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Is it normal to get a test drive?


PeterCr

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4 hours ago, peter n said:

I suspect it depends on the broker and location.  ABNB were happy to provide us with an accompanied trip to the next winding point which was nearby.  Whilton declined a request on the basis that it was a four hour round trip to the next winding point, so would be unreasonable. 

The ABNB run in the Yelvertoft direction gives you about a 45 minute round trip I'd guess? Plenty long enough to ensure the engine doesn't overheat, the gearbox is OK, the tiller isn't fighting you, etc. Oh, and that you can get on with the ergonomics of the steering position you'll be spending many hours at too!  4 hours would definitely give time for all that stuff and more to emerge. What exactly would Wilton be doing with the boat if it wasn't out on a pre purchase test run with its imminent new owner?  Perhaps it's the 4 or 5 quid's worth of fuel they'd be worried about against a potential sale of a boat worth tens of thousands? Or maybe it's a policy decision based on something else? 

 

Edited by Sea Dog
Ergonomics bit.
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19 hours ago, PeterCr said:

 

....... whilst I'm certainly a remote buyer I don't think I'd be able to bring myself to buy sight unseen even with a good surveying report, so I'd get over there to inspect first hand. So I'll be there to take it out.

 

Does that mean you will make a special journey to inspect a boat prior to purchase - and then go back to return here later ? - or stay here once you have bought a boat ?

Avoiding the cost of the logistic exercise of a round trip could pay for a few improvements if the boat you bought was lacking in some features you wanted.

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Does that mean you will make a special journey to inspect a boat prior to purchase - and then go back to return here later ? - or stay here once you have bought a boat ?

Avoiding the cost of the logistic exercise of a round trip could pay for a few improvements if the boat you bought was lacking in some features you wanted.

Yes it means I'd come over to look at a boat then go back. Then come over again for trips of a month or so next year then about 6 months on the cut the following year.

My whole family is back here and there's not much for me to do there if I stayed.

I have agonised over how to buy a boat from here. I know that some people have bought a boat sight unseen simply on a good survey. I don't know if I could do that. However the logistics of coming over to buy are a real headache. Firstly accommodation. I do have inlaws in Nottingham but a couple of days tops is all I could stand staying there. I have found Airbnb places though at reasonable prices.

But the real issue is a return flight. I used to be able to get one way tickets so I could choose my return flight when over there. But they tell me now it's impossible to buy a one way flight to the UK. I must buy a return and must nominate a day to return. Changing that day is almost impossible except at massive cost. I did it last year due to illness and it ended up costing me more than a whole new flight.

So do I buy a week in the UK? A month? I have contacted a surveyor and he tells me at least 2 weeks for a survey. Then if work needs to be done it's longer. Then if I can't moor where I buy the boat I've got to try and find a mooring somewhere (possibly in winter) and take the boat to the mooring. And if I come for a month and don't buy the boat and look at all the others on the market what do I do for the next 3 weeks? Unless another nice boat comes on the market I've got 3 or so weeks to kill.

So trying to work out the return date is a complete nightmare and I haven't got any answer to that really. 

And so far I've completely failed to get a UK bank account despite lots of trying, so haven't quite sorted out how to pay for a boat if I find one, even though I have the funds (in pounds). But then that's another story!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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oh dear, and I thought I had logistic problems.

I may buy unseen so it is usually essential that the owner or broker takes good photos and there are good details avaialable, I have to take in to consideration that the owner may not be a photographer, but also that they cannot imagine that I think that the boat will be sold before I can view/offer.  I have faied to get one broker to go and get more photos, even though the boat is sitting on the pontoon ...... I am not going to travel 1000 miles to discover the engine is sitting in a pool of rusty water with electric spagetti all over the place.

I use appollo duck watch list plus my own spreadsheet, this helps with pricing/valuation and identifying costs needed to add things like solar, new bathroom etc.

I check twice a day, and if I see a stunner [rarely] I get on the phone, these are the boats that usually sell in a few hours. So, I have to be prepared to purchase these stunners at a moments notice. No survey no viewing.  I just am unable to get there to see almost any boat with in a few hours, so I think that I  may well end up buying unseen, but that boat will be a good make and in good condition and probably a pro fit out. No boat will tick every single box, but as long as the whole package is good enough, I can live with, [or change] certain features, as long as the boat looks good inside and is not a datebox design outside.  

