What will it cost to live afloat?

A look at the costs of living afloat, from the cheapest to the most expensive options, and how they compare with life on land.

Mooring all year round will just about double your 

liveaboard costs.

Compare and contrast

Ask most liveaboard boaters and they will tell you that it is certainly cheaper than living on land – but is it really?

The answer depends on many factors but it is true to say that it can be. Clearly costs will vary depending on whether you are a single person, a couple or a family but, for the sake of simplicity, let’s look at a couple over 60, living on board a 60ft narrowboat on the canal system who have paid £40,000 for their vessel.

The best estimate we have of such a pair living on shore comes from a recent survey from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which estimated that they would need £265.92 a week to live a reasonable lifestyle. That included £60.65 on food and drink; £9.93 on clothes and shoes; £103.64 on housing costs; £20.20 for household goods and services (everything from tea towels to furniture, microwaves to tin openers); £23.65 on personal goods and services such as medical items, £4.65 on transport and £43.21 on social and cultural activities including holidays and TV licences and subscriptions.

If the same couple were living on a boat many of those costs remain the same, so the area of contrast is with the housing cost of £103.64 a week – a fairly modest figure as it assumes rental of a two-bed council flat, along with council tax, fuel for heating and some decorating.

There are going to be repairs to be made and diesel to buy.

How will you afford it?

On a boat the main cost is the purchase of the vessel itself and, if you have to borrow the money on a boat mortgage that can be substantial. Borrowing a whole £40,000 on a 10 year personal loan would mean forking out £527.16 a month or £121.60 a week – but that assumes that you have a house to provide security and are willing to pay an eye-watering typical APR of 11.4 per cent.

A boat mortgage, using someone like Barclays or Collidge & Partners, is secured on the vessel. Most lenders will only finance a live aboard mortgage for boats in excess of £43,000 and this allows the lender to provide a £30,000 loan with a 30 per cent deposit for the remainder.

Since the bankers made a mess of everything lenders are now much more reluctant to hand over any cash unless you have a spotless credit history and even then they insist on high interest rates and lots of security.

Barclays need confirmation that you have permanent moorings for at least 12 months but will lend up to 80 per cent of the valuation or cost of the vessel.

Lenders will not risk lending on sea-faring vessels whose owners could disappear abroad

Mortgage terms can be from two to 15 years, with 10 years being typical. Interest rates are not disclosed up front by any of the firms offering boat mortgages as they tend to vary based on your personal credit history and the nervousness of the banker providing the cash.

Collidge & Partners say their minimum loan amount is £5,000 but they too insist on a maximum loan amount of 80 per cent of the cost of the vessel. The loan is secured against the boat in the form of Chattel Mortgage.

As the costs of buying vary so much it is difficult to make a comparison – but anyone contemplating the step will know what they currently pay in rent or mortgage and what buying a boat will cost them, so the comparison is simple enough for individuals.

If you have more disposable income there are plenty
of temptations, like The Swan at Fradley Junction

Other overheads

Unless you have a proper residential berth agreed with the local council and not moveable, you need not pay council tax – although it may be a battle in some marinas to argue that out with the local authority. If you win, or if you are continuously cruising, you are saving around £17 a week.

You have to be insured, of course and you can get basic insurance on a 60ft boat worth £40,000 for around £170 a year but many insurers will charge more for liveaboard boats. Basic third party cover for those who like a gamble with their investment costs from around £70. On the other hand, proper residential boat cover, with a decent amount of contents cover can cost you around £350 with a broker like Towergate Mardon.

Then you need a licence. If you just plan to use the British Waterways canal system a basic licence for a 60 ft boat will set you back £821.59, although this will rise to £863.49 after a 5.1 per cent increase after April. Pay it all at once and those figures are £739.43 rising to £777.14 after April.

If you want a Gold Licence which enables you to use BW and Environment Agency waterways the 2011 price is £1,027 if you pay it all at once or £1,104 for direct debit payments. All these figures are for a 60ft narrowboat.

Then there are your other running costs. Diesel is what will generate your electricity and how much you use depends on how far you travel, the time of the year and what demands you have for electronic bits and pieces such as TV, washing machines and vacuum cleaners.

A good bank of solar panels will save you a lot but as a general gauge a boat moving around the system with a fairly small engine and making the most of the concession of only paying the basic price for diesel not used for propulsion will probably spent about £600-800 a year.

