Me and my wife are after our First Boat, Just for long Journeys, Canal and River.

[Bargebuilder]

We think our grp narrowbeam cruiser is perfect, even for extended cruising, but probably not in the winter.

 

Steel narrow boats do have some advantages over grp, particularly if you intend to live aboard, because they are often better insulated and so easier to keep warm in the winter. However, the insulation is often very thin, usually maybe an inch of polyurethane foam or a similar thickness of polystyrene, and nothing at all below 'floor' level. Grp cruisers often have little or no insulation, but being in general smaller than narrow boats, there is much less volume to heat, so they warm up quickly and for spring, summer and autumn use are easy and inexpensive to heat.   

The owners of steel narrowboats will often say that grp cruisers are not tough enough on the canals when negotiating locks and tunnels, but I have never suffered more than a scratch in all my years of cruising in grp boats. Remember that grp cruisers are smaller and lighter than narrow boats: They are more responsive to steer, they stop faster and have much greater acceleration than lumbering 15 tonne steel narrowboats. This superior manoeuvrability means that staying out of trouble is easy.

Grp cruisers also often benefit from a 'V' profile hull, which is not only easier (and cheaper) to push through the water, but this also helps with directional stability when steering. It is also possible to moor closer to shallow bank sides than you can with flat bottomed narrow boats. They also tend to draw less water, so getting stuck in shallow canals has never been a problem for us.

Grp cruisers are cheaper to buy: they waste no internal space on a forward 'well deck', this space being fully occupied by a huge double bed that any narrowboat would be jealous of. Our bed is more than 6 feet wide and infinitely more comfortable than any narrowboat 'double' bed that I have ever come across. In addition, the longer grp cruisers have centre cockpits and aft cabins, so there is no wasted space at the stern as there is with narrowboats. For this reason, in order to have the volume of internal space that you might find in a given size of grp cruiser, you would need to buy a considerably larger narrowboat. Just look inside a 30ft example of both if you doubt what I say.

Remember too, that a shorter boat is cheaper to licence and cheaper to moor and can often fit into that last available gap in a prime canalside location. Also, grp boats do not need to be hauled out and 'blacked' every 2-3 years, giving a huge maintenance saving as well. In the last seven years, annual maintenance for us has been engine oil and filters, fuel filter and antifreeze. I check the impeller annually but have only replaced it twice and I slapped some new paint on the deck last year. Average annual cost less than £100.

 

I should also dispell the myth that grp boats should winter ashore; this is just not true. They are absolutely strong enough to survive severe winters afloat and their hulls certainly don't need to 'dry out'. If you do overwinter ashore, the cost of craning out and back is offset by only needing to licence the boat for half the year.

With every year that passes, the steel hulls of narrowboats are thinning due to rust, eventually resulting in the need for patching or complete over-plating; a very expensive operation.

The other serious problem with steel craft is that of electrolytic and cathodic erosion; the sometimes severe pitting that can dangerously compromise the integrity of metal hulls; steel, iron and even worse aluminium. Grp hulls suffer no such problems, although a small, inexpensive shaft anode will be need to protect their propeller which is likely to be made of bronze. An outboard will have an anode of it's own.

Osmosis is a minor condition that can occasionally affect grp hulls, but it is just a surface bubbling of the outer gel coat, does not make a boat leak, is not structural and has never caused any vessel to sink... unlike the rusting of steel hulls!

 

Grp cruisers also seem much roomier than steel narrow boats. This is partly because cruisers tend to have much larger windows, giving much better views from the saloon. Also, with centre cockpit cruisers, you aren't walking through one cabin to get to the next, so it doesn't feel like you are living in a corridor.

Centre cockpit cruisers also offer a lot more protection from inclement weather, especially with the windscreen and cockpit tent in place. No standing holding an umbrella, instead sitting in the warm and dry.

 

Having said all that, there are some features that are desirable in a grp cruiser.

If you intend to cruise any distance, you really want a diesel inboard engine: Only diesel fuel is readily available at the canal side and you may have to walk miles to find a roadside petrol station if you have an outboard motor. Also, it would be dangerous to carry large amounts of petrol on board.

