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Questions, Advice and Discussio boating Adventure.


Calranthe

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It didn't really have any sort of bathroom when I moved in. It had two double-doored floor-to-ceiling cupboards in the middle of the boat either side of a stupidly narrow walkway, one that contained a porta potti that you could not use with the door shut, and neither of which had a shower nor any room for one.

I am sure this was not the original layout, given the plans I have seen of the interior layout options for original Springers, and others that I have been on (which had the shower at the back).

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We set a hard money limit for this first adventure, that was £4500, now if I had felt after this short adventure that Kathleen would be enough for us then I would have the leg seen too, after all we just spent £480 on having the fuel system redone and more money that the other owner paid to get the fuel line and linkage replaced, it has new batteries and new electrical cabling, it is still a good boat I feel as a fixer upper, but after three strikes against it, Fuel issues, Fuel pump and leaks and now the leg.

We need something a little bigger, with a bed that is always out, a real bathroom, those issues we would have coped with if kathleen was not failing in other ways.

We are not going anywhere and I really do love boats, we are just going to take our time and increase our budget quite a bit in the long run, even if it takes us a year, this was a learning experience.

Thank you for all the advice.

Kathleen will probably go on the Sawley brokers at £2,000, while some may think that is crazy her leg is up out of the water and is being sold as a project boat so is priced accordingly, I will be going down to sawley tomorrow to finalize the details.

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I can see you're unlikely to budge, but I'm going to have one more try! If you're in a position to save up and buy a more expensive boat within a year, surely you're in a position to save up and get this problem with the leg sorted within a month or two? I know there comes a point where you have to know when to stop throwing good money after bad, but is there really any risk that getting this problem sorted is going to cost you more than the £1300 loss you're talking about making on the purchase price of the boat? (That's a genuine question; it's quite possible that you know something I don't here, but from what other members have said, I don't get the impression this is that big a job.)

An extra £500 or £1000 in your new boat fund isn't something to be sniffed at, surely?

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33 minutes ago, magictime said:

I can see you're unlikely to budge, but I'm going to have one more try! If you're in a position to save up and buy a more expensive boat within a year, surely you're in a position to save up and get this problem with the leg sorted within a month or two? I know there comes a point where you have to know when to stop throwing good money after bad, but is there really any risk that getting this problem sorted is going to cost you more than the £1300 loss you're talking about making on the purchase price of the boat? (That's a genuine question; it's quite possible that you know something I don't here, but from what other members have said, I don't get the impression this is that big a job.)

An extra £500 or £1000 in your new boat fund isn't something to be sniffed at, surely?

Agreed. These folks appear to know these drives inside out:

http://www.chertseymeadsmarine.co.uk/enfield-drives/

It has to be worth at least a phone call. 

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Never had much to do with Enfield legs, but it sounds to me like the fore and aft gear selector which would be located behind a gearbox side plate where the lever is which the control cable is attached to. These selector plates are usually removable. Once removed there would be some kind of ball and spring loaded gear interlocks which would click in 3 positions for fore gear, neutral and astern, these interlocks click in to hold the gear selected by the operator and to stop it slipping out of gear of its own accord. It seems like the fore gear interlock seized, stuck perhaps with goo or rust from lack of regular servicing (oil changes) or actually has overridden its correct fore gear position and stuck. A similar problem did and sometimes does still happen on vehicle manual gearboxes. If the selector plate is removable the trouble might easily be sorted.

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1 minute ago, bizzard said:

Never had much to do with Enfield legs, but it sounds to me like the fore and aft gear selector which would be located behind a gearbox side plate where the lever is which the control cable is attached to. These selector plates are usually removable. Once removed there would be some kind of ball and spring loaded gear interlocks which would click in 3 positions for fore gear, neutral and astern, these interlocks click in to hold the gear selected by the operator and to stop it slipping out of gear of its own accord. It seems like the fore gear interlock seized, stuck perhaps with goo or rust from lack of regular servicing (oil changes) or actually has overridden its correct fore gear position and stuck. A similar problem did and sometimes does still happen on vehicle manual gearboxes. If the selector plate is removable the trouble might easily be sorted.

Good advice Bizzard. I know I'd take a good hard look at that area before I'd take a £1300 hit. 

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Just now, bizzard said:

Never had much to do with Enfield legs, but it sounds to me like the fore and aft gear selector which would be located behind a gearbox side plate where the lever is which the control cable is attached to. These selector plates are usually removable. Once removed there would be some kind of ball and spring loaded gear interlocks which would click in 3 positions for fore gear, neutral and astern, these interlocks click in to hold the gear selected by the operator and to stop it slipping out of gear of its own accord. It seems like the fore gear interlock seized, stuck perhaps with goo or rust from lack of regular servicing (oil changes) or actually has overridden its correct fore gear position and stuck. A similar problem did and sometimes does still happen on vehicle manual gearboxes. If the selector plate is removable the trouble might easily be sorted.