Whether your boat is new or old there will always be running costs, engineers, spare parts etc and an £80 subscription to an organisation like River Canal Rescue will ease those costs as call-out charges are often high. I would allow that plus another £200 or so for spares etc and £150 for an annual engine service.

Finally there are the other ongoing costs. You need to have the boat’s bottom blacked every couple of years – somewhere around £600-700. You will need a Boat Safety Certificate every four years at a cost or around £130-150 and every ten years you may well need a complete repaint at between £3,000 and £8,000, depending on your requirements (and wallet).

Taking average figures and excluding both the painting and the cost of any finance to buy the boat I reckon that works out at around £50 a week – or about half what housing costs that couple living in a council flat.

How much fuel you use depends on the weather
conditions and the time of year

Not moving costs money too

Of course, if you moor in a marina all year that changes the picture with fees for a residential boat ranging from around £2,500 in the midlands and north to two or three times that in London. That puts at least another £48 a week on the cost and puts you back on a par with the couple in the council flat. The same is broadly true of a British Waterways residential mooring as they are now so rare that they fetch silly prices in the online auctions.

Heating costs are a bit cheaper – averaging £10 a week for the couple in the flat and, if you use a coal fire for, say, five months of the year burning two bags of coal a week at £8.50 a bag it works out at around £6.50 a week over the year. Gas costs will depend on your boat’s set up but reckon on around £5-10 a week.

All of which means you have a lot more disposable income to add to the £43 a week spent on ‘social and cultural’ items. On the canal that may possibly take the form of some of the delightful waterside watering holes.

Bottom of Form

MoreMore seriously, before you spend anything make sure that it is a way of life that suits you. Do your research, talk to friends who liveaboard, discuss the lifestyle well before committing your life savings

A floating home can be as fixed as a house – but it’s easier to move home

A look at where to moor -how to obtain a permanent mooring for your boat; where you should go to find out about moorings and how the costs can vary.

Space is not a premium these days

Supply and demand

Even just a year ago I would have advised any would-be liveaboard who wanted to stay in one area to find a mooring willing to accept them before even buying a boat. These days the position has changed somewhat, thanks to a combination of British Waterways’ successful efforts to encourage the building of more and bigger marinas, the continuing recession and uncertainty about the future of the waterways.

Until about the middle of last year those who set out to farm boats on various pieces of canalside land found their marinas filling swiftly and customers willing to pay substantial sums for leaving their boats for months at a time.

The result was that they were likely to turn their noses up at liveaboard boaters – and even if the marina owner actually wanted a proportion of residential boaters the planners were likely to turn down the idea.

Since then many more large marinas have opened whilst boat owners have begun feeling the pinch and become more likely to settle for a cheaper, bank side mooring from BW or a landowner. For leisure boaters the saving can be considerable, a thousand pounds a year or more. The result is lots of empty marina berths and plenty of opportunity to haggle.

All of which has made life a little easier for the liveaboard who wants a permanent or near permanent base and even marinas who would absolutely deny having ‘residential’ moorings somehow find space for a number of liveaboards by offering them ‘long-term’ moorings.

Signs of life aboard

How do you define a residential boat?

It is all a matter of definition, you see. Residential moorings are those with planning permission from the local authority and recognised as official locations for ‘dwellings’. British Waterways has a tiny handful of bank side residential in most of its regions, often with an electricity supply, and they are in still in such short supply that they invariably fetch well above the going rate in the notorious mooring auctions, going to those willing to pay the most ludicrous price rather than those in most need.

There are other recognised ‘residential’ berths within some marinas and often liveaboard boaters find themselves presented with a council tax bill if they are on an official ‘residential’ mooring.

If you end up in this situation take some advice from the Residential Boat Owners Association – it has fought several such cases and the current state of play, legally, seems to be that if the terms of your mooring specify that the owner of the site can move you around at will yours is not a fixed abode and therefore not liable for council tax.

Just how you define a liveaboard mooring if there is no planning permission depends on who is doing the defining.

Some marinas, British Waterways’ wholly owned marina company for one, will sell what are usually labelled Class A or Class One moorings, even premium berths, which give the boat owner the right to stay on their boat all year, or perhaps 11 months of the year. Sometimes they will include accepting your post in the price - and what a price, such berths often cost 50 per cent more than the standard berths even though they don’t have planning permission as official ‘residential’ berths.

