Friday 13 March 2020

Does It Float?

Buying a second hand boat is fraught with problems.

• “Does the person selling it, own it?”
• “Has it been looked after?”
• “Will everything that seems to be working now, just breakdown as soon as you sail off into the sunset?”
• “You do know they say that BOAT stands for ‘Bring Out Another Thousand’, don’t you?”

So, how do we sleep at night?

We are purchasing Nb Silverdale from a broker – Whilton Marina. Our previous narrowboat: Nb MIRRLESS was purchased from there also, in 2018 (see Tales from the Bilge for some detail). We are return customers.

Reasons

The reason we chose a broker rather than a private sale is because we believe there is a level of assurance afforded by this. You will generally have to pay more in the beginning but it could pay for itself in the long run. A second reason is that you can see several boats in one place. This cuts down on multiple jaunts across the country.

The reason we chose Whilton Marina again was because of the staff. We wanted to go back and give them our business because they are great people. No boat will be perfect, no matter how much you pay. Things will go wrong but the experience Whilton provided was to enable us to pursue our goal of owning a narrowboat. They have a selection of narrowboats and a turnover that ensures

So, what was the reason we chose Nb Silverdale? We didn’t, it chose us. Just like a cat…

Mantra

I live by this boating mantra

Does It Float? Does It Leak?, Does it Go?

You got three ticks? Your’re good to go. Anything else is just background chatter…

rp – peace and narrowboats