You are so right ,Bizz,have installed and over hauled many Outdrives,on the OP's boat the repair cold be carried out Afloat,as the Enfield Leg can be Rotated to Horizontal,the main thing with Outdrives is not to immerse them in water:)

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3 minutes ago, cereal tiller said:

You are so right ,Bizz,have installed and over hauled many Outdrives,on the OP's boat the repair cold be carried out Afloat,as the Enfield Leg can be Rotated to Horizontal,the main thing with Outdrives is not to immerse them in water:)

Calranthe has stated that the leg has been raised and is now held up in traction like its in hospital, ready for the surgeon to operate.

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9 minutes ago, cereal tiller said:

You are so right ,Bizz,have installed and over hauled many Outdrives,on the OP's boat the repair cold be carried out Afloat,as the Enfield Leg can be Rotated to Horizontal,the main thing with Outdrives is not to immerse them in water:)

Or if you do keep them well maintained!

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A bit of wear and play on the selectors which its bound to have due to age and lack of servicing and a mal adjusted operating cable,  yanking the lever to much forward in fore gear might have made the selector over ride and jamb, although the lever probably has its own external stops either side of forward and reverse. By disconnecting the cable from the lever and tapping the lever back towards neutral might free it off and then readjusting the cable properly. The whole leg could of course be carried to an Xray unit to be examined, either at a hospital or even to an airport such as East Midlands and put onto the baggage conveyor for a free Xray.

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10 hours ago, Calranthe said:

We set a hard money limit for this first adventure, that was £4500, now if I had felt after this short adventure that Kathleen would be enough for us then I would have the leg seen too, after all we just spent £480 on having the fuel system redone and more money that the other owner paid to get the fuel line and linkage replaced, it has new batteries and new electrical cabling, it is still a good boat I feel as a fixer upper, but after three strikes against it, Fuel issues, Fuel pump and leaks and now the leg.

We need something a little bigger, with a bed that is always out, a real bathroom, those issues we would have coped with if kathleen was not failing in other ways.

We are not going anywhere and I really do love boats, we are just going to take our time and increase our budget quite a bit in the long run, even if it takes us a year, this was a learning experience.

Thank you for all the advice.

Kathleen will probably go on the Sawley brokers at £2,000, while some may think that is crazy her leg is up out of the water and is being sold as a project boat so is priced accordingly, I will be going down to sawley tomorrow to finalize the details.

If you put it up for  £2k you will get knocked down further still if you get any offers as the boat isn't working. 

You need to fix it even if you don't plan to keep her.

 

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Okay let me make it clear as people do not seem to understand.

1)we have no problem taking the hit

2)I will not put one more penny into the boat, it is not that we do not have the money it is both myself, wife and family feel any money put into the boat will be a waste.

Let me explain  while on the boat we noticed things that could mean it needs a lot more work than the leg, not saying its a bad boat but it needs a person with experience, tools and time, honestly if we come out with £1,000 or even less in our pocket it still balances out because of the experience we gained.

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2 minutes ago, Calranthe said:

Okay let me make it clear as people do not seem to understand.

1)we have no problem taking the hit

2)I will not put one more penny into the boat, it is not that we do not have the money it is both myself, wife and family feel any money put into the boat will be a waste.

Let me explain  while on the boat we noticed things that could mean it needs a lot more work than the leg, not saying its a bad boat but it needs a person with experience, tools and time, honestly if we come out with £1,000 or even less in our pocket it still balances out because of the experience we gained.

What have you learnt on this purchase that will allow you to avoid problems on a future purchase? 

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Take my time, I love the water, I love the smell of diesel, piloting a boat is fun and I seem to be a natural, I can handle situations like loss of reverse without freezing up, the tools we built to hook on to the bank for solo worked, a 20ft is too small for us, Most GRP we saw on the canal (at least 20 passed us during that time) were petrol, canal convoys are fun and the community is fun, enjoyed sleeping on a boat, enjoyed cooking bacon and eggs, our cool bag worked fine, waking up at 5am and seeing hares/rabbits playing on the canal path was beautiful. I love locks.

Paola can get on a boat, Paola can deal with the movement, A toilet I can pull my pants up in without stepping outside into the cabin would be a bonus, I enjoy mooring.

 

But as for how to avoid it again, pay abit more than 4k for a boat :), find a marina with a boat yard and recommended people who know boats, buy a boat with a warranty, take my time, research.

Edited by Calranthe
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50 minutes ago, Calranthe said:

Okay let me make it clear as people do not seem to understand.

1)we have no problem taking the hit

2)I will not put one more penny into the boat, it is not that we do not have the money it is both myself, wife and family feel any money put into the boat will be a waste.

Let me explain  while on the boat we noticed things that could mean it needs a lot more work than the leg, not saying its a bad boat but it needs a person with experience, tools and time, honestly if we come out with £1,000 or even less in our pocket it still balances out because of the experience we gained.

Of course we didn't understand, because you didn't explain that you'd 'noticed things that could mean it needs a lot more work than the leg' until just now.

