End of life boats

[b0atman]

Boats that owners know are a money pit due to age and condition so what options are there for them.

CRT repossess some and others are simply abandoned .

The only place that seems to take them in as a business is Charity dock on the Coventry . Do people buy them from there ?

Are there other places of a similar nature around the system ?

My reasoning is lots of the early days leisure was GRP and there are now lots of them abandoned around the canals waiting to sink before anything gets done by CRT.

As more and more boats come onto the system then more metal ones I assume will go the same way .

Some system needs to be putting in place for scrapping boats easily .If it was a car then scrap yards will collect and usually pay money for them.

Edited July 22, 2018 by b0atman

[BruceinSanity]

Thought this thread was going to be about hospice boats! As we all get more decrepit, they may be a demand for them...

 

Back on topic, it's something I've brooded on from time to time, usually when steering. I guess there's no (or not much) residual value in a clapped out GRP except maybe the engine. There will be scrap value in a steel boat, but does it justify the labour of stripping it out?

[pearley]

We talked about this this morning. A boat with a 525xxx registration went past. That's 10000 he's registrations in 11 years but there has been no increase in CRT boat licencing, actually a small decrease I believe, so where gave all those boars gone? 

[David Mack]

37 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

Thought this thread was going to be about hospice boats!

I thought it was about the demise of the RNLI!

[Ray T]

I thought the title meant no more of these:

• 

   

  But these instead:

  

   

  

   

  ETA cross post with David.

Edited July 22, 2018 by Ray T

[Jerra]

2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I thought it was about the demise of the RNLI!

Ditto

[cereal tiller]

1 hour ago, BruceinSanity said:

Thought this thread was going to be about hospice boats! As we all get more decrepit, they may be a demand for them...

 

Back on topic, it's something I've brooded on from time to time, usually when steering. I guess there's no (or not much) residual value in a clapped out GRP except maybe the engine. There will be scrap value in a steel boat, but does it justify the labour of stripping it out?

GRP is Landfill or could maybe Stirred into Asphalt for Roads? Steel can always "Go round again" ,small GRP Boats make good Flower Tubs and Garden Ponds.

 

[MtB]

Steel boats are always fixable and never scrapped. There were two utter colanders on the bank at Clifton Cruisers last year. Someone bought them both, welded patches over the visible holes, launched them, painted the insides white and guess where they went...

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Steel boats are always fixable and never scrapped. There were two utter colanders on the bank at Clifton Cruisers last year. Someone bought them both, welded patches over the visible holes, launched them, painted the insides white and guess where they went...

..... Narrowboat heaven? 

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

..... Narrowboat heaven? 

 

Yes. With the (reputed) other 8,000!!!

[Pluto]

What about lifeboat conversions, such as this one. The photo comes from the Draper collection, collected by the brother of the last Foulridge Tunnel tug master. The date is 1946.

[MtB]

Blimey they look as bad tempered and miserable as most narrowboaters nowadays!

[howardang]

1 minute ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Blimey they look as bad tempered and miserable as most narrowboaters nowadays!

At least he's wearing a "proper" captains hat!

 

Howard

[Paul H]

Boats at the “the end of their life” are often abandoned and then seized by CRT under their Section 8 powers.

 

The policy is, or at least was, to destroy any boat worth under £1000 because they take the view that any new owner buying a cheap boat is likely to be as much trouble as the last one!  Anything worth more than that is either auctioned online or sold via “tame” brokers.

 

I bought my first boat from British Waterways at the age of 17 for the grand price of £16.  I did it up and sold it for a good profit and about 12 boats later have a historic boat worth around £60K so I think this is a very short-sighted policy!

 

Paul

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2018 by Paul H

[TheBiscuits]

Our local boatyard have had a few narrowboats in that they described as "not worth the gas to cut up for scrap".

 

The owners usually just stick them on ebay and see what they can get for them.

[Athy]

4 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Steel boats are always fixable and never scrapped. 

I would substitute "usually" and "rarely" for your two adverbs. When I used to be around Fox's a fair bit some five years ago they cut up at least two old narrowboats for scrap. I have no idea what financial arrangements were involved.

[MtB]

15 minutes ago, Athy said:

I would substitute "usually" and "rarely" for your two adverbs. When I used to be around Fox's a fair bit some five years ago they cut up at least two old narrowboats for scrap. I have no idea what financial arrangements were involved.

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

I have often asked on here for first hand anecdotes of conventional welded steel narrowboats being scrapped and no-one has ever claimed to see it happen... until now. YOU are the first and only poster on here ever to know of a steel narrowboat being scrapped!*

 

 

 

 

*As opposed to an old riveted iron or composite ex-working boat being scrapped by BW, BWB or predecessor. Of which there have been plenty.

[Rob VP]

2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

I have often asked on here for first hand anecdotes of conventional welded steel narrowboats being scrapped and no-one has ever claimed to see it happen... until now. YOU are the first and only poster on here ever to know of a steel narrowboat being scrapped!*

 

 

 

 

*As opposed to an old riveted iron or composite ex-working boat being scrapped by BW, BWB or predecessor. Of which there have been plenty.

An old couple I know had to scrap theirs last year.  They had a buyer for it but the buyers survey was so bad it wasn't viable to repair it.  The surveyor said that it would be cheaper and easier to build a new boat from scratch.   

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

 

 

Thank you!

 

I have often asked on here for first hand anecdotes of conventional welded steel narrowboats being scrapped and no-one has ever claimed to see it happen... until now. YOU are the first and only poster on here ever to know of a steel narrowboat being scrapped!*

 

 

 

 

 

I've always been a bit different.

One of them was scrapped because the owner brought it in to Fox's for repairs and it was found to be rusting through at the waterline all the way round. Alan and Gerald reckoned that if they'd given it a hard shove the entire top half would have parted company with the bottom half. Not sure what the problem was with th eother one.

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, Athy said:

Alan and Gerald reckoned that if they'd given it a hard shove the entire top half would have parted company with the bottom half

Alan's a giant, so I'm not surprised! 

[Athy]

Just now, rusty69 said:

Alan's a giant, so I'm not surprised! 

Yes, he must be 6'6", I'm amazed that he chose a life working in the cramped confines of narrowboats.

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, Rob VP said:

An old couple I know had to scrap theirs last year.  They had a buyer for it but the buyers survey was so bad it wasn't viable to repair it.  The surveyor said that it would be cheaper and easier to build a new boat from scratch.   

 

So did you know for a fact it was actually scrapped, as opposed to them just telling you it wasn't viable to repair? This is my question. When pressed, people can never confirm this. Except Mr Athy!

[rusty69]

Just now, Athy said:

Yes, he must be 6'6", I'm amazed that he chose a life working in the cramped confines of narrowboats.

He's one of the few people i look up to. 

[Rob VP]

6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

So did you know for a fact it was actually scrapped, as opposed to them just telling you it wasn't viable to repair? This is my question. When pressed, people can never confirm this. Except Mr Athy!

Yes.  They had to pay someone to take it, not sure how much. He cut it into several pieces before taking it, so I think I can safely assume he had no plans to repair it.

[Alan de Enfield]

There are several 'boat scrap yards' / purveyors of boats that have seen better days here are a couple :

 

http://www.boatwrecks.com/power.asp

 

There's another one on the Humber - forgotten their name.

 

Then …...

This is one of C&RTs 'Section 8' sellers based at York

 

https://www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk/view-trader/commercial-boat-services/1673