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Should I buy a narrowboat


Dunworkin

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Following our boat purchase in 2009 we have not looked back. The only doubts I had were, the night before, "What the hell am I doing" and the night after "What the hell have I done?"

Yes, it is a money pit, but it has given us joy, peace and fun. What price on that? To me the reason for buying a boat, because we love boating.

There ain't no pockets in shrouds.

 

Edited by Ray T
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Apologies to the OP for my participation in disrupting their thread yesterday.

 

Good luck with the boat, should you choose to buy one. In my twenty years of narrowboat ownership, the only down side has been diy blacking, and to be honest, even that ain't too bad.

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Well, you certainly attracted a lot of interest with that one Donworkin ! Batteries/amps/lots of off thread bickering. We retired 5 yrs ago, had a lot of canal experience on hire and shared ownership and loved it. Bought our own boat and a mooring and cruise for 6 months of the year and LOVE IT. I know there is a lot of armchair philosophy about "one life, live it" etc. and this is a valid point so; if you can afford it, do it. The one thing we did when buying was look for a boat under 50 ft. This keeps costs down over the long term and means you can squeeze into crowded moorings much easier. Good luck with whatever you decide and don't over think it, just do the basic sums and,if possible, go for it. As my dad used to say "Yer a long time dead"

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I too took early retirement when it became available.  I have had two life threatening illnesses in the past 5 years.  The first when I was 55.  After the first I decided that I didn’t want to be on my deathbed and think “I wish I had done that”.  In January I bought a 70ft beauty even though I can’t use it yet.  We have just arrived home for medical appointments after 2 months in the marina and we now can’t wait to get on the water in June.  Very hard to describe the feeling but even my wife who wasn’t too sure is now a convert.  Totally chilled out.

All my life I was Mr Sensible when it came to finances and as pointed out already ‘there are no pockets in shrouds and in addition there is no point in being the richest stiff in the graveyard’

Do it, if it doesn’t work out you can sell it but what you can’t do is get back what you didn’t do.  Have no regrets!

Best wishes whatever you do - retirement is great.  ?

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In the last few hours, and thanks to Athy, this thread seems to have got back totally on topic so I now feel inclined to add my story.

 

I would start by saying to the OP - go for it!

 

We had hired relatively few times but spread over many years...

1976 Norfolk Broads GRP 

1978 The Thames GRP

1990 Caledonian Canal GRP (with children)

2011 Ashby Canal narrowboat

2015 Shroppie narrowboat (6 months after retiring at 59)

 

During the 2015 hire, while enjoying beer in the sunshine on the cruiser stern, I broached the subject by saying to my wife that we could do this whenever we liked if we bought a boat now that I had retired. Over the years I had frequently thought I'd like to own a boat but, being a pretty risk-averse accountant by profession, never really thought I would. But then, having retired, and having both the money and the time to enjoy boating, I thought that if I'm ever going to do it, it should be now before I became much older and possibly too unfit. I had toyed with the idea of a share boat but really wanted to be able to go to a boat, our own boat, at a moment's notice whenever we felt like it.

 

As soon as we got back from the July 2015 hire I started to look for a boat, expecting this to take any months but hopefully in time for Spring 2016 cruising. Instead, our boat found us almost straight away and within a month of returning from the hire we'd bought a 45' narrowboat after a survey. My wife, who was far less keen than me, loved the boat and now enjoys it just as much as I do.

 

Due to Monday school-run commitments we are unable to have very long trips and have to concentrate most of our boating on school holidays but even so, we are averaging about 4 months a year on the boat. Last year it was 4.5 months, including 8 weeks out of 9 over the summer.

 

I did initially have similar feelings to Ray, and for a few months after I had long periods of elation and occasional, thankfully shorter, periods of buyer's remorse.

 

I reckon costs to have averaged about £5k per year so far during the (almost) 3 years since buying, including some money spent on some improvements such as solar (which I would strongly recommend - I wish I'd had more than 200W fitted). By the time of our 3 year anniversary of ownership in early August we should be only a few weeks short of having spent a year on the boat. I'm not sure I would want to live on a boat (a bigger one) all year round but having time on the boat for part of the year, and time at home for part of the year, seems to me to be ideal.

 

So far, no regrets.

 

My conclusion - don't hesitate!

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Greenied.

 

You make it sound much more attractive than Rusty's idea of buying a horse!

You don't have to touch up a horses bottom every two years. Although you probably could if no one is looking! 

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11 minutes ago, ianali said:

Something we found since buying a boat in 1999 is that although it’s quite costly, you do then have a holiday home. Before our boat we were spending maybe 8-10 thousand a year on holidays. 

Absolutely - in fact, although Mrs. Athy and I live in a village, when we go over to the boat in Cropredy we refer to it as "going to the country for the weekend".