Diesel engines are extremely fuel efficient: my 20hp Vetus diesel uses 0.5l per hour at canal cruising speeds in my 30ft cruiser, that's about a month's cheap cruising from my built-in tank.

You should also look for a shaft drive rather than a 'z' drive; there is much less to go wrong and repairing/reconditioning a 'z' drive can be hugely expensive. 'Z' drives protrude from the stern of cruisers and are therefore vulnerable to collision. Their aluminium alloy construction can also suffer serious corrosion over time.

If you do have a shaft drive, then you MUST have a weed hatch above the propeller, as you will occasionally pick up rope or plastic or weed that will halt your progress, and without one you are stuck; unless you can swim!

For summer use, we wouldn't swap out grp cruiser for a steel narrowboat, and we do many hundreds of canal and river miles each year.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I reckon the OP definitely needs something with style and should go for a wooden cruiser of some sort. 
Something from the 50’s. 
Something that’ll turn heads. 
I bet there’s a bargain out there with the OP’s name on it. 
 

 

https://www.rightboat.com/boats-for-sale/andrews/day-launch-263c4a91-e146-40b8-ae5d-99bbfc0e69f2/rb420518

[Barneyp]

2 hours ago, deepspacedaz said:

So I can get a nice Boat for around 10,000, sounds OK then i get her surveyed etc.

I wouldn't spend the best part of a thousand pounds getting a ten thousand pound GRP boat surveyed.

One of the big reasons for getting a steel boat surveyed is to see how much the hull has rusted, GRP doesn't rust, osmosis is a potential problem with GRP but it is very rarely a major issue.

Everything else you can check yourself if you have some mechanical skills.

[PeterF]

If you buy a grp cruiser for use in the Midlands but from another wider waterway do not take the seller / brokers word for it that it is 6ft10in beam, make sure it is measured. There is a thread on here about someone buying a cruiser advertised as 6ft10in from outside the midlands and on brining it up to the midlands found that it was actually slightly above 7ft beam and too large. One already in the Midlands should be known to fit.

[Crewcut]

Here's one that's within budget - compact & bijou Mostyn, compact & bijou...

 

Bit bigger, inboard diesel engine, nice & clean - they painted everything inside white...

 

And this one that's just sold is about as big as fibreglass canalboat width boats get. I have to say I was quite tempted by this one myself, it started off at £18k & ended up at £13.5k...

 

A few rules of thumb - boats rarely sell for the asking price, often initial asking prices are, shall we say, optimistic. So boats with reduced prices are not necessarily bargains, they likely just reduced the price to a more realistic level. "Refurbished" in the description often means they decluttered & cleaned it up a bit, maybe slapped a bit of paint on here & there. So take that with a large pinch of salt.

 

Lastly, go see some boats! Only then will you start to have an idea of what you can get for your money. They never look as nice as they do in the photos (I mean some already look terrible in the photos). One day you'll go see one that will feel right for you, mostly you'll decide in the first about 30 seconds that it's not the boat for you...

 

Good luck!

[deepspacedaz]

Thank you so much I was after the 30 footer but realized it sold as well.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, Bargebuilder said:

We think our grp narrowbeam cruiser is perfect, even for extended cruising, but probably not in the winter.

 

A really good summary.

 

1 hour ago, Bargebuilder said:

Also, it would be dangerous to carry large amounts of petrol on board.

 

But just a couple of points about petrol - not only is a dangeroius liquid, the BSS requirements are more strict than for diesel AND it is actually illegal to carry more than 30 litres unless it is in a permanent tank installed in the boat. If using cans and 'free standing' petrol tanks the total you can have is 30 litres

[deepspacedaz]

1 hour ago, Goliath said:

I reckon the OP definitely needs something with style and should go for a wooden cruiser of some sort. 
Something from the 50’s. 
Something that’ll turn heads. 
I bet there’s a bargain out there with the OP’s name on it. 
 

