a piece of wood to spread the load, and some instant gasket and judicious use of spanners and mole grips got the thing going again and we made it to Cheswardine. The following day it refused to start - much turning over by hand to bleed the fuel pump got it running eventually and we made it to the mooring with a great sense of relief and set to with sorting it all out.

 

We have now owned the boat almost exactly two years. The trip down to Audlem for a weekend this August (~4hrs each way) was the first time we have had a trip where the engine has started properly every time. Is it fixed? Probably not. However, you would expect that as more of it gets fixed, there will be an increasing frequency of this happening and eventually it may become the norm, with engine failure becoming the exception. That would be nice - less time fixing the engine will mean more time fixing other things and the boat will gradually progress towards finished. Yours will probably do the same.

 

Alec

[MtB]

10 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

But conversely you wouldn’t last long as a surveyor if 1 in 10 boats you reported as being sound then sank or needed a five figure repair doing shortly after completion.

 

How much water leaks in through 3.9mm of steel anyway? And which surveyors announce "Sound" as opposed to stating the degree of degradation?

 

But there you go doing it too. "Needed". Needed by what standard exactly? 

[___]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

How much water leaks in through 3.9mm of steel anyway? And which surveyors announce "Sound" as opposed to stating the degree of degradation?

 

But there you go doing it too. "Needed". Needed by what standard exactly? 

 
@Paul C has answered that at least in part.

 

I was simply pointing out that it’s not a black and white thing and making the judgments isn’t straightforward. The standard is what the insurance industry will support. It may not be particularly scientific but nor will it have been entirely plucked out of thin air.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

I’ve just noticed that the brochure is from Great Haywood Boat Sales which is now Nationwide Boat Sales.

 

That’s absolutely nothing to do with Lakeland Leisure Boat Sales or any of operations or staff at Great Haywood or Barton Turns marinas.

 

The brochure also makes a statement that GHBS were acting solely as broker in the sale.

 

 

42 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

But conversely you wouldn’t last long as a surveyor if 1 in 10 boats you reported as being sound then sank or needed a five figure repair doing shortly after completion.

And conversely you wont last long as a Broker if 1 in 10 boats you sell end up like the OP’s whoever the Broker is. Obviously your something to do with whichever Broker is at this Marina, which seams to be Lakeland, who sold boats at Great Haywood, GHBS??

I wouldn’t worry about it too much, as I said previously in a post the OP seams to have rolled over and let all this happen too easily and too much time has passed. So no point surmising anything and Witch hunting as too much water has gone under the bridge for claims or monetary returns.

 

47 minutes ago, agg221 said:

Although possibly slightly less naïve than you, we also bought a boat which turned out to have a succession of issues, with a seller who, it turned out, had at best spun a lot of lines and at worst, lied outright. Like you, we also bought the boat we wanted rather than one which might be considered the best commercial proposition. I can therefore empathise to a large extent.

 

For us, the thing to do was revert to the positives. Is the hull sound? Yes, so it's not going to sink. Is the cabin sound? Yes, so it's not going to fill up with water. How about other entry points for water? The stern gland, but that is new and the shaft is new so no issues there (you are one up on us on that one - ours had issues, now resolved). That means you have a sound boat.

 

Everything beyond that is a system which will periodically break, but the issues when it does become increasingly manageable. Propulsion first - I would check the engine oil (do you really trust the boatyard?), see whether it smokes much on start-up or when running and whether it makes any horrible noises, either vibration or grating, in forwards or reverse and across the rev range. If it's OK on all of that it is probably alright. One day it will break down again, but it might be a long time so you have time to plan what you will do when it does - repair or replace, and time to set aside funds to do it. Prop and shaft - well that's already been done. That leaves the coupling - well that will also be brand new.

 

Beyond that, your next systems to work out will be electrics, heating and cooking. Assuming you have a current BSS (you do have one don't you?) then the gas at least shouldn't be leaking.  Yes, things get missed, but you can probably check pretty quickly whether it's OK and if so there is no particular reason to believe it will break rapidly. Things will fail but these will all have been in use while it was being lived on so are more likely to at least be basically functional. You can go a long way with a gas hob, a stove and some very basic lighting. I presume you now have a porta potti, so the only other thing you might ideally want is a  shower. Once you have that lot, you have the basics. You will probably spend a fair bit of time working out why each of them has gone wrong in turn in the first instance, but they will fail progressively less frequently if you fix them properly, and you will be quicker at diagnosing them when they do.