I know its a risk, and in an ideal world a survey would be carried out in a few days, but in fact they seem to take longer to arrange, I have a few folks on standby to go and view for me, but realistically they are not going to rush out and view the thing within a few hours.

In your situation, I would find a good surveyor who is willing to talk to you in advance of a survey, he may be able to advise you, I have had one chap who offered this service. They seem to have quite a limited travel range, which is a nuisance, and the most popular surveyors are very busy, I have to say that the main thing I am interested in is hull integrity, anything else is a bonus, remember that not all vendors will be willing to drop their price after the survey, in an ideal world they would, but there is no guarantee.

My other problem is cash, but thats another story, fraught with unforseen difficulties. There are one or two Aussies who have bought boats, so it must be possible, have you asked the international brokers how it is done? I would assume any solicitor should be able to hold money in a ring fenced account.

Re Airbnb, there is a premium for the booking, those who I have stayed with let me contact them direct, at much reduced prices, so you could book for two days and re negotiate later. All the places I have stayed have been very flexible, letting me use the kitchen table make cups of tea, come and go at my convenience once they have met me and have a rough idea of my plans for the day. They have internet and TV. 

Edited by LadyG
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oh dear, and I thought I had logistic problems

There are one or two Aussies who have bought boats, so it must be possible, have you asked the international brokers how it is done? 

I've spoken to a broker at New and Used at Mercia when we got there at the end of our last hire. They told me they had sold boats to Australians sight unseen on the say so of a surveyor. Maybe it's just me but I just see that as a little risky.

I have also spoken to various Aussies when out on the water. Most of them bought when the market was a buyers market so they could take their time, fly over and look at a bunch of boats that had sat on the market for some time and make an offer. Make a list of possible boats then fly over when there's a dozen or so to look at.

One of them offered to sell me their boat one night when we were moored close together. They had done 5 years and were selling and heading back to Oz. It was a boat we'd have loved to buy, just what we liked, but it was just a couple of years too early, before we were able to retire. Though I wish now I'd bought it, I hadn't expected the market to change like it has.

However it was a very bad day for them. That was the evening of the Brexit vote and by next morning they told me of the result and the fact that the pound had dropped by, as I recall, around 10%. So they had effectively just lost 10% of their money once they converted back to dollars.

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I check twice a day, and if I see a stunner [rarely] I get on the phone, these are the boats that usually sell in a few hours. So, I have to be prepared to purchase these stunners at a moments notice. No survey no viewing.

Sounds a bit like my problem, hard to get to the boat to view it. So I'm not the only one that is in a position of, perhaps, buying a boat without ever having set foot on it.

I'd like to get a survey as it's the first time I've bought a boat and I don't know enough about it. But I know from here that some sellers just want a sale and in a market like this might not take an offer subject to survey.

Quote

In your situation, I would find a good surveyor who is willing to talk to you in advance of a survey, he may be able to advise you,

I've spoken to a surveyor about that already and he did offer, by email, to talk in advance. I've emailed him back but not had any reply for quite a while which is a worry though. Maybe he's got his head inside an engine compartment or something. But he said at least 2 weeks minimum for a survey. 

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My other problem is cash, but thats another story, 

I've got the cash, just not a way to pay it over. I've been putting money into pounds for a while now with HSBC and have enough to buy. However when I asked them for a card that I could use on the account they told me that it was in HSBC Australia and I couldn't use the account at all in the UK despite the fact that it's in pounds. I need a UK account so I can transfer the money to a UK bank then it's there for when I need to pay, but getting one is really difficult, I think even when I get over there opening a bank account requires me to show a UK address, which I don't have.

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I was thinking of an international yacht broker rather than a small UK broker, go back to HSBC and get more advice, it can't be impossible.

I would be wary of purchasing a boat which is not open to survey, in fact I would not, but that is different to not actually having a survey. If I had the cash today, I would hire a car, go see about four pre selected boats, maybe a few others close by, and then decide which one to offer on,  there are not that many that I like, the scattergun approach so beloved of others is not for me.