 

https://www.rightboat.com/boats-for-sale/andrews/day-launch-263c4a91-e146-40b8-ae5d-99bbfc0e69f2/rb420518

Why Not have my 50s car to go with the boat

 

[Tony Brooks]

2 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

Osmosis is a minor condition that can occasionally affect grp hulls, but it is just a surface bubbling of the outer gel coat, does not make a boat leak, is not structural and has never caused any vessel to sink... unlike the rusting of steel hulls!

 

I would question that advice. It can lead to the resin breaking down and the hull starting to delaminate. The good thing is that for small areas and especially for inland waters it is far easier to DIY GRP repairs as no welding is required.

[Bargebuilder]

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I would question that advice. It can lead to the resin breaking down and the hull starting to delaminate. The good thing is that for small areas and especially for inland waters it is far easier to DIY GRP repairs as no welding is required.

I've seen a grp sailing yacht with blisters the size of saucers, and that didn't delaminate or stop it's owner from continuing to enjoy sailing it for many more years. Surveyors used to be very cautious about osmosis but even they are, in general, a lot more pragmatic about it these days. It is, however, when present, often used to negotiate a discount, but the buyer rarely does anything about it once it's theirs.

[Mad Harold]

3 hours ago, PeterF said:

If you buy a grp cruiser for use in the Midlands but from another wider waterway do not take the seller / brokers word for it that it is 6ft10in beam, make sure it is measured. There is a thread on here about someone buying a cruiser advertised as 6ft10in from outside the midlands and on brining it up to the midlands found that it was actually slightly above 7ft beam and too large. One already in the Midlands should be known to fit.

I remember that one.It was a Freeman 22 and although Freeman did build some 6'-10" beam MK2's, the majority were 7'-6" beam.

The person that bought it was to keep it on the Macclesfield Canal (a narrow canal) but only discovered it was the wider Freeman when he couldn't get through a lock.

I did see it advertised for sale shortly after.

[Tony Brooks]

11 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

I've seen a grp sailing yacht with blisters the size of saucers, and that didn't delaminate or stop it's owner from continuing to enjoy sailing it for many more years. Surveyors used to be very cautious about osmosis but even they are, in general, a lot more pragmatic about it these days. It is, however, when present, often used to negotiate a discount, but the buyer rarely does anything about it once it's theirs.

 

As far as I know, the danger from osmosis has much to do with the materials used and the quality and thickness of the lay up.  There is also a question of what happens when water gets into the paper rope used to form ribs inside the hull or the balsa wood used to reinforce decks and such like. Luckily for the OP any GRP canal cruiser he buys is likely to be well laid up and fairly thick when compared with may sub 20ft day boats.

[blackrose]

17 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

We think our grp narrowbeam cruiser is perfect, even for extended cruising, but probably not in the winter.

 

Steel narrow boats do have some advantages over grp, particularly if you intend to live aboard, because they are often better insulated and so easier to keep warm in the winter. However, the insulation is often very thin, usually maybe an inch of polyurethane foam or a similar thickness of polystyrene, and nothing at all below 'floor' level. Grp cruisers often have little or no insulation, but being in general smaller than narrow boats, there is much less volume to heat, so they warm up quickly and for spring, summer and autumn use are easy and inexpensive to heat.   

The owners of steel narrowboats will often say that grp cruisers are not tough enough on the canals when negotiating locks and tunnels, but I have never suffered more than a scratch in all my years of cruising in grp boats. Remember that grp cruisers are smaller and lighter than narrow boats: They are more responsive to steer, they stop faster and have much greater acceleration than lumbering 15 tonne steel narrowboats. This superior manoeuvrability means that staying out of trouble is easy.

Grp cruisers also often benefit from a 'V' profile hull, which is not only easier (and cheaper) to push through the water, but this also helps with directional stability when steering. It is also possible to moor closer to shallow bank sides than you can with flat bottomed narrow boats. They also tend to draw less water, so getting stuck in shallow canals has never been a problem for us.

Grp cruisers are cheaper to buy: they waste no internal space on a forward 'well deck', this space being fully occupied by a huge double bed that any narrowboat would be jealous of. Our bed is more than 6 feet wide and infinitely more comfortable than any narrowboat 'double' bed that I have ever come across. In addition, the longer grp cruisers have centre cockpits and aft cabins, so there is no wasted space at the stern as there is with narrowboats. For this reason, in order to have the volume of internal space that you might find in a given size of grp cruiser, you would need to buy a considerably larger narrowboat. Just look inside a 30ft example of both if you doubt what I say.