Other marina owners take a more relaxed view in order to keep their berths occupied.

They know the value of having liveaboards on site, especially in winter when other trade falls off and will say – although not publicly – that most boat owners take their boats out cruising a few weeks of the year so they are clearly not living at the marina and if they chose to spend the rest of their time on their boat, rather than at whatever address they have for them, that is nothing to do with the marina.

Often they won’t accept boaters’ post, arguing that is proof that their customers don’t live there and have another address.

Of course they also actively encourage ‘winter moorers’ from amongst the cruising liveaboard community, who buy fuel, coal and gas as well as pay fees.

One other source of moorings is a boat club but most club moorings, won't allow liveaboards to moor - although there are exceptions. 

When is a towpath mooring a residential mooring?

Playing by the rules?

BW is equally ambivalent. In some areas such as the Grand Union south of Milton Keynes it has residential houseboat moorings, residential moorings and long-term moorings.

Even a casual passer-by can see that most of the ‘long-term’ moorings are occupied by those who live on their boats. The difference between the categories would seem to be that, if anyone complained, BW would have more chance of bringing pressure to bear on those on ‘long-term’ mooring sites. Mooring terms often say the site is not to be used by those whose boat is their main residence but such clauses are rarely enforced even where BW officials are much more hard line. On the Peak Forest canal they made a concerted attempt to force liveaboard moorers off long-term moorings, using new local terms and conditions to make life difficult, with petty rules about TV aerials.

In any event, that is not the biggest problem, especially as BW’s business gets a very healthy income from all London region mooring fees as auctions push prices up and up.

Partly as a result of rising prices in London and other major cities, with marina and residential moorings fetching anything up to £6,000 a year, there are hundreds of liveaboard moorers who opt to pay nothing at all, simply moving from one small section of canal to the next when sufficiently harassed by BW’s enforcement teams – and moving back again when the same problem crops up at the second mooring site.

It also has to be said that there are some leisure boat owners who leave their boats at visitor moorings and visit them every 14 days to move them to the next mooring rather than pay for a mooring.

Peace of mind comes with cash

In the end, for the liveaboard who needs a permanent base because of work or family commitments, it comes down to two questions – how deep are your pockets and how much stress are you willing to tolerate?

If you have the money, then life is fairly simple. You find a marina that suits your needs, or a bank side mooring for which you are willing to pay whatever it takes, and you simply pay up.

If you have the cash you can find either an official or unofficial ‘residential’ mooring where your ability to pay will shield you from any hassle and you can carry on your life afloat much as you would if you were based on land.

If you don’t have the same level resources, and a lot of liveaboards are on fixed incomes, you can opt for a somewhat more precarious location by becoming a hidden liveaboard in a tolerant marina or buying the right to a bit of bank in BW’s auctions without declaring you will live there.

You are not quite so safe as your wealthier cousin, but no boater really has security of tenure on a mooring and BW is still pursuing its campaign of herding as many boats as possible into marinas so that those in a hurry don’t have to slow down past on-line moorings.

If you are willing to live a life of stress you can take your chances as a continuous moorer, shifting just far enough to pacify BW’s enforcement officers and staying as long as their lack of staff and powers will allow. It may not be comfortable but it may also be the only option for those without the financial resources to pay-up – and it is my belief that we will see a lot more of it as the Government slashes housing benefit and more people are forced to look for the cheapest accommodation available.

Always another lock – the joys of keeping on the move

Always another lock

Why you might be attracted to the water by the nomadic lifestyle, cruising from place to place. What are the benefits and pitfalls?

Freedom

There are some people, lots of them, who live on a boat and never want to move. Others may be unable to stray far from wherever they have a job or a family – but for many liveaboards being able to go ‘on tour’ for at least a substantial part of the year is a vital part of charm of the lifestyle.

As you cast off you are about to become a water gypsy, someone with a nomadic lifestyle as the dictionary puts it.

Personally I revel in the idea of being different and outside the normal tedious regulations of land-based life.

Despite the frustrations and the annoyances, from supercilious boaters to suspicious BW officials, the life of a continuous cruiser is largely free from stress.

