Good Boat Bad Boat?

[Athy]

 

Not on my version of "The Duck", (Hint Hudson boats get listed multiple ways).

 

However each of the H&W ones is very different from each other one, (not least that several of them are buttys!), whereas when you have seen one Hudson, you do largely seem to have seen them all!

Yes, almost any Hudson is just about as handsome as most other Hudsons. They really are good looking craft. But they do come in various flavours: tug deck or well deck, proper engine of modern engine, rivetoids or no rivetoids. I'm told that, when no one was looking, he even created one which had windows instead of portholes.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Athy

[mark99]

 

 

Yes, almost any Hudson is just about as handsome as most other Hudsons. They really are good looking craft. But they do come in various flavours: tug deck or well deck, proper engine of modern engine, rivetoids or no rivetoids. I'm told that, when no one was looking, he even created one which had windows instead of portholes.

There is now an option for semi-trad on the website.............. <cue steam out of some earholes>

 

NB The one we hired (66 foot) had a 20mm baseplate - i was told it was 25 + tonnes.

[nailora]

Hudson boats piss. me. off. I am sure they are lovely in their way, but I have cracked my head in about three of their stupid twisted little pissant engine rooms, and as a result of operant conditioning I now spit blood at the sight of them.

 

I have only ever bought one boat, but apparently good and fancy pedigrees don't lose value as quickly, and some that are a bit too common and un-flashy won't attract people on the name alone.

 

Like, Sea Otters have shells that are made out of aluminum ( aka aluminium), which is very attractive and interesting to certain people, because they aren't in danger of rust and they don't need to be blacked. They start off stupid-expensive and by the time they're secondhand they're still stupid-expensive. They often look like a cafeteria inside, for some reason?

 

Les Allen is a fancy name who made/makes respectable shells, and on that basis we checked one out, but the owner had lengthened it - literally chopped the boat up and welded a piece into it to make it longer - and it ruined the steering. But we were advised that they are usually nice boats.

 

New Boat Company makes the pretty polished-looking off-the-peg ones in Poland, but they don't appear to hold value at all. Possibly because they are a bit cheaper to begin with, possibly because there are a lot of them, possibly because they are still "new" and people don't trust them yet? Anyway, we didn't look at any of those; maybe it's our loss...

[Athy]

Don't beat about the bush Nailora, say what you mean!

You must be a slow learner. Many people would have learned to duck after cracking their head in one engine room, rather than repeating the exercise.

 

Greeno awarded for an entertaininly forthright post.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Athy

[nailora]

 

Many people would have learned to duck after cracking their head in one engine room raather than repeating the exercise.

 

 

 

I'm a scientist, not gonna condemn an entire race of boats with a sample size of just one!

[Athy]

Neat. I thought that perhaps you were from oop North* and believed firmly and truly that if you banged your head against enough ceilings, the ceilings would eventually admit defeat and cave in.

 

 

* as, originally, am I. No Northism here.

[Neil2]

One name that hasn't been mentioned, and a plug for the North, is Doug Moore. A Moore built boat would be quite old now I guess but I looked at one recently and the hull just screams quality, with lovely lines too. It also looked like it would stand up to an exocet. Sadly this boat needs a complete refit but even so I'm keeping my eye on it.

 

In the current era, in addition to those already mentioned, Alexanders seem to be highly though of.

 

There's also Peter Nicholls, and R&D.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Neil2

[mark99]

Stoke on Trent narrowboats look good to me too.

 

Not all engine rooms have lowered headrooms...........

[junior]

To save me starting a thread of it's own, can anyone give me any info on R&D Boatbuilders Ltd?

 

Happy customers, bad reviews etc.

[Neil2]

Just remembered, another boat I saw that looked as though it could have sailed through an iceberg was built in Thorne by French & Peel. I'm told Bob French still takes the occasional commision though the company hasn't traded for a while.

To save me starting a thread of it's own, can anyone give me any info on R&D Boatbuilders Ltd?

Happy customers, bad reviews etc.

A useful insight is the Tuesday Night Club's narrative on the building of the NB "Earnest" http://www.tuesdaynightclub.co.uk/earnest/Planning.html

[RLWP]

Can I just check - have we collectively recommended every shell builder yet?

 

Richard

 

Ian Kemp

[Athy]

 

Just remembered, another boat I saw that looked as though it could have sailed through an iceberg was built in Thorne by French & Peel. I'm told Bob French still takes the occasional commision though the company hasn't traded for a while.

 

I believe that one of them has died. They built some pretty, fine-lined Lincoln Tugs, of which one example is almost always up for sale (yes, the same one, the interior design is so bloody awful that it puts people off).

[Ally Charlton]

No, you haven't scared me off, just been stuck at work, day-dreaming about boats,

 

I swear the amount of time I spend thinking and getting excited about this cannot be healthy. I actually got drunk one night last week and spent an entire evening, boring my mates with what I'd learnt about the pro's and con's of pump out versus cassette toilets (I thought it was fascinating, I'm becoming quite a dilettante when it comes to marine sanitation)

 

When I actually do get the boat, I'll probably just keel over from the frigging excitement of it

 

Anyway thank you so much for your many and varied comments, I have made a list, and yes the guy who said Hudson had a Hudson. Thanks for suggesting the open day, if anyone knows of any others doable from Birmingham, please let me know. I don't think you can look at too many can you?