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16 minutes ago, Athy said:

Absolutely - in fact, although Mrs. Athy and I live in a village, when we go over to the boat in Cropredy we refer to it as "going to the country for the weekend".

Similar here, I sometimes say we're off to our country retreat or to our other home. 

 

I also felt a lot better about paying marina fees (though most of our time on the boat is spent away from the marina) when I discovered that they were cheaper than what we would be paying someone for the privilege of owning a static caravan as our place in the country.

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1 hour ago, Lily Rose said:

Similar here, I sometimes say we're off to our country retreat or to our other home. 

 

I also felt a lot better about paying marina fees (though most of our time on the boat is spent away from the marina) when I discovered that they were cheaper than what we would be paying someone for the privilege of owning a static caravan as our place in the country.

That’s how I feel. I’ve a friend that had two weeks booked in a static caravan costing him over £2000 for two weeks. My daughter and boyfriend have a ten day holiday booked costing £2700. We will cruise our boat till October for that. Boat owning isn’t always the expensive option! 

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1 hour ago, ianali said:

Something we found since buying a boat in 1999 is that although it’s quite costly, you do then have a holiday home. Before our boat we were spending maybe 8-10 thousand a year on holidays. 

Totally agree.  Our two week holiday later this year is probably costing us the equivalent of two years boating which includes a marina mooring darn sarf.  Won’t be doing that in the future. ?

Hopefully we will also be using the boat as a pied-a-terre

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16 minutes ago, ianali said:

That’s how I feel. I’ve a friend that had two weeks booked in a static caravan costing him over £2000 for two weeks.

Don't mention caravans! I mentioned them once, but I think I got away with it!:)

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1 hour ago, rusty69 said:

Don't mention caravans! I mentioned them once, but I think I got away with it!:)

Ahem. We have a caravan as well as a boat.

It is jolly useful, enables us to visit parts of the canal system I know we will never be able to get to in a boat. :P

Edited by Ray T
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46 minutes ago, ianali said:

That’s how I feel. I’ve a friend that had two weeks booked in a static caravan costing him over £2000 for two weeks. My daughter and boyfriend have a ten day holiday booked costing £2700. We will cruise our boat till October for that. Boat owning isn’t always the expensive option! 

We have just had a week away in our caravan and it cost us £70 for the week and that included 10amp electric hook up.

 

Our stay away previous to that was slightly more expensive at £15 per night including 16 amp electrics, but that was in Cornwall.

 

In August a 2 week stay on a full facility site in Charente France is going to be our most expensive 2 weeks of the year at about 600 quid.

 

Our caravan cost a third of what our boat initially cost us. We need a car anyway.

 

Caravanning isn't always the expensive option. Obviously we use fuel towing it but often (like last week) venture only 20 to 30 miles at the most into the Dales/North Yorkshire.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Ray T said:

It is jolly useful, enables us to visit parts of the canal system I know we will never be to get to in a boat. :P

 

And does your boat allow you to visit parts of the road system you'd never be able to visit in a caravan?  :giggles:

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Oops!

 

I mentioned caravans. But I was referring to how much it costs, for the caravan equivalent of marina fees, to own a static caravan on a site.

 

I never planned to do this, though many do, but it made me feel better about my largest single boat-owning expense when my research led me to the conclusion that site fees are often (usually?) more. 

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On 09/05/2018 at 13:01, Dunworkin said:

We are a mid 50’s couple who have retired early ........ others say that it’s financial suicide....! Some honest advice would be very welcome.

Far from being financial suicide the money spent on boating has been the best money we have ever spent.

I am still working full time and  a bit older than you . The  boat is a complete antidote to the pressures of working life.

We started our boating with a hired narrowboat and loved it. Travelling the inland waterways  is  like being in a different world . 

 

We chose a  cruiser because it better suits the R. Trent rather than a narrowboat. The boat is moored half mile from home.

 

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8 minutes ago, Lily Rose said:

Oops!

 

I mentioned caravans. But I was referring to how much it costs, for the caravan equivalent of marina fees, to own a static caravan on a site.

 

I never planned to do this, though many do, but it made me feel better about my largest single boat-owning expense when my research led me to the conclusion that site fees are often (usually?) more. 

It depends to be honest.

 

Before we bought our tourer we looked at the option of a static.

 

We found a few sites we liked and one in particular near Bedale was our favourite. It was very basic in terms of facilities but that suited us but the annual cost was from memory £1750 per annum for the service charge/ground rent. Electricity was metered above that. Others with more facilities went up to about 3 grand per annum.

Edited by MJG
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3 hours ago, ianali said:

Something we found since buying a boat in 1999 is that although it’s quite costly, you do then have a holiday home. Before our boat we were spending maybe 8-10 thousand a year on holidays. 

How the other half live!  One of my years since buying my boat, my entire income was £10k!

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