What's the cheapest fully fitted brand new narrowboat?

[Bishop Brennan]

Blimey! Who'd buy brand new then?

 

Thanks all for your replies. I've learnt a lot in just 2 pages from all the considerations put forward. The common wisdom regarding steel narrow boats appears to herald the merits of being the second owner of a 4 or 5 year old boat from a quality builder. This makes a lot of sense, and feels more intuitively comfortable. 

[Tonka]

1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

One of my friends lost his life savings when the builder who was supposedly building his boat as a show boat just disappeared over night. I have had another who towed his hull out of a yard before the liquidator could get it. Another friend had his boat built and without argument or asking the company paid for a repaint as they expected the paint to fail. within 12 months as others in the batch had.

The Boat pub at Stoke Bruerne had to get a low loader and a crane and go and retrieve their brand new trip boat before the administrators took over when the boat builder went bankrupt

[ditchcrawler]

On 04/04/2023 at 19:09, Steve_C said:

Cunliffes at Stoke on Trent advertise a new range of 35' boats for £48k on their FB page though i can't see 'owt on their website.

 

Scroll down about 6 posts

 

https://www.facebook.com/cunliffebespokeboats/

[Puffling]

On 04/04/2023 at 08:49, LadyG said:

11 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

A cruiser stern on a boat that length steals a lot of valuable cabin space. With a trad stern it would be more reasonable.

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, Puffling said:

A cruiser stern on a boat that length steals a lot of valuable cabin space. With a trad stern it would be more reasonable.

True, but bear in mind there's no well deck/seats at the front (reverse layout presumably) so everyone has to travel at the stern if they want to be outside...

[enigmatic]

I'm assuming most people buying brand new 35ft boats plan to use them to cruise and maybe enjoy an evening drink on in the middle of summer rather than as a cabin to keep them warm and store their stuff in. In which case the outside space is as valuable as the inside space.

[LadyG]

4 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I'm assuming most people buying brand new 35ft boats plan to use them to cruise and maybe enjoy an evening drink on in the middle of summer rather than as a cabin to keep them warm and store their stuff in. In which case the outside space is as valuable as the inside space.

Most people yes, but I think OP wanted to liveaboard and cc. This was not mentioned in his/her first post.

[enigmatic]

If they want to liveaboard and CC and have 50k-60k to spend, they should buy a second hand boat that's at least 10ft longer and designed to be suitable for living on and CCing rather than a brand new boat that is designed for summer cruising (and has at least as many risks associated with it, and will likely need retrofitting with stuff to make it remotely live-able anyway)

Edited April 6, 2023 by enigmatic