Hire before we buy or not?

[Catnip King]

That money spent on hiring could be spent fixing the many problems that will come with buying a boat lol

[Joe the plumber]

The only reason I'm glad we hired before we bought one is we were set on a cruiser stern, hired one, hated how exposed it was in the rain, and then bought a semi-trad.

 

If you're anywhere near Whilton or Venetian Marinas (Daventry or Nantwich), you'll be able to go and look around loads of boats of all types to get a better idea of what sort suits you. They give you the keys to three at a time and let you get on with it, unaccompanied (unless you ask them to come with you). You won't be able to take them out or start the engines on your own, but otherwise it's a great way to see lots of boats in one go.

[Dave_P]

Hiring aint cheap. I knew I wanted to live on a boat by thinking about it a lot and knocking around a fair bit on some friend's boats. If you don't have any boaty friends then you could volunteer with a local boaty charity who will let you have a go at steering sooner or later. Or make some boaty friends. being a regular poster on here is one way to do this.

[toekneep]

Well we have managed to get our hands on the tillers of two boats so far. One belonging to friends and one simply by chatting to owners as we walked down the tow path.

 

I hear the Wilton marina advice and have noted it given elsewhere on here. We plan to do that as part of a trip away next month.

 

We think we want a cruiser stern but we are trying to stay open minded so that we don't miss the boat that 'speaks' to us.

 

Interestingly the most common advice we have received so far from face to face encounters with live-a-boards is to just 'get on with it'.

[adam1uk]

I'd normally say hire -- but you seem to have done lots of other things, and also appear to have pretty much made your mind up anyway. I think a boat handling course would be a good idea though. We did one having hired for years -- and learned plenty. Anyone who says they don't need to learn anything, well, you can imagine the rest.

[cuthound]

That money spent on hiring could be spent fixing the many problems that will come with buying a boat lol

Or lost on a distress sale if the OP doesn't like boating.

 

Of course this can be mitigated by a canny purchase in the first place.

[Retardedrocker]

 

I've been following this with interest. It almost brings back my own boat hunting time, which I enjoyed enormously.

 

I think you've got a fair old handle on this lot, so I would say go for it. Don't hire. Buy and enjoy.

 

If it doesn't all work out, tant pis, as the French say.

 

T.

[ditchcrawler]

Thanks Stewart I appreciate the input. Yes we've done all the financial calculations (I'm a spreadsheet nerd) and we know we can afford to do it.

 

I'm still not convinced that hiring a boat will teach us a lot more than we know/can imagine/can learn from talking to others. We are outdoors types and as I said in my post lived in a tent while cycle touring for five months. We had plenty of wet days on that trip I can assure you.

My daughter gets seasick on a Narrowboat. She came with us as a kid Ok but not today

[MHS]

I vote hire.

 

Until you try it, how do you know if it's for you?

 

You can read on the forum about boaters who are wound up by:

 

Ducks pecking at their hull.

Neighbouring moored boats running engines.

People photographing their boats.

Boats passing by, too quickly.

Other boats mooring too close.

Other boats mooring too far apart.

Etc, etc

 

Might this be you?? You may be a chilled boater like me, but not everyone is.

[eye high skipper]

Interesting. We seem to have about a fifty, fifty split. (Don't mention Brexit). We wouldn't rule out doing a one day instructional course which I think will be a better investment but we would probably leave that until we were closer to making a purchase. At the very least we will take up an invitation from a friend to 'do some locks' but I think I am leaning further towards not spending money on a hire boat. No disrespect to those that suggested it is essential, but I'm now convinced that we aren't making that huge mistake I referred to in the OP. Thanks all.

 

I've been thinking about this for myself. Hiring isn't that cheap even out of season. I think doing 3 instructional days with different people on different style boats, in differemmt winter months, would be more useful and half the cost of a week's hire.

[Robbo]

I never hired before buying, I just knew. What I didn't know is what type of boat I wanted, so look at many differen types of boats, not just Narrowboats but wide beams, Dutch, broad cruisers, grp, fly boats, etc.

[Naughty Cal]

I've been thinking about this for myself. Hiring isn't that cheap even out of season. I think doing 3 instructional days with different people on different style boats, in differemmt winter months, would be more useful and half the cost of a week's hire.