Any purchase is always going to carry risk, surveys will reduce the risk, but not eliminate it. I would not buy a project, I want a boat which has been meticulously maintained: one I am interested in at the moment has an owner mechanic, so no worries there [hopefully], but that info was not on the description, so it is worthwhile spending more time chatting with the owner, I prefer to deal with honest folks, not some Del boy. And of course, I avoid London based boats, and the ones that have had a lick of pale  grey paint, though not off the shopping list, they are often cheap fit outs, and I don't want that either.

Edited by LadyG
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go back to HSBC and get more advice, it can't be impossible.

No it's not impossible. To get a UK account from here I need to pay a significant fee and travel about 4 hours to the closest HSBC branch to me so that someone there can confirm that I am the same person as in my passport. If they want another document I have to go back again. 

I then need to guarantee that at least 500 pounds every month goes through my account. Every month, or they will close the account for inactivity. I have tried to explain that some months there will be more than that, and some months none as I won't be in the country, but they insist that they must see 500 pounds of transactions every month or they will close the account.

After much research online I have read that I might - might, be able to get an HSBC account in a branch in the UK when I get there, though most say I still need to show that I live in the UK. The suggestion that I have seen is that if I change my home address on my Australian HSBC account to a UK address (ie my inlaws) and get an HSBC bank statement showing the UK address then that might be sufficient to prove a UK address. But it's a bit unknown. Last night I tried ringing HSBC customer service in the UK but just got stuck in a queu. Am aiming to try again tonight.

If I happen to have $1.5 million dollars in annual income and $2.5 million of assets I can get a Barclays account, similar with Natwest. And whilst I can buy a boat I'm not that flush! Lloyds - forget it.

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5 minutes ago, PeterCr said:

No it's not impossible. To get a UK account from here I need to pay a significant fee and travel about 4 hours to the closest HSBC branch to me so that someone there can confirm that I am the same person as in my passport. If they want another document I have to go back again. 

I then need to guarantee that at least 500 pounds every month goes through my account. Every month, or they will close the account for inactivity. I have tried to explain that some months there will be more than that, and some months none as I won't be in the country, but they insist that they must see 500 pounds of transactions every month or they will close the account.

After much research online I have read that I might - might, be able to get an HSBC account in a branch in the UK when I get there, though most say I still need to show that I live in the UK. The suggestion that I have seen is that if I change my home address on my Australian HSBC account to a UK address (ie my inlaws) and get an HSBC bank statement showing the UK address then that might be sufficient to prove a UK address. But it's a bit unknown. Last night I tried ringing HSBC customer service in the UK but just got stuck in a queu. Am aiming to try again tonight.

If I happen to have $1.5 million dollars in annual income and $2.5 million of assets I can get a Barclays account, similar with Natwest. And whilst I can buy a boat I'm not that flush! Lloyds - forget it.

Every airport I have travelled through in the last few years is plastered with adverts telling me that HSBC can support all my international  banking needs. Yet when a former colleague moved from UK to Canada be found that years of banking with HSBC in UK counted for nothing when it came to opening an account over there, and he had to rebuild his credit record from scratch.

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On 11/27/2017 at 10:02, Alan de Enfield said:

I am not sure what a ’test drive’ shows you.

As has already been said, it will show you if it is seriosly under propped, for example.

I must admit we have never been out on any of the boats we bought before purchase, but if I had done so with Flamingo it would have highlighted problems with an unsuitable prop.

Doubtful it would have changed anything though, as the seller had more or less made up his mind he was not open to any further negotiation, and I'm sure we would have bought it anyway.

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25 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

As has already been said, it will show you if it is seriosly under propped, for example.

I must admit we have never been out on any of the boats we bought before purchase, but if I had done so with Flamingo it would have highlighted problems with an unsuitable prop.

Doubtful it would have changed anything though, as the seller had more or less made up his mind he was not open to any further negotiation, and I'm sure we would have bought it anyway.

 

That is pretty much where I was coming from, if you have travelled all over the country, decided that ‘this is the one’, paid a deposit and got a surveyor on standby, is the fact that the ‘steering is a bit heavy’, or it is ‘slightly under/over propped’ really going to stop you from buying the boat ?

If you have little or no experience will you even realise that not all ‘extended skips’ handle badly ?

