Year & hours.

[HBROK]

As some of you may know I am in the market for purchasing my first narrow boat and of course I am slowly starting to understand the trials and tribulations of making such an investment.... (wrong word probably :).

Anyway I have another general question- would you walk away if the seller did not know the engine hours, I have read somewhere to walk away  but is it really an issue? Or is it just common sense-

Of course you can tart up the bilge,touch up the engine, add new oil, dry off any leaks and to the untrained eye it could look like a well kept and maintained engine until you sail away and all hell could break loose!

Conversely it could well have been  loved and cared for?

 

Also what if the owner did not know the boats year of manufacture, I see quite a few out there that give a date but after reading their ad it proceeds to tell you 'we think it was built' or 'we have traced the build back to' or 'we completed the build at this date but it was built a century before completion' (Exaggerated a little)
 

 I also have spoken to several people all with their own opinions and of different standing in the narrow boat world shall we say,  some say 'that you're better buying from the 90s if you want good old British steel but you wont  find this in the  00s they're all eastern steel', although to be honest I really can't see this being true??

 

Or maybe I am just digging too deep for information??

[alan_fincher]

I think a lot of sellers will genuinely have little idea about engine hours, particularly if it is an older boat, and they have only owned it for a small proportion of its life.

Unlike a car, an engine hour meeter on a boat really means very little.  They seem to fail often, and each time I have fitted one to a boat, (3 times now), the boat had existed many years before never having had one, (80 years in the most extreme case!)  When I fitted one to a boat of about 12 years old, 3 failed in succession, and each was replaced under warranty, meaning each time the clock reset to zero.

Unless you are expert in marine diesel engines yourself, it is best to get someone who is at least look for the obvious, but in many cases absolute age or hours are not as important as how it has been looked after.  One apparently having half the hours of another one may have had oil changes neglected, or wrong oils used, or been run for hours charging batteries rather than cruising.  The high hours one may have been well cared for, with regular oil and filter changes, (a hire boat being a very good example of this).  Oil leaks into the bilge may have a relatively easy cure, whereas oil being thrown from an exhaust most probably will not - you need the experience to see what may be big issues, and what are not actually that bad.

A boat's year of manufacture I would be more cynical about - for most if you don't know exactly, the maker and type will normally be a fairly good indicator.  A lot of boats are sold as being "younger" than they are, and I believe that in many cases the sellers know this.  (If for example the CRT index number was issued in a yea before the claimed build date of the boat, then that date must be untrue).

Much is said about steel quality over the years, and whatever one "expert" says another will quickly pop up to argue the opposite!.  (There's a thread where this is happening right now).  My view is that for purpose built steel canal leisure boats the "cheap quality" steel thing is all a bit of a myth, but others will argue blind the opposite way.  Going further back to riveted boats, which might actually have used various grades of wrought iron rather than steel, this certainly seems to have a greater longevity on the whole, as do "coppered steels" from the 1930s, but for purpose built boats from 1970s onwards, I'm far from convinced.   Often the reasons 1960s/1970s/1980s hulls fail is not down to what steel was used, but how much water has been allowed to sit in the bilges over the years.

(All "in my opinion", of course!)

Edited September 17, 2017 by alan_fincher

[HBROK]

Hi Alan, great response thank you.

 

[Tony Brooks]

as Alan said engine hours are fairly irrelevant, its how its been looked after than matters. As  guide if it starts easily from stone cold, after a few minutes makes minimal exhaust smoke, does not make loud knocking noises, has good oil pressure and when nice and hot the oil pressure light stay out for a few seconds after the engine is stopped then its is probably fine.

If you want reassurance after checking the above get someone who knows to do a HOT oil pressure test at idle and about 1500 rpm and a compression test. Expect 10psi plus on idle, 40psi plus at 1500 rpm (unless a vintage engine or air cooled Lister) and around 400 psi compression with no two cylinder being more than 10% different.