Most of the time is spent exploring new, or old, places; enjoying nature in an up-close and personal way or meeting wonderful people in unexpected places and circumstances.

Some personal highlights of this year alone have been getting together with old friends at boating festivals on the Grand Union and making some wonderful new friends as we travelled together.

Fishing Kingfisher

I have sat on my cruiser stern watching a Kingfisher plucking small fry from the Shropshire Union above Adderley locks and gazed with admiration at the high shapes of soaring pairs of buzzards as I puttered along the North Oxford.

I have been soaked to the skin through several, supposedly waterproof, layers of clothing and burned to a sort of semi-permanent ruddiness by baking sun and brisk winds.

Much of my itinerant life is outdoors and that satisfies the country lad inside me. It is seven years now that I have lived afloat, but I am still learning the best way to get the most from a fabulous lifestyle. Over those years I have been slowly learning not to be stressed, even by the inconsiderate, the bigoted and the arrogant of both water and land.

 Water Gypsies?

For us the term water gypsy is a romantic way of describing our lifestyle but gipsies are different and there are some who choose to use it as a term of abuse.

I have to say that both British Waterways and some leisure boaters are, at best, ambivalent about those of us who live afloat - and especially those of us that use the canal system all year round.

Every now and again BW floats the idea of charging continuous cruisers a premium on the basis that they use the system more – only to be ridiculed by those who point out that the system should be accessible to everyone year round and that the slow and relaxed travelling pace of the liveaboard is far less damaging to canal banks and locks than the private leisure boats, share boats and hire boats determined to rush around a ring or a route to a fixed schedule.

I make the point simply because the experience of most liveaboards is that they are envied by the majority of other boaters but regarded as second-class citizens by a few.

Why?

Earlier this year Rex Walden, Chair of the excellent Residential Boat Owners Association (RBOA) – which I would urge every liveaboard to join – said: “We need to steer away from the view that (the waterways are) a playground for well heeled retired folk, or a paradise for dropouts.”

In doing so he touched on that ambivalence about liveaboards. Anyone who travels our system will have come across both the well-heeled in new boats who have decided to spend summers living afloat whilst retreating in winter to their villa in some country with more sunshine.

Equally there are a substantial number of people, sometimes families with young children, living on older boats whilst they attempt to improve or upgrade them.

Most of us fall somewhere between the two but we get the best out of our travels by being tolerant and accepting all the varied lifestyles of those who live on our waterways. As a result I have met some fascinating people with tales to tell that go far beyond their appearance – or that of their vessel!

Some wonderful country moorings

Tying up

We will deal with permanent moorings next month but those who decide to cruise the system still have to deal with the issue of moorings in various ways.

There is the question of how long you want to stay in one place before moving on. For most of us that will vary – you may want two or three weeks in London to see all the sights, but only a couple of hours outside a convenient canalside supermarket.

Whatever your needs, you are likely to have to deal with the issue of enforcement of the moorings rules at particular sites.

Despite BW’s national remit the reality on the bank is that there are no hard and fast rules and methods that apply across the country.

Increasingly in the southern part of the country you are likely to come across the ‘mooring warden’ – boater who has been given official permission to set up a permanent mooring and is paid by BW to ensure that everyone else sticks to the rules.

But what rules? In London and the South East it is common to see mooring signs that say you can only moor for 14 days in any one year. Yet the practise is very different. Talk to the mooring wardens in London and even the BW enforcement officers and they will tell you that boats are allowed to stay the full official time but can return after a month or two to the same spot.

There are also much more tolerant rules on how far a continuous cruiser must move and in London it suffices to shift along to the next mooring spot. The result is that some boaters can live on the water in the capital by moving between three or four moorings within a short stretch.

North of Braunston I have not come across mooring wardens, but BW officials are much keener to enforce the rules, insisting continuous cruisers move substantial distances and don’t come back for much longer periods of time.

At least that seems to apply to most boats. Almost everywhere you will come across boats that seem immune to the rules, whatever they are. At any popular mooring spot on the system it is probable that the local moorers will tell you of boats that are on ‘visitor’ moorings but have been allowed to stay there for months or even years without action.

BW is currently intent on setting up localised mooring regulations in consultation with local people. I suspect the result will be more very short-term moorings designed for the hire-boater and holidaymaker, pushing continuous cruisers out to the periphery.