 

To answer your questions. I really want a trad less than 60ft, with a budget of £30-40k, that's as much as I've narrowed it down to. although I really loved the engine room on the Hudson's.

 

Someone showed me his two cylinder as opposed to three cylinder engine aaaaaaaaaaaah, the chuff, chuff, chuff, I want that sound in any boat I own.

[Ally Charlton]

forgot to say, (although obvious from the budget) not looking for a new boat

[Athy]

I told you she'd been at w*rk. Less daydreaming please Miss Charlton, or you won't have any w*rk to go to.

 

Your budget should allow you a wide choice, BUT you have introduced a vital new requirement: the chuff factor. Quite a few devout chuffers on here (including this boy) would agree with you. Trouble is, many chuffy engines are old and some are temperamental (I am talking about the engines, not their owners.....oh, on second thoughts....), and it's hard to get spare parts for some of them. Listers chuff in a rather agricultural way but for ever and a day(at least their smallish SR engines, commonly found in 1980s boats, do). Kelvins chuff majestically but you may need a degree in engineering and a private income to look after one. Russell Newberys chuff laconically, while exuding a strong smell of money from their exhaust chimney. Many other makes chuff only intermittently because they're in bits on the engine room floor the rest of the time.

The only answer is a Gardner, chuffs perfectly and never goes wrong (fingers crossed). You'll never guess, but my boat has one of these.

Seriously, these engines tend to be older (except the Russell Newberys which are still made but furiously expensive to buy) and a boat fitted with one may fetch a higher price than boats fitted with fart boxes, whoops, marinised Japanese van or mini-digger engines. So finding the right chuff-equipped boat at the right price may be a challenge. Chuffing good hunting!

Edited July 29, 2013 by Athy

[RLWP]

So...

 

When you have a boat with a fifty to sixty year old engine, do you have the experience or money to keep it running? You are going to need one or the other, sometimes both

 

Richard

Edited July 29, 2013 by RLWP

[nailora]

Ally, if vintage is your thing, we had a viewing and test drive of Damselfly, who was SUCH a sweetheart, with the shiniest chuffiest engine in the world, the dearest owner you could wish to meet and still for sale:

 

http://narrowboats.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=299322

 

Every single bit of brass was polished unto gold and the owner had kept the most careful log of all of the pounds he had tossed into maintaining the engine. In the end, Damselfly didn't tick our boxes but she was so adorable that we nearly forgave her out of pure affection.

 

An older boat, though, and needing a wee bit of updating. And you have to really want a Russell Newbery.

[Ally Charlton]

Richard, you imply that only old engines chuff. Is that true? The ones we saw were new beta marines (I thought it was because they were two cylinder engines that they made this noise not because they were old ones, shoot me down in flames if I'm wrong). I don't want vintage I don't have the skill to maintain it. I'm really flexible about most things at the moment, but every weekend I spend looking at boats and I add something to the "I want" list and something to the "I don't want" list.

 

After this weekend, I feel the absolute need for a serious bit of chuff

thanks nailora, that is a cute boat (but too expensive for me) It's a pity they don't have recordings of the engine sound when they post adverts!!!!

[RLWP]

Ahh, the Beta JD3?

 

Um, well... er..

 

I'm afraid I don't hold a very good opinion of those. Only from acquaintance with one, not as an owner, so I'm probably not the best person to comment

 

Richard

[Ally Charlton]

Athy, and everyone else, help a newbie out here, I'm getting confused,

 

OK I'm so very flexible in terms of what I could live with on a boat, this is one of the very few things I feel strongly about

 

is it really unreasonable to expect to get a fairly modern engine that makes that sound?

 

"To chuff or not to chuff, that is the question"

[RLWP]

Yes.

 

The nice sounding engines are generally around 50-60 years old, big and heavy, slow revving and have two cylinders. Modern engines mostly have three or four cylinders, are much lighter and generate more power by revving faster. So they don't chuff at all

 

The Beta JD3 is a three cylinder, fast revving engine that smokes, shakes your fillings out and looks like a tractor engine blinged up - which is exactly what it is. It also doesn't chuff

 

Richard

Edited July 29, 2013 by RLWP

[Ally Charlton]

We saw and heard several beta three cylinder engines and I agree, not a pleasant sound. I'm fairly sure that we saw a newish two cylinder beta engine. It probably doesn't sound as nice as the really traditional ones, but lets be realistic here, I cannot have a boat with a 60 year old engine. And what I call chuffing probably isn't what you with your experience would call chuffing. Am I mistaken or do they make modern two cylinder engines that sort of chuff?

[RLWP]

You could have a brand new Russel Newberry - that would be around £20,000 so half your budget

 

Richard

[Ally Charlton]

thanks for this

[mark99]

Chuffing chuffer of all chuffs

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14fl6smwZJw