 

When we picked ours up the tiller was missing (used the broom handle), the chimney was missing (lived without heat and used thicker duvets) and the fenders had been swapped for ones which were so rotten that they fell apart. Our first stretch was up the Trent - there was a huge sense of relief in making it to the canal without the engine packing up. The throttle linkage fell apart the next day (not properly secured), the promised topping up of the diesel tank hadn't happened (made it to a boatyard and got some) and there was no water and no gas on board. We ran across a passing fuel boat to sort the gas and used some water bottles until we could sort the tank out. We found the engine hadn't actually been serviced in years (despite the statement to the contrary) but it held up until we got to our mooring, unlike the gear linkage which fell apart completely and the engine cooling system which sprang a leak. We made it in to Norbury with my daughter raising and lowering the gear engagement in response to hand signals and my wife jamming her thumb in the leak in the cooling system while pouring extra water in the header tank. I then found that the gear linkage had fallen apart because it was held to the ceiling with a single quarter inch screw! Some better screws and a piece of wood to spread the load, and some instant gasket and judicious use of spanners and mole grips got the thing going again and we made it to Cheswardine. The following day it refused to start - much turning over by hand to bleed the fuel pump got it running eventually and we made it to the mooring with a great sense of relief and set to with sorting it all out.

 

We have now owned the boat almost exactly two years. The trip down to Audlem for a weekend this August (~4hrs each way) was the first time we have had a trip where the engine has started properly every time. Is it fixed? Probably not. However, you would expect that as more of it gets fixed, there will be an increasing frequency of this happening and eventually it may become the norm, with engine failure becoming the exception. That would be nice - less time fixing the engine will mean more time fixing other things and the boat will gradually progress towards finished. Yours will probably do the same.

 

Alec

Obviously there were a lot of nieve people buying boats after Covid-19 Lockdown and getting ripped off by unscrupulous sellers, sorry to say.☹️ Just hope anyone thinking of buying a boat reads this Post and learns from it.

Edited September 10, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[___]

16 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Obviously your something to do with whichever Broker is at this Marina, which seams to be Lakeland, who sold boats at Great Haywood, GHBS??

No. I work for myself but as I said I have done work for Lakeland Leisure Boat Sales. GHBS used to sell boats at Great Haywood. They don’t anymore hence they’ve changed their name to Nationwide Boat Sales.

[agg221]

18 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Obviously there were a lot of nieve people buying boats after Covid-19 Lockdown and getting ripped off by unscrupulous sellers, sorry to say.☹️ Just hope anyone thinking of buying a boat reads this Post and learns from it.

 

There definitely were.

 

In our case, I have a longstanding interest in ice boats. There are only five iron BCN ice boats left of the original six, one is Ross which is deconverted at the BCLM so that leaves four which might become available. Since 1998 when I first became interested in them, three of the boats have changed hands, one of them (ours) twice. We bought it with eyes open, knowing who had done the survey and who had built the cabin. The rest was down to chance - we concluded that anything else we could fix.

 

Unfortunately, for the average buyer of the average boat, the combination of post-COVID lockdowns ending and ever rising house prices in city centres have put a lot of boats on the market which are nowhere near as good as they purport to be, and it can be a hard lesson finding that out. The OP has actually done better than many in that, whilst the need for all the work done is debatable and quite frankly an engine which has recently been service should at least have been run enough to know if the thermostat is not opening, it has at least focused on the priorities of hull and engine rather than the cosmetics. The OP has also set aside a sensible original budget for work. As such, I would expect that, in the fullness of time, this will be resolved. There is a financial cost but there is also a lot of learning. I would guess he will either find this boat works for him and keep it, in which case there is an intangible value to having had the work done on a boat you actually enjoy, rather than just treat as a financial proposition, or if he moves on he will not make the same mistakes again.

 

Alec

[David Mack]

4 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Any chance anyone can work some IT magic on this to make the file open more easily. Thanks

You may need to install a pdf reader app if your phone doesn't already have one. Should be free ones on the Google Play store.

[john.k]

I did read the sellers PDF ,and I see it as entirely reasonable ,with no claims made as to any of the issues of the buyer complaints ...........the usual disclaimer is included in the document ,and as one might expect ,throws the onus of inspection  entirely on a buyer .