Maybe I am just a ‘bit odd’, but in the last 30 years of boating (18+ boats) I have only used a surveyor once (about 20 years ago) and had one ‘test drive’ (2 years ago). Even the last boat which cost well into 6 figures was not surveyed or test drive, and, it managed the 3,100 mile cruise home without issue (except one of the toilet flush mechanisms broke)

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1 hour ago, PeterCr said:

No it's not impossible. To get a UK account from here I need to pay a significant fee and travel about 4 hours to the closest HSBC branch to me so that someone there can confirm that I am the same person as in my passport. If they want another document I have to go back again. 

I then need to guarantee that at least 500 pounds every month goes through my account. Every month, or they will close the account for inactivity. I have tried to explain that some months there will be more than that, and some months none as I won't be in the country, but they insist that they must see 500 pounds of transactions every month or they will close the account.

.

 

Two thing sspeing to mind:

- If HSBC require £500 worth of transactions each month, can't you pay £500 in one month, take it out the next month, pay it in again the following month, and so on? That would satisfy their conditions as you have explained them.

- Why can't you pay your boat money into your Nottingham relatives' account and then, when you find your boat, pay with a cheque of bank transfer from their account? Are you afriad that they might run off with the money?

Edited by Athy
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you might find your relative's account won't accept large sums of cash, by which I mean small sums of cash, eg over £600, due to money laundering. I had a mega fight with my insurance company over this nonsense recently.  

Can you just lease a boat ? for six months? The Clydesdale [uk] bank is, or used to be owned by aussies, so HSBC is not the only option.

Edited by LadyG
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Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

Easily - and when everything is taken into account probably not hugely different to buying and running a boat - but its not the same as owning one is it ?

Well it removes the risk element which seems to be the main sticking point, just turn up, take the keys and go, seems perfect.

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7 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Well it removes the risk element which seems to be the main sticking point, just turn up, take the keys and go, seems perfect.

It removes a lot of the risks and complications :

Where to moor it, the cost of mooring, and paying someone to look after it for the 6-months the OP is back in Australia.

No licence fee, insurance, BSS costs to pay

If ‘engine blows up’ – no problem, not your worry will be sorted out by the hire company.

No blacking every 2 years, no painting every 5 years

Those that keep detailed records suggest that boat running / maintenance costs come out at around £5k per annum. Which are unlikely to be ‘halved’ if you only use it for 6 months, so paying a rental of £1500 per month for 6 months and having the ability to ‘turn up – holiday – fly away’ and it only costing an extra £4k with no risks must be worth considering.

No doubt that £4k would be easily recovered in year 1 by saving the cost of flights and accommodation for viewing / surveying / test drives etc 

 

Thinking abut it - it actually has a lot going for it for 'Summer Boaters'.

Here is one of the companies offering a fully legal long term hire.

http://www.etrr.co.uk/

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2 hours ago, PeterCr said:

No it's not impossible. To get a UK account from here I need to pay a significant fee and travel about 4 hours to the closest HSBC branch to me so that someone there can confirm that I am the same person as in my passport. If they want another document I have to go back again. 

I then need to guarantee that at least 500 pounds every month goes through my account. Every month, or they will close the account for inactivity. I have tried to explain that some months there will be more than that, and some months none as I won't be in the country, but they insist that they must see 500 pounds of transactions every month or they will close the account.

After much research online I have read that I might - might, be able to get an HSBC account in a branch in the UK when I get there, though most say I still need to show that I live in the UK. The suggestion that I have seen is that if I change my home address on my Australian HSBC account to a UK address (ie my inlaws) and get an HSBC bank statement showing the UK address then that might be sufficient to prove a UK address. But it's a bit unknown. Last night I tried ringing HSBC customer service in the UK but just got stuck in a queu. Am aiming to try again tonight.

If I happen to have $1.5 million dollars in annual income and $2.5 million of assets I can get a Barclays account, similar with Natwest. And whilst I can buy a boat I'm not that flush! Lloyds - forget it.

When we were buying our boat in 2010 we ran into the same problem with the bank.

We are Dutch and live in the Netherlands. We tried to open a bank account with HSBC, at the local branch in Rugby. They wanted proof of address, it did not have to be an address in the UK, a Dutch one was fine. We had nothing with our addres on it at that time (our driving licenses do not state our address).  So the next time we came over, we took a recent bank statement (with our address on it) from our Dutch bank, a letter of recommendation from our Dutch bank, a recent energy bill and our passports to HSBC, and that was all it took. to get an account with them.

