How much should I expect to pay for just a hull?

[David Mack]

And if you are building or fitting out a boat for your own use you either have to build it to the requirements of the Recreational Craft Directive and get all the associated paperwork in order or you cannot legally sell the boat for 5 years.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

This is meant to be constructive :

Are you aware of the legal requirements for owning a boat ? (particularly to have either a home mooring - cost many £1000', or to 'continuously cruise' and move to a new 'place' - often quoted as a different parish, - every 14 days)

Boat has to pass its Boat safety examination (MOT equivalent)

Boat must have a licence (£500-£1000 per annum)

Boat must have insurance.

If the boat is to be a liveaboard then their are legal requirements for the installation of (such as) gas which must be conducted by a 'competent person' to the GSIUR regulations (same as a landlord has to do for a rented house).

If you are looking at an 'empty' hull - then there are legal requirements (Recreational Craft Directive) as to what engines you can fit - and the latest issue of the RCD includes 'major works' which encompasses fitting / replacing engines.

Lots more, It is not just 'build a boat and float off into the sunset'.

Yeah, probably should have been more clear on that one.

The problem with vans is that if you're stopped anywhere, and the police stumble across you, they can easily force you to move on.

A friend of mine lived in a van in my area for a while, and said the police got to know his vehicle pretty quickly. Said they were a nightmare.

You can get in trouble staying on private property too, unless it's a campsite, and even then, you still have to move around (and live on a campsite).

I've looked at all the costs and double checked numerous times to make sure I'm not missing anything; the extra space, and not being harassed by the police and move in the middle of the night any time I get unlucky is worth it to me, and the community around the canals seems brilliant too. There is a vanning community, but it's smaller, and harder to come by because of its nature.

My brother still wants to live in a narrowboat too, but he wouldn't give a van a second thought. This way, even when we have our own boats, we can still pretty much live together (and escape when we get sick of eachother!).

I'd be happy living in a van if it was my only not-a-house option, but I'm as close to certain as I can be without actually doing it that a narrowboat's a better choice for me.

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Isaac Beizsley said:

The problem with vans is that if you're stopped anywhere, and the police stumble across you, they can easily force you to move on.

The same happens with boats - but, to make a long drawn out process short (its getting late) C&RT can revoke your licence, they then take you to court for not having a licence and eventually C&RT can take your boat and crush it. 

You cannot just moor up anywhere you like for as long as you like.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Alan de Enfield

[TheBiscuits]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

The same happens with boats - but, to make a long drawn out process short (its getting late) C&RT can take your boat and crush it. 

You cannot just moor up anywhere you like for as long as you like.

Me: Boats 2 Vans 0

Alan: Boats 2 Vans ? (Horseboxes don't count!)

I think he is on the right track with boats, as long as he doesn't want to CC in London!

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Me: Boats 2 Vans 0

Alan: Boats 2 Vans ? (Horseboxes don't count!)

I think he is on the right track with boats, as long as he doesn't want to CC in London!

Actually I have a huge American Camper Van / Winnebago in the yard - petrol / gas conversion - its for sale if anyone is interested

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The same happens with boats - but, to make a long drawn out process short (its getting late) C&RT can take your boat and crush it. 

You cannot just moor up anywhere you like for as long as you like.

It's not the same, though. If you are in a van and the police suspect you are living in it (if it's a conversion and you're in the back, that is enough), you have to move the second they ask you to.

A campsite is ok for staying longer, but would you really want to live on a campsite?

With a canal boat, I could get a permanent mooring, or I could just move every now and then and make sure I cover the minimum distance. Sounds like a dream to me.

Yeah, a van is workable, and would be a fair bit cheaper, but the continuous cruising rules alone are more than enough to make a canal boat preferable. 

Edited March 4, 2018 by Guest

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, Isaac Beizsley said:

It's not the same, though. If you are in a van and the police suspect you are living in it (if it's a conversion and you're in the back, that is enough), you have to move the second they ask you to.

A campsite is ok for staying longer, but would you really want to live on a campsite?

