Clubline boats

[juragirl]

Good afternoon! Newbies here looking to buy our first boat. Does anyone know anything about clubline boats built in the early 80s? Were they built as hire boats originally? Any info or help much appreciated thank you!

[cuthound]

Clubline was originally a hire company which built their own shells and later branched out into building boats for sale to the public. They were based on the Coventry Arm.

 

Towards the end they built very cheap WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) boats and then went bust around the late 80's/early 90's.

[Movin' on]

VERY difficult to generalise but there are probably better buys out there - there are lots of good topics on here from people asking the same stuff have a good dig around courtesy of our upgraded search facilitiy??

[John Brightley]

Clubline were started in the 1970's and were predominantly a hire company, so, yes, there is a good chance one of their boats will have originally been built for hire.

That in itself doesn't mean there will be anything wrong with it, but they were generally fairly basic simple boats.

Before the mid-80's they bought the shells from other companies - quite a few different ones, but I think mainly Colecraft.

[bizzard]

They fitted Ford XLD 1600 engines..

[Stewart Kirby]

I looked at one of their new boats as it seemed very cheap. It was. The steel spec was 6/5/3 and the fit out was very basic. Depends how it’s been cared for if it’s still OK today. Ultrasonic thickness testing would be my top priority to see how the steel has performed.

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, bizzard said:

They fitted Ford XLD 1600 engines..

That was going to be my comment plus that I do not like can timing belts for inland boat use. Too easy to rust the belt onto the pulley when stationary in damp conditions for several months.

[juragirl]

Thank you all. Have looked through previous threads etc and may go to see this one. If we were to like it how much should we budget to move from Cheshire to the Lancaster canal? I think £1,000 would cover it (obviously price paid would have to reflect this for it to stack up for us and that may not work out) am I in the right ball park please?

[zenataomm]

3 hours ago, cuthound said:

Clubline was originally a hire company which built their own shells and later branched out into building boats for sale to the public. They were based on the Coventry Arm.

 

Towards the end they built very cheap WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) boats and then went bust around the late 80's/early 90's.

Where is The Coventry Arm?

When I last spoke to the owner of Clubline, his version was that he retired, gave up the lease and sold off the fleet and then he bought himself one of the new flats built on the site of the old Seddons  yard facing Suttons Stop. I'm not sure how he would feel about being described as going bust.

[Richard10002]

1 minute ago, juragirl said:

Thank you all. Have looked through previous threads etc and may go to see this one. If we were to like it how much should we budget to move from Cheshire to the Lancaster canal? I think £1,000 would cover it (obviously price paid would have to reflect this for it to stack up for us and that may not work out) am I in the right ball park please?

Not sure why it would cost anything to move it. Do it yourself as part of the learning curve. By the time you get to the Ribble you’ll be experts

[juragirl]

Just now, Richard10002 said:

Not sure why it would cost anything to move it. Do it yourself as part of the learning curve. By the time you get to the Ribble you’ll be experts

would love to but with home commitments can't take the time! Would also need to do a boat handling course - always cruised lock free so far!

[cuthound]

Just now, zenataomm said:

Where is The Coventry Arm?

When I last spoke to the owner of Clubline, his version was that he retired, gave up the lease and sold off the fleet and then he bought himself one of the new flats built on the site of the old Seddons  yard facing Suttons Stop. I'm not sure how he would feel about being described as going bust.

 

The Coventry Arm is the colloquial name for the relatively little used 5 mile section of the Coventry Canal between the town basin and Tewkesbury Junction, but I suspect you already knew that ?

 

My recollection was that the company went into administration, like so many Boatbuilders over the years. I apologise if this was not the case with Swan Line.

[haggis]

25 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

The Coventry Arm is the colloquial name for the relatively little used 5 mile section of the Coventry Canal between the town basin and Tewkesbury Junction, but I suspect you already knew that ?

 

My recollection was that the company went into administration, like so many Boatbuilders over the years. I apologise if this was not the case with Swan Line.

I think your typing is playing up a bit tonight, Cuthound :-) . The Coventry arm is from Hawkesbury to Coventry basin , nowhere near Tewkesbury and the post was about Clubline not the Swan Line (who were at Fradley, I think).

 

haggis

Edited September 8, 2018 by haggis

[haggis]

31 minutes ago, juragirl said:

would love to but with home commitments can't take the time! Would also need to do a boat handling course - always cruised lock free so far!