[LadyG]

1 hour ago, john.k said:

I did read the sellers PDF ,and I see it as entirely reasonable ,with no claims made as to any of the issues of the buyer complaints ...........the usual disclaimer is included in the document ,and as one might expect ,throws the onus of inspection  entirely on a buyer .

But the onus of inspection is not entirely on the buyer if the vendor is the broker because the boat must be fit for purpose.

That is Consumer Law.

[john.k]

Once upon a time ,the govt did the same here with used cars............the dealers got around the requirement by listing every part of the car as needing repair or replacement ......... a document 50 pages long that had to be signed by the buyer...........needless to say ,buyers didnt  read it before signing.

[LadyG]

26 minutes ago, john.k said:

Once upon a time ,the govt did the same here with used cars............the dealers got around the requirement by listing every part of the car as needing repair or replacement ......... a document 50 pages long that had to be signed by the buyer...........needless to say ,buyers didnt  read it before signing.

Maybe I should be clearer, the Law is the Law and no amount of waffle can allow the vendor to get out of it. I am referring to consumer law where the vendor is selling the boat in the course of his business, which is why one should always be clear when one is buying anything.

Who is the owner.  If the broker owns the boat it needs to be fit for purpose. I'm sure I've said this before!!!!!!

Edited September 11, 2023 by LadyG

[Barneyp]

14 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Maybe I should be clearer, the Law is the Law and no amount of waffle can allow the vendor to get out of it. I am referring to consumer law where the vendor is selling the boat in the course of his business, which is why one should always be clear when one is buying anything.

Who is the owner.  If the broker owns the boat it needs to be fit for purpose. I'm sure I've said this before!!!!!!

Yes you have said that before, and no you don't need to be clearer, we understand what you're saying.

Several people, including myself, have replied to or made posts which you seem to be ignoring.

 

Firstly it is far from clear that the broker was also the seller, they may have been, but to make a legal claim one would have to prove they were, and that won't be easy.

 

Secondly if the boat fails within six months of purchase it is assued by the law that the boat was faulty at time of sale unless the seller can prove otherwise. This boat was purchased well over 6 months ago meaning te onus is now on the purchaser to prove the faults were present at the time of purchase and that the purchaser was not aware of them, given the fact that the purchaser had a survey, and had lots of work carried out, and the bits that now don't work must have worked initially it seems highly unlikely they could make a successful claim in court.

[david909]

@ag221 
Than you for that. Nice to hear something other than "haha, you got ripped off. What an idiot!".

Yes, going top be my home, so - priority - hull and engine. Hull's good for several years. Replated, re-blacked and new anodes.
Engine - here's where it gets a bit tricky. They had the engine out, replaced the mounts, were going to do a complete strip down and rebuild but the full gasket set was £1800 instead of £200 so I said, just replace what needs replacing.
Filters and hoses replaced, engine put back in and tested. 
"We ran it for half an hour" obviously not long enough to notice that it was running hot and then very hot.
No matter - she runs nicely with no thermostat (one is on order and will be fitted, wherever I am, when it arrives.)

I don't understand the damage to the coupling. It looks like a strip of rubber (?) has been torn off it. Why is is connected that way, or is that just cosmetic?
Could it be sleeved instead of replaced?

I have the email stating plainly what I wanted doing to the doors, and they completely ignored me and did what they wanted. 
However, yesterday when I went to gather all related emails together to collate the invoices a MOST curious detail emerged. All of the invoices have disappeared. I have a bunch of emails saying "Paid", attached to emails saying "Please see our latest attached invoice", only there's no longer an invoice attached. So I have records, via my bank, of the amounts transferred to them, but no invoices. 
Have they unsent the invoices?


First phone call I had from them was "we've grit blasted the hull and the rust is worse than we thought so replating is the only option." At £17k for the sheet of steel. I tried looking myself to see what steel prices were but couldn't find anyone who sold it in long sheets. I couldn't take the boat back with a raw steel hull with severe rust pitting, so had to say go ahead. Every quoted cost thereafter was way higher when the invoice came. I asked and asked and asked for them to stop work and give me a quote for the remaining work not a guesstimate, each time evasion and subject changes and sudden vagueness. If I refused to pay they have the boat. So, at first I thought, "oh well, it's a good investment in terms of making the boat useable". It upset plans, but plans are just that, plans, and they have to change sometimes. But it just went on and on. I spotted a pattern - phone call bewailing a discovery, with a statement of high cost. Then I'd say, "can it be done for less?". "Yes, if you don't mind it not being Class A work". And then the invoice would arrive for way higher than the originally quoted Class A work.