The irony is that BW is currently on difficult legal ground in enforcing any time limit shorter than the universal 14 day restriction and it doesn’t have the staff to police those mooring limits it advertises.

Then comes the winter and the question of whether you should tie up in one place or keep moving. The great boom in marina building has meant lots of spaces and most marinas are keen to take your money for a winter mooring. You may well pay £200 plus a month for a 60ft boat but it is well worth haggling as there are lots of empty berths.

But months spent gazing at other boats within a foot or two of your windows or portholes is too much for many of the free spirits who live afloat – even if it comes with an electrical hook-up.

They would prefer to be on the bank, but even there BW is keen to make some extra money and keep those pesky boats from moving about.

I have never understood how BW can justify charging nearly £200 a month in some locations for the privilege of mooring on visitor moorings, sometimes without even a water supply or facility block within miles.

Many liveaboard boaters get quite upset with those who agree to pay up for the sake of being able to stop in one place. That makes it difficult for the rest, they argue, and enables BW to, in effect, penalise continuous cruisers for not moving at a time when getting around the system is next to impossible because of winter stoppages.

Whatever the rights and wrongs it certainly seems greedy to charge nearly the same as a marina berth and offer nothing in return.

Homeless?

Home is where you tie up

Living afloat without a permanent mooring is not difficult until you come into contact with officialdom.

Dealing with the NHS is an issue for many and some simply hang on to the GP they last had when living ashore, even if it means travelling hundreds of miles. Even if you have a GP on shore it can be difficult getting prescriptions from them.

It is always possible to go to the nearest GP with a copy of your repeat prescription, sign in as a temporary patient and ask them to issue a new one. The same applies if you are sick or injured.

If you are on the move and don’t have a shore base it is probably sensible to register with a GP in a town where you have easy access from the canal system and in an area where you are most likely to be over winter.

Most flexible NHS practises will allow you to register using a post restante address of a Post Office in their area – although it is best to explain that you live on a boat and ask if they could phone you with anything urgent. If you are really lucky you will get one like ours who will allow you to send them a stamped and addressed envelope with a repeat prescription. That way it can be returned to the nearest Post Office wherever you may be.

If you want a bus pass life gets more complicated – you need an address you see. One way is to go into the local council and ask. I found one that was particularly helpful. They explained that I needed to be on the electoral register to get a bus pass.

I was then sent to meet two embarrassed ladies in the electoral register office who explained that although they knew we lived on a boat the only way they could put us on the register was if we declared ourselves officially homeless and stated that we had ‘link’ with the local area. 

I think they expected us to be offended but we are accustomed to such nonsense and signed the official form, giving the local Post Office as our post restante address.

Once on the register I could apply and the pass was in my hands a couple of weeks later. There are usually ways around the system and my advice is to be open and honest with officials, try to see them in person and be ready for the idiotic rules that are only geared up to deal with land-dwellers.

Living afloat - it is the lifestyle for you?

THERE are now an estimated 31,000 boats on our canals - more than at the height of the industrial revolution and one in six of them may be using their boat as their home.
If we average out the estimates of liveaboards, add a pinch of salt and divide by two or three for the number of boats - then at least five thousand of those 30,000 plus boats are homes for people who have abandoned dry land for a better quality of life on board a boat - and many more are considering it.
Our six years of living on board has shown us that boats have become a refuge for divorced people with too little cash to buy another house; older people wanting to be rid of their mortgage and youngsters looking for cheap accommodation – as well as canal fanatics who wouldn’t live anywhere else.

Different boats for different folks

Many of them come to a life afloat with no experience of the waterways at all – a trend likely to increase in these hard economic times.
And it is not just existing boaters who dream the dream – we are regularly buttonholed on the towpath by people walking by asking about the possibilities.
Living on a canal boat can seem to be a very pleasant existence as you pass brightly painted cosy craft tied up in alongside sunny country fields or in handy, friendly, city centre marinas.
So who wants to live on a canal boat?
 Retired people wanting to see the country, who sell the house, buy a boat and invest the rest.
 People opting out of the rat race, especially if they can work from home.
 Anyone wanting budget accommodation in an expensive area.
 People who just like canals.
 Overseas visitors wanting an economical extended tour of the real UK.
 Anyone wanting or needing to be mobile.
Last August British Waterways and the Residential Boat Owners' Association launched a survey to determine what boaters would like from their residential moorings – the answer being many more of them.
Every hire-boater and leisure boater will have wondered whether or not they could live on board a boat at some stage, quite apart from those who come to it as cheap housing.