Every month we transfer 500 pounds from the Dutch account to the HSBC one, so that even when we are not in the UK, and don't spend money there, we keep the account active. Yes, in the end there is quite a sum of money in the account, but we pay the boat license and mooring fee from this account, so we see it as a form of saving for the bigger expenses.  And we use the debit card that comes with the account for our daily expenses. We could use the Dutch one of course, but then we would have to pay a fee for each transaction. 

The bank statements and other correspondence are sent to our Dutch home address.

Perhaps you could contact a local English HSBC branch by email and ask if they will accept an Australian address if you can proof that it is yours. They were very relaxed about the paperwork we provided. 

 

As for a test drive: ABNB was very good, they had even put the central heating on in the boat, we came over in January. They won't let you go on your own, which is fair enough as they only do accompanied viewings of the boats, but you can do all the steering you like. An other broker surprised us when we made an appointmen to have a second look at a boat and to do a test drive. When we showed up at his office, he said that, although he had agreed on the telephone that we coud have a test drive, he had changed his mind and we could not take the boat out. He didn't want 'all these people to have an afternoon on a boat, free of charge'.  

Good luck with finding the right boat and bank .

Helen

 

 

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1 hour ago, hvdb said:

An other broker surprised us when we made an appointmen to have a second look at a boat and to do a test drive. When we showed up at his office, he said that, although he had agreed on the telephone that we coud have a test drive, he had changed his mind and we could not take the boat out. He didn't want 'all these people to have an afternoon on a boat, free of charge'.  

What a very helpful reply Helen - have a 'greenie'!

The bit I've highlighted above is almost laughable business practice except that he's wasted your time. Good enough reason to buy elsewhere to me - I wonder how many sales he's lost by that approach? 

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1 hour ago, hvdb said:

 

As for a test drive: ABNB was very good, they had even put the central heating on in the boat, we came over in January. They won't let you go on your own, which is fair enough as they only do accompanied viewings of the boats, but you can do all the steering you like. An other broker surprised us when we made an appointmen to have a second look at a boat and to do a test drive. When we showed up at his office, he said that, although he had agreed on the telephone that we coud have a test drive, he had changed his mind and we could not take the boat out. He didn't want 'all these people to have an afternoon on a boat, free of charge'.  

Good luck with finding the right boat and bank .

Helen

 

 

I think that I would press for direct contact with the owner in such a case. Certainly if I were selling I would not want a potential sale to fall through because the broker could not be bothered to organise a test drive.

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1 hour ago, LadyG said:

Well it removes the risk element which seems to be the main sticking point, just turn up, take the keys and go, seems perfect.

There is some merit in hiring. As had been the way for us - for a one or two week holiday - that got us into thinking of buying our own boat. We searched for a good quality boat to buy - at a low price (no money for a new one)- led us to looking at ex-hire boats as good value - we found one for sale by a hire-boat company (Evesham Marine -  anyone remember them ! - 1987) 

However, 'owning a boat full time' - is not quite the same thing as 'hiring one for a holiday'  - so we asked about hiring the boat for a couple of months (mainly to see if we liked cruising for weeks on end) and then deduct the rent paid from  the sale price if we decided to keep it.

No problem hiring at a special rate they said - but it would still be the same selling price when I brought it back!  

We soon realised that the rental charges would eat up the little deposit (much the same cost logistics as buying a house for the first time) - so we settled for an outright purchase - and comforted ourselves that if we did not like owning a boat we could sell it later at a lower price - where the 'loss' would be less than the cost of hiring a boat for the same period of time. Alongside you must not forget the associated cost of fixed overheads for cruising and mooring licenses, insurance and BSS surveys - and on-gong routine maintenance

With all this, we kept ours! That was 30 years  ago!

The logic behind this - what I would do is buy a fully functional boat by remote control on the strength of a survey (the thinking here is that there will not be much wrong with it that can't be fixed at leisure) to get up and running - then 'fix' the faults or adapt it to suit - or if no good at all then resell it and get a better one.

Time cost of time and distance is your enemy - not the boat value.

PS: Is there a part exchange market for boats ?

PPS: Can PayPal be used for payment. I have a PayPal UK set up here in the UK  and I can can buy things anywhere in the World.  I don't know about limits on price but things sell for thousands on eBay where PayPal is used.