With a canal boat, I could get a permanent mooring, or I could just move every now and then and make sure I cover the minimum distance. Sounds like a dream to me.

It certainly is a dream.

I just pointed it out as many come on here and havn't made any effort to find out the 'rules' and then moan when C&RT take then to court.

Stick by the rules and its a great life.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I just pointed it out as many come on here and havn't made any effort to find out the 'rules' and then moan when C&RT take then to court.

Yeah, I get that. In all my reading, I've come across plenty of those posts myself. 

I'll be good, I promise.

And to be honest, I don't mind having my reasons questioned plenty at the current stage. Hopefully, if it's actually not for me, that'll get through before I've sunk a small fortune into a boat.

Edited March 4, 2018 by Guest

[TheBiscuits]

11 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Actually I have a huge American Camper Van / Winnebago in the yard - petrol / gas conversion - its for sale if anyone is interested

Lower MPG than the cat?

 

[Alan de Enfield]

15 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

Lower MPG than the cat?

 

About 12, hence the gas conversion. Apart from going for its MOT its not moved for 3 years.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

A hot Summers day and the hull could be an inch or two longer and a fraction of an inch wider that it is overnight.

 

I don't think this can be right. Would you be kind enough to share your calculations showing this please?

I think the change in length would be closer to a couple of mm.

Thanks.

[koukouvagia]

2 hours ago, Isaac Beizsley said:

First is the aesthetic; I love the look of wood cabin boats. Sure, I could be happy with a steel one, but it's just a little 'nice-to-have'.

You can, of course, have a steel cabin made to look like wood.  Many historic boat owners have gone down this path and there are some very skilled craftsmen around who can do this.

For years I struggled to keep a wooden cabin on Hampton. I was spending more time maintaining the wood than I was actually boating!  It may have looked OK, but it was gently rotting away beneath the paintwork.  

This is the wooden cabin.  Don't be deceived by the looks.  Every year I had to cut out pieces of rotten wood and repaint sections of it.

This is the steel replacement back cabin.  Note the simulated plank effects and the scrolls on the handrail - all in steel.

Edited March 5, 2018 by koukouvagia

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, koukouvagia said:

You can, of course, have a steel cabin made to look like wood.  Many historic boat owners have gone down this path and there are some very skilled craftsmen around who can do this.

Do you get a free bag of Hudson washers rivets with that

[koukouvagia]

Just now, TheBiscuits said:

Do you get a free bag of Hudson washers rivets with that

No, the rivets are all genuine 

 

[alan_fincher]

9 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

A hot Summers day and the hull could be an inch or two longer and a fraction of an inch wider that it is overnight.

I've not done the maths, but that can't be right.

Otherwise on a hot summers day on a boat that had a wooden cabin with wood frames attached to a steel upstand on the hull the cabin would be ripped from the bolt heads.  That doesn't happen, trust me.

At the very least you surely have a decimal point in the wrong place.

Think of steel railway lines with fishplated joints, and expansion gaps between the rail ends - these would open up to several inches on a cold day, so fishplates would need long slots instead of round holes, and you would get a very rough ride indeed, (or derailments!).

[koukouvagia]

3 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Otherwise on a hot summers day on a boat that had a wooden cabin with wood frames attached to a steel upstand on the hull the cabin would be ripped from the bolt heads.  That doesn't happen, trust me.

But I can assure you when I had a wooden cabin that "all the boards did shrink."  (To quote the Rime of the Ancient Mariner). 

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

I've not done the maths, but that can't be right.

Otherwise on a hot summers day on a boat that had a wooden cabin with wood frames attached to a steel upstand on the hull the cabin would be ripped from the bolt heads.  That doesn't happen, trust me.

At the very least you surely have a decimal point in the wrong place.

Think of steel railway lines with fishplated joints, and expansion gaps between the rail ends - these would open up to several inches on a cold day, so fishplates would need long slots instead of round holes, and you would get a very rough ride indeed, (or derailments!).

 

I made a similar point in post 36.

Last time this cropped up I actually posted my calculations but have no idea which thread it was! 