If you contact Ray Bowern or one of the other folk who move boats on a lorry, he should be able to give you a rough idea of cost. I think the Ribble Link may be closed at the moment so it may not be possible to cruise the boat to the Lancaster

 

haggis

[cuthound]

32 minutes ago, haggis said:

I think your typing is playing up a bit tonight, Cuthound ? . The Coventry arm is from Hawkesbury to Coventry basin , nowhere near Tewkesbury and the post was about Clubline not the Swan Line (who were at Fradley, I think).

 

haggis

 Bluddy autowrong interfering again  ?

[zenataomm]

As I said in a previous thread just over a week ago, there is no Coventry Arm. Click Here

The colloquial name for the stretch from Suttons Stop to the basin is the five and a half.

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

3 hours ago, juragirl said:

would love to but with home commitments can't take the time! Would also need to do a boat handling course - always cruised lock free so far!

You can if you want to.  You can leave the boat tied up for up to 14 days on the towpath - so if you allow 1 day on the new boat every two weeks you can work it back home.

 

It's probably worth mentioning that Middlewich to Rufford is about 25 hours according to canalplan, so a long weekend or three one-day cruises spread out over six weeks gets you nearly to Preston by car.

 

Cranage either end is going to be at least £300 and trucking will be about the same, so it's either 3 days playing with your new toy or a grand - are you paid more than £300 per day after tax?

 

[Sea Dog]

11 hours ago, juragirl said:

would love to but with home commitments can't take the time! Would also need to do a boat handling course - always cruised lock free so far!

Two things strike me.  Firstly, you asked for advice here about these boats and what you received from those in the know was lukewarm at best and included a poor choice of engine, yet you're going to see it, and possiby buy it, at some distance away.  Secondly, having bought it, you don't have the time to cruise it home due to home commitments.  If that's the case, are you going to have the time to use it?  Perhaps you'd be better off improving your (admittedly limited) boat handling skills and your experience of narrowboats in general by hiring at the moment and move into boat ownership when you're better positioned to do so?  Just a thought - it may be better than buying the wrong boat in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by Sea Dog
Moved an errant bracket.

[juragirl]

3 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Two things strike me.  Firstly, you asked for advice here about these boats and what you received from those in the know was lukewarm at best and included a poor choice of engine, yet you're going to see it, and possiby buy it, at some distance away.  Secondly, having bought it, you don't have the time to cruise it home due to home commitments.  If that's the case, are you going to have the time to use it?  Perhaps you'd be better off improving your (admittedly limited) boat handling skills and your experience of narrowboats in general by hiring at the moment and move into boat ownership when you're better positioned to do so?  Just a thought - it may be better than buying the wrong boat in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

HI Sea Dog - sorry it probably did sound a bit weird and I understand what you say. We have limited narrow boat / canal experience - Lancaster canal, lock free hiring. A bit of sea and lake and quite a lot of non- lock stuff and have owned boats before, just not narrow ones! We haven't decided to go see it yet and certainly not to buy it! Just like the look from pics. Layout is good for us. We have good negotiating skills and any purchase would have to take account of all costs involved on our side and if it did not we would walk away. The response has, as you say, been lukewarm with some hotter parts but a survey would say it all of course. Engine is a Beta 38. As for the time - we have all weekends and school hols and are self employed so could go to do jobs during the week if necessary once the boat is on the Lancaster. So we would have plenty of time to use it! Totally agree about wrong boat wrong place wrong time - we have our clever heads on not our emotional ones on this. Have walked away from a Springer thanks to advice on here and from another bargain on the Lancaster because it was only 80% right for us. We have been around the block a bit and won't buy the wrong thing! However it is lovely to get opinions here and thank you to you and everyone else who has responded. 

Edited September 9, 2018 by juragirl
checked engine size in the ad - 38 not 35!

[Allan(nb Albert)]

On 08/09/2018 at 20:57, zenataomm said:

Where is The Coventry Arm?

When I last spoke to the owner of Clubline, his version was that he retired, gave up the lease and sold off the fleet and then he bought himself one of the new flats built on the site of the old Seddons  yard facing Suttons Stop. I'm not sure how he would feel about being described as going bust.

Reg Neale, started Clubline in the mid 70's and ran it for about 25 years before selling it as a going concern. He then ran the Navigation pub in Bedworth for a few years before starting an accountancy business in Coventry. My accountant, also Coventry based, knew him well. He told me he died earlier this year.

Not sure if zenataomm is referring to Reg or the person he sold to business to ...

[zenataomm]

Always sad to hear someone from your past has died, I moored at The Clubline moorings in the early 80s, and then again in 2008 when it was in the hands of the Nuneaton boatyard.

Not the best of mainline moorings, but nice enough people.

I don't recall if it was Reg I was chatting to but he was familiar with my memories, but then again I wasn't aware there had been more than one owner.