Remember too, that a shorter boat is cheaper to licence and cheaper to moor and can often fit into that last available gap in a prime canalside location. Also, grp boats do not need to be hauled out and 'blacked' every 2-3 years, giving a huge maintenance saving as well. In the last seven years, annual maintenance for us has been engine oil and filters, fuel filter and antifreeze. I check the impeller annually but have only replaced it twice and I slapped some new paint on the deck last year. Average annual cost less than £100.

 

I should also dispell the myth that grp boats should winter ashore; this is just not true. They are absolutely strong enough to survive severe winters afloat and their hulls certainly don't need to 'dry out'. If you do overwinter ashore, the cost of craning out and back is offset by only needing to licence the boat for half the year.

With every year that passes, the steel hulls of narrowboats are thinning due to rust, eventually resulting in the need for patching or complete over-plating; a very expensive operation.

The other serious problem with steel craft is that of electrolytic and cathodic erosion; the sometimes severe pitting that can dangerously compromise the integrity of metal hulls; steel, iron and even worse aluminium. Grp hulls suffer no such problems, although a small, inexpensive shaft anode will be need to protect their propeller which is likely to be made of bronze. An outboard will have an anode of it's own.

Osmosis is a minor condition that can occasionally affect grp hulls, but it is just a surface bubbling of the outer gel coat, does not make a boat leak, is not structural and has never caused any vessel to sink... unlike the rusting of steel hulls!

 

Grp cruisers also seem much roomier than steel narrow boats. This is partly because cruisers tend to have much larger windows, giving much better views from the saloon. Also, with centre cockpit cruisers, you aren't walking through one cabin to get to the next, so it doesn't feel like you are living in a corridor.

Centre cockpit cruisers also offer a lot more protection from inclement weather, especially with the windscreen and cockpit tent in place. No standing holding an umbrella, instead sitting in the warm and dry.

 

Having said all that, there are some features that are desirable in a grp cruiser.

If you intend to cruise any distance, you really want a diesel inboard engine: Only diesel fuel is readily available at the canal side and you may have to walk miles to find a roadside petrol station if you have an outboard motor. Also, it would be dangerous to carry large amounts of petrol on board.

Diesel engines are extremely fuel efficient: my 20hp Vetus diesel uses 0.5l per hour at canal cruising speeds in my 30ft cruiser, that's about a month's cheap cruising from my built-in tank.

You should also look for a shaft drive rather than a 'z' drive; there is much less to go wrong and repairing/reconditioning a 'z' drive can be hugely expensive. 'Z' drives protrude from the stern of cruisers and are therefore vulnerable to collision. Their aluminium alloy construction can also suffer serious corrosion over time.

If you do have a shaft drive, then you MUST have a weed hatch above the propeller, as you will occasionally pick up rope or plastic or weed that will halt your progress, and without one you are stuck; unless you can swim!

For summer use, we wouldn't swap out grp cruiser for a steel narrowboat, and we do many hundreds of canal and river miles each year.

 

Good post. The only bit I disagree with is this which is nonsense. My steel hull is 18 years old and hasn't thinned at all.

 

With every year that passes, the steel hulls of narrowboats are thinning due to rust, eventually resulting in the need for patching or complete over-plating; a very expensive operation.

[Bargebuilder]

2 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

Good post. The only bit I disagree with is this which is nonsense. My steel hull is 18 years old and hasn't thinned at all.

 

With every year that passes, the steel hulls of narrowboats are thinning due to rust, eventually resulting in the need for patching or complete over-plating; a very expensive operation.

If the OP's budget is sub 30k, it would be a miracle if the hull wasn't thinning.

 

Of course, given initial two pack coatings, or possibly extremely regular and extremely well applied blacking including to the base plate, corrosion can be close to zero, but one scratch below the waterline just after painting and rust has three years to take hold. Localised thinning must be almost inevitable, especially to an unpainted base plate after 20 years afloat.