Life in a marina

My aim  is to help them come to that decision with their eyes open and some knowledge of issues and pitfalls that lie ahead.
To begin with, that means asking the most basic question of all – is it for you?
Most of us are not accustomed to the restrictions of life on the water so we need to look at the downside - from confined spaces and limited storage space to the simple fact that it moves around as you walk about inside – as well as the dream of floating along on sunny days through the best of British countryside.
The reality is that, in a metal box probably 60ft long by seven wide and seven high, there is never going to be space for the grand piano or granny’s oil painting and if you thought downsizing from a house to a flat was traumatic doing the same for a boat may well bring on palpitations amongst the acquisitive.
There are, of course, halfway houses. You could opt for a wide-beam vessel and if you are simply looking for a home and not planning to travel much that would double the space to something like a compact apartment.
You would have to decide whether you are a Northerner or Southerner at heart, of course as there is no wide canal link between the waterways of Lancashire and Yorkshire and the broad waterways of the southern counties – at least none that doesn’t involve a sea passage.
Equally you could live on an even larger vessel if you are happy to moor on a suitable river – but then we move away having access to the real inland waterways.
The price you pay for space is higher mooring fees, double in some marinas if you live on a wide beam vessel, and often higher still in marinas with sea access where the well-heeled moor their ocean-going yachts.
But if you want to live on board a boat that enables you to travel all Britain’s connected waterways it means a vessel that measures at most 62ft long with a beam of 6ft 10ins.
Inside that elongated cube you have to fit all your possessions, the essential facilities for cooking, washing and sleeping as well as yourselves and your possessions.
On a more basic level you have to be prepared to bring on board all your water and to generate your own electricity. You also have to be prepared to dispose of all your waste – and that includes the contents of the loo.
This is a lifestyle that brings you hard up against the realities of live without the hidden comforts provided by the piped water, gas, electricity, sewage and other facilities most modern householders take for granted. You really are totally aware of what you consume and where your waste goes.
Some people can do it some can’t take the confinement in the longer term. If you are lucky enough to be living on board as a couple or even a family the available space has to be divided up still further – and you have to be really comfortable about spending a lot of time in a small space with the people you love.
It helps tremendously if both parts of a partnership are genuinely of the same mind about living on board – anyone whose partner is merely trying to please by agreeing to a water-borne life is kidding themselves that it will be all right in the end. It is more likely to result in a split or a move back ashore – and sooner rather than later.
When you are deciding whether this is the life for you bear in mind that the places where you can live as a residential boater are also limited.

Some marinas are more interesting than others

The marinas that will take static residential boats on a long term basis are often those on the edge of industrialised urban areas, such as the outskirts of Manchester, Leicester or Leeds.
As soon as marinas are able to label a city centre mooring as residential the price often goes through the roof with British Waterways seeking nearly twice the normal rate for such moorings in the centre of Leeds, and London prices topping £5,000 a year.
The other option is to travel, at least for the months the system is fully open, perhaps finding a winter mooring for the coldest months – but there are a limited number of people who can manage their work or personal life to fit such a lifestyle.
Of course if economic reasons, rather than a love of boats and the waterways, are behind your reasons for living on board, then you will have to either pay the price of a residential marina berth – if you can find one – or opt to play hide and seek with British Waterways’ enforcers who will be trying to see you don’t over-stay in any one spot.
I know people who appear to be immune to the rules and those who abide by them religiously, but trying to run a normal working life, including owning a car, is massively complicated if you don’t have a long-term mooring.
In my experience it is only those with a history of boat ownership or hiring who take all these things into account before they take the plunge of moving on board a boat, so I would strongly advise anyone to spend at least a week or two working a boat before taking the plunge.
Living on a British Waterways Marinas’ establishment in Lancashire a few years ago I saw several newly-divorced men arriving, often to buy new boats as cheap homes with their share of the equity.
Some found a new interest and took their floating life to heart, taking courses on steering their new vessel, exploring the local canals, and planning longer trips when they had the time.
Others never moved their boats and even let the paintwork rust a flake away while they used the boat just as a place to eat and sleep when not at work. To me they seemed to have sad, limited lives because they simply saw their boat as a cheap place to live.
And sometimes the sheer ignorance of the new live-aboard is breath-taking. One lady, who had recently moved on to her boat saw one of the marinas’ regulars filling up with water.
“Why are you doing that?” she asked and he explained that he filled his water tank every few days.
“I’m lucky,” she told him. “I have water taps on all my sinks and I just use them.”
Finally you shouldn’t let sentiment and any kind of romantic notion about what living on a boat would be like influence your decision when choosing the right boat to buy and we will be dealing with that question next time.