Neither is buying a boat and then deciding that it isn't for you and having to sell it again.

[Greylady2]

We never hired before we bought our boat, i think we should have but i knew i would like a nomad life style.

 

Its the best change of life ever, all the best with your plans.

[David Mack]

Hiring isn't that cheap even out of season.

 

 

Neither is buying a boat and then deciding that it isn't for you and having to sell it again.

 

Especially if you are at this point in the market:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/jk-rowling-sells-her-luxury-yacht-for-15m-less-than-a-year-after/

[Canal Cuttings]

JK Rowling obviously not a fan of a cruiser stern.

 

JK only bought her yacht after hiring it the previous year, so that obviously didn't help her much. I'd normally say you should hire first, but you've already had tiller time and after months in a 2-man tent, I'm sure you can put up with any minor inconveniences for a couple of years. After that, sell if you want to but at least you've ticked narrowboating off your wishlist. This is NOT the advice I would give to a normal buyer!

[Phil Ambrose]

Given that you already live un a restricted space I would say buy. We originally bought a 40' x 12' Broads cruiser which we lived on for 10 years, then bought a 60' NB, had no problem adjusting to the more confined space .

Phil

[twbm]

I don't think it's the living that might be an issue, it's the boating. You either have to live on a mooring, in which case you're swapping one static home for another, or keep moving.

 

You need to experience the joy of, for example, having to clear the prop in the rain at dusk where there's no way to get the stern by the bank, then managing to arrive at the pub, moor up in the pitch dark and get there just after the kitchen has closed and no shops nearby to buy food at. Or work out if you are both happy to steer through locks or is one of you doomed to be the lock fairy for ever.

[mross]

Are you going to be in a marina? I say go for it!

[Naughty Cal]

Even through we are not new to boating and know that we love being on the water, we are still going to hire a similar craft to the one that we want to buy to make our home.

 

We want to make sure that the boat is going to be right to live on before we plunge in headlong and buy one.

 

We have booked the boat for October next year, so hopefully all being well we will by the end of October be looking for one to buy.

 

We firmly believe that the £630 spent on a weeks hire is money well spent. If the boat turns out not to be ideal for living on we will still have had a weeks holiday and it will be back to the drawing board. Far better then buying the boat to then discover it isn't what we want.

[Guest]

What do the panel think? Are we making a huge mistake?

 

We hired a good few times before we bought, including in the winter.

 

Looking back at our time as hirers and then owners the one thing it does make you realise is the benefit of the beauty of having somebody else to sort out any issues (and expense) with the boat when things go wrong (which they most certainly do)

 

When it's your own boat its down to you to sort it and no body else (unless you are willing to pay, and paying somebody else to fix things on a boat is invariably not cheap).

 

So in that respect you can get a rather false impression of what actually owning a boat means.

[toekneep]

Thank you everyone for the further input. We have now decided we aren't going to hire first. We spent a day on a friends boat doing the locks and getting a load of plastic sheet wrapped around the prop. Although I wasn't the one that had to free it I got a real close up experience of what is involved. We have also turned up at pubs when cycle touring only to find that they have stopped doing food, or at campsites that don't take tents etc. In other words we have experience of dealing with adversity so we aren't daunted at all. A much more pressing problem is selling the property that will release the money to by the boat. Now if anybody can help with that. ;-)

[Naughty Cal]

Thank you everyone for the further input. We have now decided we aren't going to hire first. We spent a day on a friends boat doing the locks and getting a load of plastic sheet wrapped around the prop. Although I wasn't the one that had to free it I got a real close up experience of what is involved. We have also turned up at pubs when cycle touring only to find that they have stopped doing food, or at campsites that don't take tents etc. In other words we have experience of dealing with adversity so we aren't daunted at all. A much more pressing problem is selling the property that will release the money to by the boat. Now if anybody can help with that. ;-)

Turning up at a pub not serving food isn't exactly dealing with adversity!

[cuthound]

Turning up at a pub not serving food isn't exactly dealing with adversity!

Unlike turning up at a pub without beer

[toekneep]

Unlike turning up at a pub without beer

Done that one as well. Very traumatic.

[Naughty Cal]

Unlike turning up at a pub without beer

Or worse drinking the pub out of beer!