Swapping boats?

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

I sold my boat a few months back.  I put the advert on Apollo Duck on the Sunday night.  First viewing was on Tuesday but it wasn't the right boat for them.  Second viewing was on Wednesday and they offered asking price right there and then and paid deposit.  Slipway and survey was on Friday.  Survey results came on the following tuesday - all fine.  They came and picked up the boat on the Saturday and paid the balance.  From placing the advert to the boat gone, 13 days.  Boats should not take months to sell if they're well prepared for sale, advertised honestly, and priced correctly.

 

My only regret is paying for a whole month's advert on Apollo Duck.

 

Totally agree, it can all go swimmingly!

I have sold a boat within 7 days of advertising it (on the forum) , and I have viewed a boat, paid for it and 'driven it away' within an hour.

 

When you start to get extended times is when the buyer wants a survey and the surveyors are busy, then the buyer gets the report with a big list of 'faults' and starts renegotiating the prices and the weeks go by.

[Dave_P]

34 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Totally agree, it can all go swimmingly!

I have sold a boat within 7 days of advertising it (on the forum) , and I have viewed a boat, paid for it and 'driven it away' within an hour.

 

When you start to get extended times is when the buyer wants a survey and the surveyors are busy, then the buyer gets the report with a big list of 'faults' and starts renegotiating the prices and the weeks go by.

Hence why I said "advertised honestly".  My boat was not without fault, but I was totally upfront about that in the advert and when showing people round.  Therefore, there were no nasty surprises from the survey.  Interestingly the surveyor came up from London to Birmingham to do the survey.  The buyers called him straight away on the wednesday afternoon and booked him in for the friday.  I suspect surveyors can often be found at short notice if the buyers are willing to pay travel expenses.  I was in a somewhat lucky position that my mooring has its own slipway and I was able to slip up and down on the Friday morning during the usual friday changeover.

[phillarrow]

12 hours ago, DandV said:

We have friends who commisioned a new build after extensive reaearch.

Premium hull builder and a competant boat bulder.

They had the boat for seven seasons, doing 500 engine hours a year, cruising the network. But they did have a list of things that had to get fixed or replaced. 

A multitude of battery problems.

A new calorifier, a new toilet, both after irrepairable leaks.

A stern tube that required replacement to stem leakage. And a replacement bowthruster.

They even  had to have it repainted after premature paint failure over mill scale.

 

We bought a seven year old boat that we had for five years, again cruising the network for 500 engine hours a year.

But it needed nothing more then routine servicing , or repairs that I could accomplish myself.

The only thing that required replacement in our time, were the deckboards above the engine. A  local boatyard cut them to size and we picked them up as we cruised past. 

The paint was still gleaming when we sold. 

 

But they were the very same boat. We bought it after it had been very thoroughly debugged.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, IanD said:

 

Absolutely, if you can find a boat a few years old in good nick that does what you want it'll cost you considerably less and is likely to be less trouble than a brand new one.

 

A new build boat is an expensive option, and in my view only worth it if you want something that isn't available secondhand -- which was the case for me...

Thanks, that's really interesting to read about the likelihood of snags and headaches from new boats.

 

I think one of the main things that was pointing us towards one day getting a new boat was that there doesn't seem to be too many boats for sale at around the five to ten year old mark? The majority of boats for sale seem to be new, or over fifteen years old. In my mind, (and from the little I've seen and read so far) boats over 10 years old are more likely to require repair work and have issues than new boats.

 

Am I wrong to be thinking this?

 

Is it simply a case of getting a quality hull, full survey, and then making the boat your own, with the running repair costs similar between new boats and those that are over 10 years old?

[Alan de Enfield]

9 minutes ago, phillarrow said:

Thanks, that's really interesting to read about the likelihood of snags and headaches from new boats.

 

Another new-boat story (I've mentioned it on here several times so hopefully I've remembered the details correctly)

 

A brand new widebeam came into the marina and moored up - it looked very nice for a fat-narrowboat, all out of proportion but it looked a good finish, which you'd expect for £250,000.

 

A few days later 4 blokes rolled up in a couple of vans and set to working on the boat, they were there for 4 days. The next week 3 of them were back again, this went on for about 2 months, so wondering what was going on I asked them what they were doing and was told that they were correcting the problems identified by the owner, "rectification work", I asked if this was the norm to be told - "No - they are usually much worse than this, this one was especially built and prepared for the boat show so more care was taken than usual."

 

Time went by and still they came, 1 or 2, sometimes 3 of them but by month three they stopped coming.

 

I asked the owner if all the rectification work was completed and he had a 'fit' "no it bl**dy isn't - they refused to come out any more as my 3 month warranty is now expired and they refuse to do any more work"

 

It seemed that there was water ingress into the hull and they could not locate the source, no idea if it was a leak from the water tank or if it was a porous weld in the hull. External paintwork was peeling and all sorts of little niggles (doors not closing etc) still not fixed.

 

Boat went up for sale for offers over £250,000 and was still for sale a year later when we left the marina.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[David Mack]

28 minutes ago, phillarrow said:

In my mind, (and from the little I've seen and read so far) boats over 10 years old are more likely to require repair work and have issues than new boats.

Am I wrong to be thinking this?

Yes!

