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.