good advice?

[Albion]

I've seen a lot of Hancock & Lane boats about for fairly cheap as well. Do they have a general reputation?

Hancock and Lane weren't a bad boat in their day. I would rate them higher than a Springer or Liverpool but, of course, since they closed down for boat building many years ago any shell produced by them would be getting on a bit now.

Roger

[Iain_S]

Were they not the ones whose front wheels fell off going around corners ?

 

 

 

They didn't fall off, just retracted! Only happened if nobody checked the bottom king pin swivels properly for a few years.

 

Iain

[nebulae]

I seem to remember that early Springers could be ordered hull only(fit your own wooden top)Also ,that some boats were fitted with some rather unusual engines,such as Ducatti and Lombardini.These eary boats would have to be cheap to be worthwhile .However,later boats with a v bottom are effectively tube shaped,which is a sound engineering practice .,A lot of the steel used in early Springers was reputed to be seconhand No idea if this is true,but it probably means that the steel is of a high quality,bearing in mind the reputed souce of some of this steel.The only disadvantage of the v bottom is1)slight issues with docking and 2)Hull form is more "tender" than a flat bottom. If the price is right,go for it BUT check ownership and have a survey

[Guest]

 

They didn't fall off, just retracted! Only happened if nobody checked the bottom king pin swivels properly for a few years.

 

Iain

 

ISTR the same thing used to happen to the Morris Marina which carried the same suspension design through to their production.

[MtB]

 

Hudson

 

 

 

(I tried to resist, but failed.... )

 

Ha, you fell into my TRAP!

 

 

MtB

[paneuro]

after posting this,i've come to the conclusion that if looked after,irrespective of the make you can't go to wrong,in fact a person who simply can't afford the "best" built boat is much more likely to look after his purchase,simply because the money has been harder come by to buy it,the same way you treat a company car/van as apposed to your own,the last thing you want to be doing is paying out a fortune for rpairs caused by neglect,so you keep up regular blacking etc,thus avoiding bills which would be so much harder to meet .so,thanks for all your posts,and i'm sorry if i caused a bit of "agg"for springer owners who rightly defended their pride and joy.phil

after posting this,i've come to the conclusion that if looked after,irrespective of the make you can't go to wrong,in fact a person who simply can't afford the "best" built boat is much more likely to look after his purchase,simply because the money has been harder come by to buy it,the same way you treat a company car/van as apposed to your own,the last thing you want to be doing is paying out a fortune for rpairs caused by neglect,so you keep up regular blacking etc,thus avoiding bills which would be so much harder to meet .so,thanks for all your posts,and i'm sorry if i caused a bit of "agg"for springer owners who rightly defended their pride and joy.phil

don't look down on anyone unless your picking them up