Based on what you'd said previously, there didn't seem to be any reason to think the boat wouldn't fetch £3300 again if you sorted out this one issue, in which case obviously spending a few hundred quid wouldn't have been a 'waste'. If your assessment is that the boat isn't going to be worth much more than £2000 even with the leg fixed, because of all these other looming issues, obviously that changes things.

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1 hour ago, Calranthe said:

myself, wife and family feel any money put into the boat will be a waste.

Sorry, but I still don't see that. If say £350 work on the leg (possibly MUCH less) would bring you in £1500 extra on the boat price how have you 'wasted' money? It sounds to me like you'd have 'invested' money to make a 500% return. 

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6 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Sorry, but I still don't see that. If say £350 work on the leg (possibly MUCH less) would bring you in £1500 extra on the boat price how have you 'wasted' money? It sounds to me like you'd have 'invested' money to make a 500% return. 

Sawley Marina is quite a deep marina I do not know many engineers that will want to hang off the back of the boat to look into this, they do not have facilities to have a boat up on stands (told us that themselves) towing to a closure marina plus costs IF it is a quick fix no we can't risk it.

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6 minutes ago, Calranthe said:

Sawley Marina is quite a deep marina I do not know many engineers that will want to hang off the back of the boat to look into this, they do not have facilities to have a boat up on stands (told us that themselves) towing to a closure marina plus costs IF it is a quick fix no we can't risk it.

All you need is somewhere with a slipway and someone with a trailer to whip it out and have a quick look. That won't cost a lot.

And if you look at petrol cruisers you have not learnt anything. You will have taken a step backwards.

I am genuinely sorry that this has not ended as you had hoped. But sincerely believe you will make a mistake trying to sell this boat broken.

What will the mooring fees be each month while they attempt to sell your broken boat?

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10 minutes ago, jocave said:

Oh dear just spotted its back up for sale on bmwl, hope they find a buyer for it soon and you can move on with the next step in your boating journey..

Very unlikely in its current condition!!!!

Anyone looking to buy at the bottom end of the market is likely to be looking for something that is working. 

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23 hours ago, jocave said:

Probably right there, shame they can't get somebody to come out and take a look at it, it might be a quick cheap fix, from what I have read they are pretty straightforward and easy to work on .

I do not know anyone with a trailer, I do not own a car, now yes I could probably find some one on the forum who would do this for me but you all seem to be looking at this from the best case scenario.

If I hire a trailer £75 per 24 hours, then I need to find some one with a car with a tow bar (I do not at the moment know anyone)

Then I need to find an engineer willing to come work on it

Lets not forget I have no mooring at Sawley so they would quite rightly want to charge me at least something for getting the boat out for using there slip way.

Sawley does not have standing room.

So we would have to move the boat some where to look at it (probable extra costs)

Lets say it needs a new part and that part while cheap has to be ordered delivered, not going to be same day so whoever I call on to do this will have to come back again (extra costs) trailer hire will add up.

And that is the best case scenario

Lets say we open up the Z drive and it needs a full recondition worst case scenario we are talking in the £1000's 

Take into account this is the third strike against that boat

Fuel line

Fuel system

Z drive

Add on to that our figuring out that the boat is too small for us and Paola really needs a bed that is ready made at all time.

Believe me this was not a snap decision made with negative feelings from the break down, as a family we had a long talk, tried to look at any way us keeping the boat or fixing it to sell would benefit us in any way.

As a family we went in to this with an amount we could risk and loose a test of boating and if it was for us, if we got it right first time then great but if not then no big loss in the scheme of things.

If it does not sell at the current price then I will be dropping it by £500 every week until I hit what is my minimum.

 

I set aside time and money for this project, Money is just money but time that is something I have very little spare, I budgeted a certain amount of time to be away from Paola, three times I budgeted the time and dates to get that boat up to aston where it would be 20 minutes from our home, each time the boat had issues and the time I would have to put in to fix this problem is not available (there is a reason I did it all during june/july) as of today Paola has hospital appointments and tests running all through the next 4 weeks, hopefully now you understand why I had to cut my losses on this.

This in no way means I am out of the boating idea, think of it this way if 4,500 was an acceptable loss then how much have we available for the real deal, it is now just on semi hold while we deal with trying to keep Paola alive for a few more years :)  I have talked in PM with those who know a lot about GRP boats and have my eye on a few boats/makes but it will be at least end of August now before I can devote time.

 

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6 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

How much are Sawley Marina charging in mooring fees and brokerage whilst the boat is for sale on their brokerage?

Normally a broker does not charge any mooring fees whilst a boat is on brokerage, and, there are no 'brokerage fees' to pay until it is sold at which time the fees are charged.

Our Brokerage Fees

Narrowboats up to £20K = £1000 + VAT
Narrowboats from £20K to £40K = £1500 + VAT
Narrowboats over £40K = £2000 + VAT
Widebeam craft = Price on application 
GRP Cruisers ­— all values = £650 + VAT

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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