New bottom welding

[Bobbybass]

Hello, this is my first post on the forum so please point out any mistakes I make.

 

Firstly I am a student and also a sailor, I have been around boats my entire life and for the whole of that time I have watched my Grandad live on a widebeam narrowboat.

 

Now I am at University we all know how much debt students get in, well... my plan is to spend the debt on a narrowboat and moorings.

 

I have no big budget but have found myself a project, the inside info I have is that in a local yard a narrowboat will be coming available for a price within my budget (cheap) because of one snag.

 

The bottom is thin, how much does it cost to re bottom (im sure theres a technical term for this) a roughly 30ft narrowboat.

 

For arguments sake and expecting the worse lets say the whole thing needs doing?

 

I have a plan of buying the boat living in her on the hard whilst I save money to pay for the work and then living in her again but this time in the water.

 

I'm comfortable with most other aspects so far but do have a few more questions for other sections after this and if I get her...

 

Thanks in advance.

 

I 'think' someone on here recently said...it costs about £125 per foot of boat length...however...as this boat is shorter then it may not need a thick bottom plate...which could affect the price and bring it down a little.

 

Sounds about right to me....

Edited May 1, 2013 by Bobbybass

[onionbargee]

I 'think' someone on here recently said...it costs about £125 per foot of boat length...however...as this boat is shorter then it may not need a thick bottom plate...which could affect the price and bring it down a little.

 

Sounds about right to me....

crazy moon man talk.

[dor]

30ft? Is it a Springer? If so it will cost more per ft. Also there are a number of overheads unrelated to length of boat or thickness of steel so it may also cost more per foot than say a 57ft boat. I would be budgetting the best part of £2K for the whole job. Maybe more.

 

Of course, the easy way would be to ask the boatyard.

Edited May 2, 2013 by dor

[luctor et emergo]

 

Of course, the easy way would be to ask the boatyard.

Who will suck their teeth, shake their head, and mutter things like : "I don't know" "will need a full refit". "Have you got a lot of money?".

[David Mack]

On 01/05/2013 at 20:18, Jason Pay said:

Hello, this is my first post on the forum so please point out any mistakes I make.

 

Firstly I am a student and also a sailor, I have been around boats my entire life and for the whole of that time I have watched my Grandad live on a widebeam narrowboat.

 

Now I am at University we all know how much debt students get in, well... my plan is to spend the debt on a narrowboat and moorings.

 

I have no big budget but have found myself a project, the inside info I have is that in a local yard a narrowboat will be coming available for a price within my budget (cheap) because of one snag.

 

The bottom is thin, how much does it cost to re bottom (im sure theres a technical term for this) a roughly 30ft narrowboat.

 

For arguments sake and expecting the worse lets say the whole thing needs doing?

 

I have a plan of buying the boat living in her on the hard whilst I save money to pay for the work and then living in her again but this time in the water.

 

I'm comfortable with most other aspects so far but do have a few more questions for other sections after this and if I get her...

 

Thanks in advance.

 

How long are you planning to live on this boat? For the indefinite future or just for the next year or two?

 

Just how thin is the bottom?

 

Are you planning on extensive boating or on being a fairly static liveaboard (cue discussion on Home mooring/CCer/CMer etc)?

 

If this is not for the long term, the bottom is not that thin and you are not going to be moving much you could also consider not doing anything about ithe bottom. Rebottoming comes at a cost, may well require significant internal refitting, and you probably won't see the cost back on the value of the boat when you come to sell.

 

 

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Quote

 

The current plan is to live on her for the period I am at university as a tester,

 

So that will be 2 years minimum possibly 3 if my MA goes ahead.

 

I don't know the condition of the bottom as I haven't had a survey yet. I only found out about the boat coming onto the market 2 days ago and it's not even registered for sale yet so I'm getting ready with what I need to know. 

I did consider leaving her bottom alone, keeping her on the land as its cheaper in the boatyard and then worry about it when I have more money. It will be moored on the kentish river stour down at Sandwich so any 'real' canal cruising is a long way away for me. I have my sailing boat to enjoy the water...