Advice on buying

[Ben Wood]

Hi,

My Girlfriend and I are interested in getting a narrow boat. At first we thought about a live-aboard, but given current job commitments and the fact that jumping straight in without any experience might backfire on us we have decided to postpone that idea for a couple of years probably.

Plan B: buy a small boat with minimal outlay. This we would like to use for ourselves to get experience and would also be looking to rent out for holidays for several weeks/year to help cover the costs. At some point we would then use this boat probably as a part-exchange on a larger boat to live on.

There is so much to consider and it's hard to know where to get started. Ideally we would be looking to buy early spring 2005 and we are looking to spend less than ?20k on something like 34', 2 berth with cruiser stern. Anyone got pointers on what to look out for when buying? Are boats around the ?10-15k mark worth it, or will the maintenance outweigh the initial saving?

Also, what are the options for renting out. Are there agencies who will help, or can it be done privately?

The other question is what are the pros and cons of eventually living aboard a narrow boat?

cheers,
 Ben

[Mike]

I live aboard along with my wife and daughter and we all love it.

We own a 45' cruiser stern made by Springer.
When we bought ours some 2 years ago, we shopped around and ended buying it from Nottingham and bringing it down on the canals.

You should quite easily be able to pick a boat up for under ?20k, that was our budget and our boat cost us ?12500 although it did really need an internal refit.

What I do find with Springers is they are so much roomier inside, or should I say, they seem to be.

We took the live aboard plunge with no experience and found our first year to be a real steep learning curve. However, most people on the river / canal are so friendly and help you along the way so you soon pick up things.

We live in Reading and I work in Watford so I too suffer from the constraints of work, the main problem being where to leave the car!! As with everything though, there are ways and means to deal with it.

If you would like any specific info, please just shout and I'll do my best to help where I can.

Take a look at Virginia Currer's website, she always has plenty for sale.

Speak to you soon
Mike

[Ben Wood]

Thanks Mike. We have two cars, both of which we need at the moment, so that makes it awkward. In a couple of years we would like to be in a position where we don't need them both and we can maybe both work part-time, so that makes it more realistic. Also we have only been in our current house for a year and we do like it so are happy to stay there for a while longer.

The house is rented which makes it easy for us to move out when we want. One of the reasons we are ultimately considering a boat is because we simply can't afford to buy a house - at least not one that we want - but are happy renting for a little while longer. However, now we've got the bug we want to try and get a boat as soon as we can even though we're not ready to live aboard.

Do you have any suggestions about what to look for when viewing boats? One of the problems is I am not a technical person and I certainly don't know where to start looking for potential problems on a boat!

[Mike]

You can always find somewhere to leave cars, we use a Tesco car park at the moment.
We had some bad luck a few years ago and ended up living with the inlaws. We too could not afford the type of house we were used to (nothing special, but a 3 bed semi in a quiet area). My wife suggested living on a boat and I laughed, " you can't live on a boat!!" Sure enough though, you can and people do, so we did. I always tell people it blind sided me, I had no intention of living on a boat but I cannot believe how much I enjoy it.

When we bought our boat, I had no real experience, apart from working on my cars up until then. I have however since then taken part in the two college courses that Reading College run, Electrics for Boaters and Marine Diesel Maintenance.

This may sound a little odd, but things to look for, or at least I will be on my next boat are:
Water capacity - We only have 50 gallons and need to fill up twice a week.
Some kind of fixed bed - After 2 years of packing our bed up and setting it up, we have had enough.
A Bath - Showers are fine but I miss being able to have a bath.
Engine - We have a BMC 1.5 which seems OK and closely resembles (well, they used to be) a car engine.
Construction - I would not entertain a narrowboat that was not all steel, apparently it is difficult to seal the superstructure to the hull if only one is steel.
Heating - We have a drip fed diesel heater and I think it is great, it would be perfect if it had a back boiler and fed radiators and supplied hot water.

Hope this all helps.

Let me know if you want any further info and I will do all I can to help.

Thanks
Mike