A good set of records showing work done, items bought etc. is probably far more important than the year of manufacture. Also a survey to check hull condition is probbaby advisable for a newcomer to canal boats but it will cost several hundred pounds - cheap if they find the hull is badly pitted!

 

[HBROK]

Thank you Tony.
Although I am engineer I am not overly familiar with diesel engines, but your info makes perfect sense. 

Within the last couple of weeks I made an offer  on a boat to which they accepted, only to be told that no matter what the outcome of the survey was the boat was still mine as we had agreed a price, it wasn't a very old boat and I'm sure the hull would have been fine but no way was I parting with any money until the survey was done, very strange?

 

 

[WotEver]

38 minutes ago, HBROK said:

Thank you Tony.
Although I am engineer I am not overly familiar with diesel engines, but your info makes perfect sense. 

Within the last couple of weeks I made an offer  on a boat to which they accepted, only to be told that no matter what the outcome of the survey was the boat was still mine as we had agreed a price, it wasn't a very old boat and I'm sure the hull would have been fine but no way was I parting with any money until the survey was done, very strange?

Presumably you made your offer "Subject to satisfactory survey"?  If not, I suggest you do so next time. 

Did the seller tell you this, or the broker? If the latter then I think we all know which broker it was. 

[HBROK]

26 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Presumably you made your offer "Subject to satisfactory survey"?  If not, I suggest you do so next time. 

Did the seller tell you this, or the broker? If the latter then I think we all know which broker it was. 

nope, the survey was not in their remit , basically he wanted me to buy it with no survey.

 

edit to add, please message me info on the broker you talk of.

Edited September 17, 2017 by HBROK

[WotEver]

30 minutes ago, HBROK said:

nope, the survey was not in their remit , basically he wanted me to buy it with no survey.

 

edit to add, please message me info on the broker you talk of.

Check out this thread:

 

[HBROK]

1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Check out this thread:

 

 

Cheers, interesting read.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sally Grim]

19 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

A boat's year of manufacture I would be more cynical about - for most if you don't know exactly, the maker and type will normally be a fairly good indicator.  A lot of boats are sold as being "younger" than they are, and I believe that in many cases the sellers know this.  (If for example the CRT index number was issued in a yea before the claimed build date of the boat, then that date must be untrue).
 

 

Hi, Alan!

That's something I have wondered; how do you know when an index number was issued?

[alan_fincher]

2 hours ago, Sally Grim said:

 

Hi, Alan!

That's something I have wondered; how do you know when an index number was issued?

Lists that marry a range of numbers to the year they were issued are in the public domain, but as index numbers only came in in 1980/81, there are lots of numbers that only indicate boats built before that date, where the actual year is not knowable from the number.

This post covered the numbers normally used for steel boats built up to about 2000, for example. (There must be newer versions, but I haven't looked)
 

However note that if an index number was issued in a given year, it doesn't guarantee the boat was first built or registered with BW in that year.  A boat can never be newer than the year its index number was issued, but due to re-registrations, (or it not always having held a BW or CRT licence,) it can always be older than the year its index number was issued.

[Sally Grim]

Thank you.

The list is very useful, but year 2000 is a while ago now, although I appreciate that to an owner of 1936-boats it seems quite modern!

So if anyone have an newer version, please share! 

[alan_fincher]

9 minutes ago, Sally Grim said:

Thank you.

The list is very useful, but year 2000 is a while ago now, although I appreciate that to an owner of 1936-boats it seems quite modern!

So if anyone have an newer version, please share! 

One of our 1936 boats has a BW Index Number issued in 1996, which adequately illustrates the problem of trying to work out a boats age from its index number.

In this case the boat is 60 years older than its registration.  All you can say with confidence is that the boat can't have been built after 1996.

[David Mack]

7 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

A boat can never be newer than the year its index number was issued, but due to re-registrations, (or it not always having held a BW or CRT licence,) it can always be older than the year its index number was issued.

So do BW/CRT never reissue a number, even where they know the previous holder of that number has been scrapped?