What type of boat suits you?

Now we look at what type of boat to buy. Do you want a fixed houseboat or a proper boat; do you want a river boat or canal boat and should it be widebeam or narrow; what are the questions to ask and how should you deal with boat-builders and brokers


Best boat in the world?


If you are going to be a happy liveaboard you need the best boat for your particular needs at the price you can afford – and that won’t necessarily mean the latest style with all the newest high-tech twiddly bits.
The choices are as varied as the types of people who want to make a boat their home – and thankfully the price range is wide enough to fit most budgets.
So where do you start? The first question is not what sort of boat but what type of boater? Are you someone who just wants to live afloat in one place and never float off into the sunset, or perhaps you have to have a base during the working week but still want to travel whenever you can?
Either way you will need a permanent mooring where liveaboards are accepted – and it is probably more important to find the place you are going to stay before identifying the boat you need.
Are you confident that you can deal with the perpetually changing landscape – and winter weather conditions – faced by the true continuous cruiser or will you want permanent moorings to which you can return and perhaps hook up a landline?
Finding winter moorings is not too difficult these days, with marinas springing up all over the place but if you really want to be out all the time you should give serious consideration to getting a boat with a diesel generator or at least an efficient system of providing the power you need for long winter nights.

Boat in the dry dock

Are you the sort of boater who lives alone, with a partner or has frequent visitations from family?
It all has a bearing on the size of boat you need to buy. I know single people who quite happily manage on a 30-40ft boat and even couples who find 45-50ft is enough for their needs. We have always had grandchildren on regular visits so 58ft and places to sleep up to seven people has never seemed an extravagance.
Bear in mind that this will be your home, perhaps for years to come, so you need to feel that you can fit all you need from your current life – clothes, music, technology, kitchen equipment, books (my real downfall), and all the other ‘essentials’.
Which leads to the question of whether you can really live in a metal box roughly six ft by six ft by, say, 60 ft long or do you have to have more space?
If you really can’t manage the standard narrowboat you have the option of a wide beam boat or even a Dutch barge which could still cruise the wide canals and rivers – although you would have to choose the northern or southern wide canals and either put it on a lorry to travel between the two parts of the system or risk a sea crossing of The Wash. There is no wide canal link between the North and South and, of course you will never be able to sample the joys of the Shropshire Union, Trent and Mersey or most of the BCN.
OK, you now know what sort of boat – but should it be new or second hand?
Once again the answer depends on what sort of person you are and how much cash you can produce, or borrow.
Vessels are VAT exempt under the current H M Revenue & Customs rulings providing the vessels are for residential use and they are your main home – although this has been the subject of some controversy in the past with the government department apparently unsure whether a floating home should be treated on an equal; footing with a land-based one.