[dave moore]

Just a thought or two. Malcolm Braine built many wooden topped boats in his time at Norton Canes. Most eventually suffered with rot. One solution was to clad them in fibre glass resin, a partial solution, though many went on to have a steel skin over the existing wooden cabin, pioneered by Malcolm’s successor, Graham Edgson. A wooden cabin should serve for some time without issues, though it may be a drawback if wishing to sell at some future time.

[MtB]

Wow post numbers have gone all weird. My post number 36 yesterday predates my post number 27 today! 

[Murflynn]

11 hours ago, Isaac Beizsley said:

 

Also, if any of this seems dumb, then please, go ahead and let me know. I'm open to the idea I'm being an idiot, caught up in the initial excitement of everything.

Cheers!

it's dumb.  you're being an idiot.

[X Alan W]

When I did my boating metal /composite hulls & wooden cabins were the norm except for "engine ole " which was steel  it was as Mr K says an ongoing battle & I mean battle to keep the top 1st water tight & 2nd looking reasonable this was the way it was there were at that time no steel cabins /conversions there is a now a virtually foolproof way of having water tight living with much less effort also although steel requires insulation a wood frame T&G/ply cladding with pitch paper & masonite or GRP finish also requires some form of insulation If I were coming back to boating it would be a no brainer  A quote from a very early hire boat brochure from Canal Cruising Stone in extended periods of hot /sunny weather douse the cabin several timesa day with buckets of canal water says it all really

Edited March 5, 2018 by X Alan W

[koukouvagia]

17 minutes ago, dave moore said:

Just a thought or two. Malcolm Braine built many wooden topped boats in his time at Norton Canes. Most eventually suffered with rot. One solution was to clad them in fibre glass resin, a partial solution.

Which is what I ended up doing to Hampton.  This was fine for a few years, but as the wooden roof under the fibre glass thoroughly dried out  the planks began to shrink and crumble.  The end came when cracks started to appear in the resin skin.  Steel cladding might have been a solution, but the rest of the back end was in such a poor state that it was easier to take the cabin off and start again.

Edited March 5, 2018 by koukouvagia

[alan_fincher]

17 minutes ago, dave moore said:

Just a thought or two. Malcolm Braine built many wooden topped boats in his time at Norton Canes.

And I guess that almost invariably meant a planked structure over wooden frames, but then sheathed in felt and waterproof hardboard (aka "Masonite").

Masoninte actually didn't last too badly if you could manage to keep the screw holes and joins filled and painted, but this was a struggle at best.
 

Provided you knew things were going awry, you could replace the Masonite, before the wood it was fixed too became too badly damaged.

I am only aware of one Malcolm Braine locally that has not either been skinned in steel, or completely rebuilt in steel, and it is totally falling apart, despite its  expensive "top of the range" origins.  It must get very wet inside.  There are lots of Braine boats around with new steel tops on them.

Curiously though our local hire firm has continued to operate a couple of wooden tops until very recently, and has managed by much paint to keep them quite smart, although the rippling in the Masonite has become quite obvious.  I'm not sure if they are still running either - I think one may quite recently have been up for sale.

Steel tops on steel narrow boats are a no brainer to me.  Even if I had an historic boat where the cabin was originally wood, I would compromise to a steel look alike.  The bits of our two historic boats that are still wooden are a maintenance nightmare.

[WotEver]

49 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

I've not done the maths, but that can't be right.

Otherwise on a hot summers day on a boat that had a wooden cabin with wood frames attached to a steel upstand on the hull the cabin would be ripped from the bolt heads.  That doesn't happen, trust me.

At the very least you surely have a decimal point in the wrong place.

Think of steel railway lines with fishplated joints, and expansion gaps between the rail ends - these would open up to several inches on a cold day, so fishplates would need long slots instead of round holes, and you would get a very rough ride indeed, (or derailments!).

11 to 12.5 x 10^-6 inches per inch (or mm per mm). So not much. 

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/linear-expansion-coefficients-d_95.html

[WotEver]

So a 20m boat = 20,000mm

20 degree temp change = 20,000 x 12 x 10^-6 = 2.4mm if my maths is right?