Narrow boats are not like cars or other mass-produced consumer products, built on a production line to a well honed design with teething problems largely resolved in the design, development and initial production runs. Even from the biggest boatbuilders they are individually built, mostly by hand, from steel, timber and other basic raw materials, with bought-in components for the various systems. While a few builders offer off-the-shelf standard designs, most boats have a degree of customisation according to the wishes of each buyer, and so almost no two craft are identical. This can vary from just paint colour and choice of kitchen units right through to a full choice of shell design, internal layout, engine/gearbox (including diesel and hybrid options), heating and cooking options, basic or sophisticated electrical systems, internal and external finishes etc.

It is still largely a cottage industry with some companies building from scratch through to the finished boat, others just producing steel shells to sell on, or boat fitters buying in shells and fitting out for sale to the end customer. Most are single individuals or smallish companies, meaning the staff involved each cover several different aspects of the work - someone who is a jack of all trades is not going to be a master of all of them, so inevitably some activities will be better done than others. And thus the final product is usually going to have areas that could have been done better. Sometimes this will matter, sometimes not. But a boat which is a few years old and which has been fairly well looked after will usually have had the teething issues ironed out. 

Add in the fact that second hand boats are generally cheaper than new, and available almost immediately, and you can see why the usual recommendation on here is to buy second hand for your first boat. New boats are for when you have the experience to know exactly what you do and don't want in a boat, especially if that is something not to be found in mainstream craft.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, phillarrow said:

 

Thanks, that's really interesting to read about the likelihood of snags and headaches from new boats.

 

I think one of the main things that was pointing us towards one day getting a new boat was that there doesn't seem to be too many boats for sale at around the five to ten year old mark? The majority of boats for sale seem to be new, or over fifteen years old. In my mind, (and from the little I've seen and read so far) boats over 10 years old are more likely to require repair work and have issues than new boats.

 

Am I wrong to be thinking this?

 

Is it simply a case of getting a quality hull, full survey, and then making the boat your own, with the running repair costs similar between new boats and those that are over 10 years old?

 

There have been several new boat horror stories posted above, because of course these are the ones that get noticed -- all the ones where people take a new boat away and little or nothing goes wrong don't make the headlines. Just like any forum on the internet that seems full of complaints, because all the people who don't have any complaints don't post anything.

 

Yes it's more likely that there will niggles of some kind on a new boat, especially if it's "different", and teething troubles are to be expected in this case -- I had some, none in the end were serious or that difficult to fix (at least, not yet...). This is less likely to be a major problem with a good builder who understands what they're building, does things properly, and is helpful in fixing any problems, and I suspect this tends to mean a more expensive builder and boat because cutting corners often leads to problems.

 

Still, a good boat a few years old will have had all these sorted, and is a better option for a newcomer to the canals...

[blackrose]

On 28/11/2023 at 00:00, IanD said:

Total time from deposit to delivery was over two years for mine, which I gather is not unusual...

 

Mine was only 3 months. Bish, bash, bosh! 

[LadyG]

It depends,,,,, my boat was commissioned late 1999, epoxied from new, and I've never considered it to need any repair due to age, most due to use/ misuse ie things which are additional to annual maintenance. The basics are still sound.

Over all it has proved to be good value,  a new boat by same builder might be £120K or more today.

I reckon to spend £1-2K per annum on annual maintenance and upgrades.

A new boat should not need much spent on it in the first five years, but it will depreciate, that's the nature of the beast.

[cuthound]

21 hours ago, phillarrow said:

 

Thanks, that's really interesting to read about the likelihood of snags and headaches from new boats.

 

I think one of the main things that was pointing us towards one day getting a new boat was that there doesn't seem to be too many boats for sale at around the five to ten year old mark? The majority of boats for sale seem to be new, or over fifteen years old. In my mind, (and from the little I've seen and read so far) boats over 10 years old are more likely to require repair work and have issues than new boats.

 

Am I wrong to be thinking this?

 

Is it simply a case of getting a quality hull, full survey, and then making the boat your own, with the running repair costs similar between new boats and those that are over 10 years old?

 

I bought my boat in 2014, when it was 6 and a half years old. 

 

I will have had it 10 years next May. Failures to date are one water pump (replacement cost about £70) and the bow thruster motor seizing up from a combination of lack of use and condensation caused by me failing to adequately vent the bow thruster compartment during the colder months. Boatyard quoted over £1,000 for a new motor plus fitting. I took the old motor out and had Cox Auto Electrics of Atherstone refurbish it for £400.

 

So in my experience a well maintained boat can still be reliable well beyond 10 years old.

 

 

[oboat]

On 28/11/2023 at 05:10, phillarrow said:

Thanks folks, I hadn't factored in the staged payments, that certainly will have an impact on how we can go about things. We were planning on keeping the house and renting it out whilst we live aboard, but if we still intend to start with a second hand boat, then we would need to either move back onto land for a while, or take the plunge and sell the house to finance the new boat. 

If you can I would defiantly keep the house and borrow against it, then go back to it when you wish. This is what we did, the rent paid the mortgage and we still had a place to store stuff. The only problem is when you go back you have even more STUFF!

[debbbbs]

Let's be honest, these brand new boats look plush and amazing but they are so incredibly expensive.

While at our mooring, a brand new boat came in next to us. We got chatting to the owners, they had set themselves a budget for this bespoke build, which they didn't disclose, but there overspend was more than we had paid for our boat. They had never done boating before...seriously. After one trip out, the boat came back, the lovely shiny light grey paintwork all scratched and the pram cover ripped after they hit a bridge. 

We moved marinas so didn't see them again, but I did see the boat advertised on Apollo Duck the following year.