Crick Boat Show

The sky is the limit if you have the money – a new purpose-built Dutch Barge style, more than 60ft long by 13ft 6ins wide, with a 180hp engine, 6kVA generator, offering four or six berths in en-suite cabins, full central heating, with a washer/drier, all the navigation equipment you need for sea and river use will set you back somewhere around £230,000 and the price goes upwards as you improve the specification.
On the plus side you can cruise the rivers and canals of the UK and much of Europe with such a beast.
For about half that you can get one of the better builders to fit out a 60ft narrowboat with all you need to liveaboard and a very similar spec to the Dutch barge – minus the pair of en-suite double bedrooms.
Drop another £40,000 again and you can get a standard fit-out 50ft boat on a new shell – although you may need to add some of the things you need to live on board full time.
All these prices are very approximate and depend to a large extent on whether you are buying new off the shelf, or getting a truly bespoke design, from the shell upwards. Size is obviously the main determining factor with narrowboats costing from around £1,100 per ft at the cheaper end, although generally you get what you pay for.
If you decide to buy new choose your builder with great care – several builders go bust each year and many leave customers with real problems.
Look at their history, find out what they have built before, whether they use the best quality shells, whether they have experience in producing the type of boat you want and – above all – talk to the owners of boats they have recently produced and get them to tell you about their problems.
Once you pick the builder use the standard British Marine Federation staged payment contract and agree the final design, in writing, preferably at a face-to-face meeting, including all the specifications for the steel, the equipment to be fitted and the materials used. Agree a fixed price and a realistic delivery date and – if possible, build in penalty clauses for delays as you may find you have sold your house and have nowhere to go.
Don’t make any agreement that asks for large deposits, advance payments or cash in hand and make sure the ownership of the shell and everything in it is properly transferred to you, preferably as it is paid for.
Above all make sure you visit your boat regularly as it is being built – and not always by appointment, to check out that you are getting what you asked for even where it doesn’t show.

Be ready for the worst of the UK weather

Finally, although new boats are covered by the European Recreational Craft Directive this is a self-assessment scheme operated by the boat builder, so think about getting a Boat Safety Certificate survey done before accepting delivery.
I would only add that my experience suggests that, unless you have owned several boats before and even lived on board, it is almost inevitable that, soon after you start cruising your new boat, you will want to change something about the design or equipment, as experience always proves a better guide to real needs.
The halfway house, of course, is to buy a new shell, perhaps as a sailaway with engine and basics fitted, and fit it out for yourself. I have little or no expertise in that area but would only observe that most such ‘projects’ seem to take years rather than months.
Most of us will buy second-hand and the choices are just as wide and varied and prices are not as substantially different as, say, the car market where new vehicles depreciate by 20 per cent or more as soon as they are paid for.
The same guidelines apply in choosing what sort of boat you are looking for, with the difference that, as you start searching you may come across a vessel that not only meets your needs but exceeds them as it has been designed and fitted out by someone who understands the canals better than you do at this stage of your experience.
You will decide whether you prefer portholes or windows (warmth versus light); cruiser sterns where you can sit out, or traditional boats that make the most of the length available; hatches and, if so, how many; the main living area at the bow or stern or a dust-producing but always warm, multi-fuel fire or cleaner, diesel central heating (gas tends to be more expensive for a liveaboard).
Certain things will always be desirable and are sometimes hard to find especially on newer boats where the emphasis has been on giving the impression of light and space. The first is storage – every nook and cranny on a liveaboard boat will become home for some essential. Always ask where you are going to hang your clothes, store your underwear and keep your saucepans.
The second is ventilation – can you get a good flow of air through the boat. This is important in both winter and summer. In winter you balance the heat against the external temperature and bad ventilation results in condensation and damp. In the summer you need to avoid being slowly roasted in your metal tube.
Once again there are some basic guidelines when you are buying second-hand. These days prices are always negotiable and some brokers, like estate agents, gather business by offering the seller high prices and then bowing to the need to accept a lower offer.
If you are going to live aboard you are buying a home as well as a boat and you wouldn’t buy bricks and mortar without a survey.
Make sure you get it done out of the water by a surveyor without links to the broker or seller.
You need to know that the hull beneath your feet is sound and likely to remain so. Ex-hire boats are often a good-value buy for would-be liveaboards; although some hire companies now dispose of boats after only a short life, which leads me to wonder whether their boats are still built to the same high standards as in the past.
If you are buying an ex-hire boat, or any vessel that has been in use for many years I would advise specifically asking the surveyor to check the outside edges of the bottom plate and the bottom six inches of the side plates for wear and to guarantee the thicknesses in those areas.
Hire boats especially tend to wear down the base plate along the outside nine inches of the base plate and mostly on the starboard side as that is where the plate grinds against the bottom when passing another boat.
I would also advise insisting on a new Boat Safety Certificate at the time of purchase along with a personal check that all the on-board equipment is working properly. My current boat had a faulty cooker, was failed by the BSS, and I had to have a shouting match with the broker to get it replaced.
Above all when you finally move aboard it is really important that you feel you have the best boat in the world for you – it may be old, it may be new, but it will be your home.