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If HSBC require £500 worth of transactions each month, can't you pay £500 in one month, take it out the next month, pay it in again the following month, and so on? That would satisfy their conditions as you have explained them.

I've seen that suggestion made before, not sure if it will work or not. It may well be obvious after some months of that that I'm just doing it to keep up with their conditions, and they might cancel the account anyway. I'm encouraged by Helen's experience in getting an account though, just paying the £500 in each month as a way of saving. 

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- Why can't you pay your boat money into your Nottingham relatives' account and then, when you find your boat, pay with a cheque of bank transfer from their account? Are you afriad that they might run off with the money?

That's my fall back position. As LadyG says they may not accept large amounts of money, but I could transfer in bit by bit. But that would work and we are considering it, in fact I've asked my wife to talk to her mum about this when they speak next. Only issue, and a major issue, is that she is quite elderly and if she died then it's not our money any longer and would pass under her will, and not necessarily to us. Her bank account would be frozen as soon as she died and our money is stuck. That's the main sticking point.

I believe all this stuff about problems getting bank accounts and transferring money is anti money laundering legislation. I've read that even people moving to the UK now have trouble getting an account in the first 3 months till they have something like an electricity bill to show that they live there. Apparently it used to be much easier, but has got a lot harder lately.

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Can you just lease a boat ? for six months? 

We've thought about that and have added up the cost a little. But it's as much about having our own boat as the cost.

We've hired quite a lot, a few times for a month at a time, and got some nice boats, but they are hire boats and not all that comfortable for long term use. We'd like to have a nice comfortable lounge with some nice leather chairs, a wood burner burbling away in the background and our own clothes in the cupboards for when we arrive. Some solar panels so if we sit in one spot for a week we don't have to keep running the engine every day. Etc etc. Hire boats, whilst nice boats, are limited in features other than the basics.

The boats we've hired have uncomfortable bench seats and when we've been on them we've commented that we couldn't spend months in a boat like that, despite the fact that it's a nice boat. Basically we'd just like to make a boat our own so that we could come over when we felt like it and take out our own boat.

But I do appreciate that there will then be some unexpected hassles with that which we wouldn't experience with a hire boat. I will also have to learn more about the boat than I would with a hire boat.

We'd buy a second hand hire boat from the same hire company we have used, as they are well built sound boats, but we'd change quite a few things ourselves to our own taste if we did buy one.

We've always hired to date, and it's worked fine for us, but only for a short while. For a month a year it makes financial sense to hire, but for 6 months we're not so convinced. Also of course when you buy you've got a saleable asset, and although you'll probably sell it for less than you buy it for after a few years, you'll get much of your money back. 4 or 5 years of hiring and you've paid for a boat and not got anything to sell.

Though I've not looked at Etrr before, thanks for the link Alan, I'll take a look.

We're not done yet though, it's still quite some months to go before we could cruise, April/May would be the earliest time we'd get on a boat there, the market might go quiet after Christmas :)

 

Edited by PeterCr
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46 minutes ago, PeterCr said:

the market might go quiet after Christmas :)

 

I’d say the opposite happens.  Quiet now in the run up to Xmas, bursts into life when people have spent ten days off work cogitating and making plans for the future, sometimes including buying a boat in time for the summer. I suspect the brokers return to work in the new year to an avalanche of new enquiries. December is the quietest month of the year for sales I’d say.  

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14 hours ago, PeterCr said:

I believe all this stuff about problems getting bank accounts...

I can’t recall if I’ve mentioned this before but have you checked out TransferWise? They offer a borderless account which can be in any currency you like and you can transfer money in and out very cheaply (and quickly). 

https://transferwise.com/

Borderless:

https://transferwise.com/borderless

Edited by WotEver
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Checked out Transferwise. It's similar to some others like that I've looked at. I know someone else over here used a similar service to buy a boat over there.

They are primarily a currency transfer service and they make their money from currency exchange. So if I was to transfer $A to the UK as £UK then they will do that, they make money on the exchange rate.

But because my money is already in £UK I can't transfer that to the UK because they make nothing on the currency exchange. I suspected, but thought I'd confirm that and rang them but they did confirm that they can't help me unless I transfer in $A. I asked if I could somehow use my £UK in the UK through their service and they said no. Rats.

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