mooring for hire boat

[canalnoob]

Probably a lot aren't but I expect theres still enough who would want one. 2 Families going away together or something. I used to go away with my granparents as a kid, 7-8 of us

[RLWP]

Nah, It did say they take 10-15 working days to reply, think its been about 8.

Sorry for sounding so rude again before again btw, just was expecting the 101 reasons why not to start a narrow boat business lol

You need to remember this isn't the first time this kind of question has been asked here. Some of us have direct experience of trying to do this, if you own an ex hire boat like we do it's very tempting. We enquired ages ago

 

Richard

[canalnoob]

You need to remember this isn't the first time this kind of question has been asked here. Some of us have direct experience of trying to do this, if you own an ex hire boat like we do it's very tempting. We enquired ages ago

 

Richard

Yeah ofcourse. As I said I know it might be a failure anyway. Just wanted to do it for a while and doing it while I have a boat half ready is the best chance

[RLWP]

Yeah ofcourse. As I said I know it might be a failure anyway. Just wanted to do it for a while and doing it while I have a boat half ready is the best chance

We had a boat completely ready

 

Richard

[canalnoob]

We had a boat completely ready

 

Richard

should of gave it a go, you're a engineer aswell, thats the part I'm clueless with. Just hope me knowing how to advertise well goes in my favour. Confident I can have it close to fully booked for the above figures but if I'm way out and others are right then I'll jack it in after a year and take the 5-10k or so loss on the head

Edited August 10, 2016 by canalnoob

[RLWP]

should of gave it a go, you're a engineer aswell, thats the part I'm clueless with. Just hope me knowing how to advertise well goes in my favour. Confident I can have it close to fully booked for the above figures but if I'm way out and others are right then I'll jack it in after a year and take the 5-10k or so loss on the head

Basically, we hadn't a hope in hell of making it work. The problem wasn't and isn't the boat, it's jumping through the hoops to get the business license. With two of us, a single boat and our mooring the operation couldn't meet the requirements

 

Richard

[junior]

If registering for vat is beneficial then the business will be a failure anyway. Obviously theres a lot that can be reclaimed but not as much as giving away 1/6th of your turnover (if its successful anyway).

The boat I'm looking at is 12-13 years old but it has a 1 year old engine and 3 year bsc certificate. I'm going to have it repainted which I'd want to have done anyway. Its a 12 birth boat. I'm hoping to rent it out for:

10 weeks at a average of £1500=£15,000

20 weeks at a average of between £1000-1250=£20,000-25,000

20 weeks at around 750 per week=15,000. I may just have it on airbnb for some of this time

I'll be happy with anything over £35k in the first year. Advertising is the part I'm good at, I assume the big websites that have lots of hire companies boats on are affiliate sites, I'll make my boat the cheapest for anything above a 8 birth boat and I assume they take 10-15% of the sale.

Then I'll use pay per click ads from google and facebook. Thats what my main business does, hoping to get customers for between £100-150 each. This is what my main business is paid to do for other businesses.

In the second year I should get more word of mouth bookings and returning customers hopefully.

I'll have to learn how to do some of the maintenance and do hand over myself at the start but if its successful and I get 2 boats then hopefully I can someone £150-200 each week to do it for me. If anything goes wrong then I'll pay for it to be fixed and pay someone to do call outs.

Hoping that maintence costs and depreciation are around £12k or less per year.

License just under £2k

insurance around £2k

Someone to do call outs, no idea but hopefully less than £1k

advertising costs £5-10k

Mooring £2-5k

Hoping long term costs will be £20-25k and income £45-50k but anything over £10k profit I'd be have with in the first year

I mean this as a helpful post rather than a negative one, but if ive read you correct and you are hoping to have the boat out 50 weeks of the year, have you heard of 'Stoppages'?

[canalnoob]

I mean this as a helpful post rather than a negative one, but if ive read you correct and you are hoping to have the boat out 50 weeks of the year, have you heard of 'Stoppages'?

When the canal shuts? Yeah I'd put it on airbnb and leave it parked somewhere. Need to look into this but don't see why they wouldn't allow it if I'm allowed to hire it out anyway

[Rob-M]

I've skim read most of the posts so may have missed it but what about weekly running costs such as diesel, gas, engine oil, filters, allowance to replace batteries as hirers don't understand charging regimes, chemicals for pumpout, touching up paint work, brass to keep brasses polished. Whilst some of these costs could be passed directly to the hirer I would suggest that most need to come out of the weekly hire fee and therefore reducing your profit.

[canalnoob]

I've skim read most of the posts so may have missed it but what about weekly running costs such as diesel, gas, engine oil, filters, allowance to replace batteries as hirers don't understand charging regimes, chemicals for pumpout, touching up paint work, brass to keep brasses polished. Whilst some of these costs could be passed directly to the hirer I would suggest that most need to come out of the weekly hire fee and therefore reducing your profit.

I'm hoping the 12k maintenance will cover most of this? But can afford for it to be a bit more. Diesel they'll have to pay for.

[MHS]

Almost all hire companies include all diesel and gas in their rental fees.

[David Mack]

12 berth boats don't often go to two-family hirers. More likely that you will get the stag party/rugby club/bunch of students type hirers who will be looking for cheap hire and/or will pay less respect to your boat.

[Dyertribe]

Www.jacarandanarrowboat.com

Here is what you're looking for.

[canalnoob]

Www.jacarandanarrowboat.com

Here is what you're looking for.