So far it hasn't run for 24 hours without a new problem emerging and I can't help feeling that the money spent in no way equates to the outcome.

[___]

3 hours ago, LadyG said:

But the onus of inspection is not entirely on the buyer if the vendor is the broker because the boat must be fit for purpose.

That is Consumer Law.

The answer to that is both in the posted sales brochure and in the text of the thread.

 

GHBS were acting as broker only.

[david909]

All I wanted was a summer on the canals. Get away and and get some headspace in which to process the previous few years which contained, losing both parents, losing everything in a major house fire (escaping in my pyjamas at 1:30AM), my youngest graduating and leaving home, Seven funerals during Covid, a profoundly impacting health diagnosis (not terminal or anything like that), and all the bullshit that arises from a failing marriage.
I looked at hiring a boat longer term but the cost was daft. I tried the holiday route, but the cost was even higher. So I thought, "buy one, spend the summer on it then sell it, and keep the losses down."
The whole issue of boats more or less brought my failing marriage to its knees, which changed it from buy, use and sell, to buy and live aboard.

The thing that put me off most boats is that they're so dark inside. Whereas this one, with its obviously made for a house windows, is full of light inside. And having the full width bedroom at the rear and side doors means it lacks that "living in a corridor' feel. 
I visited the boat. It was afloat. It was dry. The engine started. "It has eight leisure batteries". Awesome, I thought, I'll be using those, what with laptops and lights and so on. It has two leisure batteries. Two old leisure batteries. When she broke down yesterday morning I tied her up and have sat on her since. A single side light being the only power use. At around 4AM this morning that leisure battery failed, requiring an hour of running the engine at first light. (This may be entirely normal. I am keen to learn. But it does seem like not much of a drain on such a battery to kill it.) I've been living in a housing association property for 30 years. If something goes wrong a phone call is placed and someone comes and fixes it. I realise this is not a housing association boat. Just hadn't expected quite so many issues so early on, having spent so much money. The assumption being once this is spent and the work is done she should be good to go. It seems to be not unreasonable to think this way.

Already contacted a Barrister's firm, who thought I have a case, but who wanted £1000 for a letter outlining the details. Even worse than the boat yard!
I could represent myself. But even were I to do either - pay someone or self represent, it will be 2025, at least, before we see the inside of a courtroom. The legal system being on the verge of collapse. And the risk is even higher. If I lose I'm liable for their costs. This would bankrupt me. There's also no legal aid available for such a case.
Or I could go the route of taking her to a different yard, getting the work done assessed and sorted and then send the original yard the bill. Which they would of course refuse to pay so back to Courts again.
Not a useful solution.



 

For what it's worth - the boat yard had the boat before the 6 months was up, though they didn't start work until early this year. They had her nearly 11 months.
Don't know if that speaks to the 6 month limit mentioned above.

[Alan de Enfield]

44 minutes ago, david909 said:

First phone call I had from them was "we've grit blasted the hull and the rust is worse than we thought so replating is the only option."

If it makes you feel any better, that is not unique to boats.

 

On the last MOT on our vintage campervan we had some advisories about 'rust' - not bad enough to be a failure, but, should be considered for rectification work.

 

Took her down to our local 'one man band, cash jobs done' vehicle welding man, he had a look at the MOT, crawled underneath and said "no problem, 2 days and £400" so we agreed to bring her in the following week.

Took her into his yard and went home.

Later that evening got a call - "its not good news - when I started cleaning up the rust it was far more widespread and worse that I had seen, it has even penetrated some of the structural steelwork and should have been an MOT failure, I'm afraid its now going to take a week and will cost £1000"

 

The 'problem' with all jobs on boats (and cars) is that until you actually start to do the work, be it welding, plumbing, electrical or woodwork you have no idea about the full severity of the associated parts. (eg : water damage in the floor, cut out floor and find that the walls are 'soaked' up to half way up and need replacing)

 

It is easy to keep "throwing good money after bad", thinking that 'thats it fixed now" and then the gearbox goes (another £1000). At some point you do have to make a decision to stop spending otherwise you are going to have £60k invested in a boat worth £30k.