Nice one, where thats moored is £3k per month, not that bad, maybe they'd charge more for a hire boat though

[Dyertribe]

But this is a top end pukka boat

[IanM]

When the canal shuts? Yeah I'd put it on airbnb and leave it parked somewhere. Need to look into this but don't see why they wouldn't allow it if I'm allowed to hire it out anyway

 

You'll still have to move it every two weeks unless on your mooring.

[RLWP]

You'll still have to move it every two weeks unless on your mooring.

Indeed. The OP really identified the problem in their first post - mooring. This was the crucial point when we looked into this, somewhere to keep, service and hand over the boat. If they can solve this, they are on the way to making this work

 

Then the costs and details of the business case can be worked out properly

 

Richard

Edited August 10, 2016 by RLWP

[Sea Dog]

I think we're missing a key USP here. Canalnoob has repeatedly told us how many births his boat has... and there it is! Maternity cruises!

 

 

Edited to remove a spurious figure 2!

Edited August 10, 2016 by Sea Dog

[Mike on the Wey]

I can't imagine two or three families occupying and enjoying a single boat. Issues include lack of privacy, showering (two or three showers needed plus running out of hot water), fridge capacity and cooking facilities. I wouldn't like to cook for 12 in a boat kitchen, and not everyone eats out in a pub each evening. And what about toilets?

 

I second the point about 50 weeks of income - that isn't likely. And would people really pay £100 per night to stay in a marina during a stoppage?

 

Sorry to sound negative, but I think the forecasts are far too hopeful.

[Neil2]

I dunno, my initial reaction was 50 weeks, no way, but I'm not a marketing expert and looking at most of the hire companies neither are they.

 

Maybe someone with real expertise in this area could make it happen. I used to deal a lot with holiday cottage owners and there was one I knew that was let out almost the entire year, almost unheard of in the industry. it was a one woman operation and she really knew her stuff when it came to Internet advertising.

 

I think people of, ahem, my generation, don't fully understand the power of the 'net.

 

I still think the figures are stratospherically optimistic, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

[canalnoob]

I've had a client who had villas in spain before and was getting clients for £100 or so each, I set up facebook or google ads. On facebook I can target by age like 30-50 year olds with a family who earn over 40k a year etc. Or take everyone who likes another companies page and send a ad at them.
Hopefully the boat itself picks me up a few bookings too just by traveling through big cities with my website details on
I assume sites like the following are affiliate sites that take 10-15% of the sale price too. They should get a lot of bookings:

www.waterwaysholidays.com

I agree a lot of people won't want a 12 birth boat but I'm sure theres still a big enough market for it. I might be completely wrong anyway,
don't actually really need the full 50 weeks booked either, 40 or so would be enough

Edited August 10, 2016 by canalnoob

[Sea Dog]

<snip>

Hopefully the boat itself picks me up a few bookings too just by traveling through big cities with my website details on

I assume sites like the following are affiliate sites that take 10-15% of the sale price too. They should get a lot of bookings:

www.waterwaysholidays.comI agree a lot of people won't want a 12 birth boat but I'm sure theres still a big enough market for it. I might be completely wrong anyway, don't actually really need the full 50 weeks booked either, 40 or so would be enough

You post a lot of sentences with 'hopefully' in them, which is not a word I'd want to see in a business plan. (You also post about "births" a lot which is not something I'd want to see in a hireboat either!).

 

To be more helpful though , I was chatting to the proprietor of a small independent fleet of nice boats on a very popular canal back in June. When I asked how his bookings were, he replied that even August was a worry this year.

 

I pass quite a few hire boat wharves on my travels and don't recall many being empty of boats outside of the peak season. Even the well-established ones with good reputations, years of experience and the skills and facilities to maintain and turn around their boats with barely a blip.

 

The ace up your sleeve appears to be your advertising skills, and you're obviously very confident in your ability. Maybe, as a result of that, you will have the many unusually large groups of hirers you need beating a path to your door, but that's where the real business starts.

 

I have limited knowledge of hire boat operations, but I have started and run a business and I have extensive experience in engineering, maintenance and in operating a fleet. I'd offer there's more to it than just the advertising and, whilst you appear to be doing research here, the feedback you receive will only help you if you take it onboard and process it rather than dismiss it because it doesn't fit with your ideal.

 

Negative feedback is actually quite valuable as that's the stuff that identifies the issues you really need to bowl out. Suck it up, find out why those things are being said, work out how you might counter or allow for the issues, build those things into your plan and you may find a way to make your idea into a success.

 

Hopefully!

[dave moore]

As someone working in the boating business, though not with hire boats, and as a long term boater, I can only agree with the cautionary advice offered already. A 40 week season is something I've never known, friends once involved in the hire boat business weren't sorry to leave it. Perhaps Burns had it right. " and leave us naught but grief and pain, for promised joy."

 

Good luck anyway. Come back and gloat if you succeed!

 

Dave

[billS]

I think one problem with a 12 berth boat is that it will attract the stag party market. This could result in quite a lot of damage, claims, and a short relationship with your mooring provider!

[howardang]

I see that you freqently mention your experience with the advertising aspects of the business, which is obviously your forte, but what is noticeable the lack of clarity about your experience on the waterways. It might be interesting for those on here who are genuinely trying to help, to give us some idea of your boating history.

 

It concerns me that you seem to have a very,very optimistic view of the size of the market, and more particularly the length of the boating season.

 

However, I wish you well with your venture and you may like to keeps us in the picture about how you are getting on.

 

Howard