 

Good luck.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[agg221]

I think you need to move on from the idea of legal recourse. What's done is done, the likelihood of getting the money back is negligible and the cost of trying is prohibitive, so you need to learn the lessons to stop it happening again. Simple lessons:

 

Don't trust anything you are told by a broker. Look for yourself or get an expert to look for you. Choose your expert wisely - there are ways to find out who is or is not a good option. Unfortunately, whilst one of the best ways to do so is asking on an internet forum such as this, you have to be established enough to know who is giving useful advice and who is not. People also tend to join such forums after they have problems when it is too late. Nothing can be done about that, but at least you can now ask specific questions about newly arising specific problems. I suggest asking on a new thread each time - people may not be following this thread who could give you good advice (on your electrics for example).

 

Photograph any invoices and keep either hard copies or photographic copies. If you find the right people to work with, there may well be no invoices. That does not mean they are bad, it means they are old-fashioned and have not had to catch up with the 21st century because they are good enough to always work by word of mouth. You need to start finding such people to cover the things you don't know how to do. Ask around.

 

The engine is best assumed to be OK for the moment. That doesn't mean it is, it just means it's the best assumption to work on as anything else is not the priority and is probably beyond your knowledge. However, pragmatically, start mentally budgeting for the next round of engine work. The good news is that the boat having done very few miles means the engine is probably not worn out.

 

Could a healthy battery have drained doing what you have been doing? Possibly. My guess is that your two batteries are old and need replacing - leisure batteries have a finite life and die much faster when not looked after, and who knows what the history of yours is. They probably haven't been charged while you were having the boat fixed. They might be possible to resurrect for a while (days/weeks) to the level where you can run a single light at night. However, do check what type of light it is - if it's been on shore power and is old enough it could be an incandescent bulb on a 240v circuit. What you really want is an LED - if your lights aren't LEDs then change them. Also check whether there is anything else turned on inadvertently, or which you just haven't considered. Fridge? Freezer? Do not consider the batteries failing to be someone else's fault - that one is partly just what batteries do and may well also be partly down to you, through lack of knowledge. I suggest a search of the forum on batteries (there are several recurring posts on how to look after them) and then if you can't find the answers, ask in a separate thread.

 

Coupling - yes you will need to replace it. Although it looks simple, it isn't. It's a bonded rubber strip which is compressed in place and when it tears that means it has failed. Changing the coupling is not hard - the best option would be to see if you can get one easily and, if not, take up Tracy on her offer to point you in the right direction at the right price, and then get talked through how to change it yourself. Once you start to become independent of paying people to fix things you will be more in control, and also better able to start forming your own judgement on what does and does not need doing.

 

You are on a steep learning curve - the rate at which you keep shovelling money in to this is going to slow down fairly quickly once the basics are fixed, although do plan for the regular maintenance of blacking, painting etc.

 

Alec

[LadyG]

For what it is worth, on the one occasion  when  i went to Court, having no cash, but a good case, I started off with my best TV barrister speech. 

Learned Judge sent me outside where I would find a legal representative.

I did indeed. Smart young man. Case done on Legal Cost thing, which CBA told me was not applicable.

 

Now, it seems, I may be wrong, the OP is now a liveaboard, and in need of some hand holding / discussion from an experienced boater. It is not easy to know what is important, relevant, imperative. 

A few beers may help.

 

 

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

@david909 can you please clarify who owned the boat, you should have a Bill of Sale with the owners name on, also you’ll have a Conditional sale agreement subject to Survey, signed by yourself and the owner with his name and address on, please just confirm who owned the boat that you bought so to end speculation you bought a stock boat owned by the Broker you delt with.

Edited September 11, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[Ducky]

You’re going through hell, David. From reading the comments that have been made, you appear to have a lot of people on your side, giving good advice.

It’s hard but try to ignore the other comments. You can get through this.

[haggis]

17 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

@david909 can you please clarify who owned the boat, you should have a Bill of Sale with the owners name on, also you’ll have a Conditional sale agreement subject to Survey, signed by yourself and the owner with his name and address on, please just confirm who owned the boat that you bought so to end speculation you bought a stock boat owned by the Broker you delt with.

as said earlier, the broker did not own the boat

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

10 minutes ago, haggis said:

as said earlier, the broker did not own the boat

Was that from the OP, as I must of missed it?

[haggis]

3 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Was that from the OP, as I must of missed it?

It was in the sales brochure. 

 

[MtB]

Just now, haggis said:

It was in the sales brochure. 

 

 

And sales brochures are well known for being 100% accurate, aren't they?

 

 

But it's academic anyway. The more David looks into legal action, the less viable he will decide it is.