How to buy a Secondhand Boat

How to buy a second hand narrowboat. Article with thanks to David Summers

There is a thriving market in second hand boats, which have a much longer life than second hand cars. A second hand boat may not always meet your exact requirements like a custom built one, but not everyone can afford new and one distinct advantage is that it will be instantly available.

You can buy a boat privately or through sales agents – known as brokers ( who sell on behalf of the owner on a commission basis which is typically 5-7% of the sale price). Private sales are often advertised in the monthly Canal magazines available in W H Smiths and increasingly on the internet. Brokers also advertise in the magazines and can be found up and down the country.

I myself spent many an hour over a 12 month period looking at a few web sites but without doubt the best of these is Appolloduck.com

Don’t be daunted by the fact that Appolloduck may have 2-3000 boats for sale. This web site allows you to insert “filters” say for price, length of boat, style of boat (trad, semi – trad or cruiser), private sale or brokerage or both. Using a combination of filters together, the 2-3000 can be reduced to a hundred or so to look at in detail. Using this site over a 12 month period gave me a good “feel” for the price of boats in the category and age I was interested in.

So how do you decide on what you want? A good place to start is to ask yourself what use will you make of the boat and how many will be on it the majority of the time. If you only intend using it for a few weekends and maybe two weeks in the summer you could probably make do with a smaller boat. If however, like me the intention was to be on the boat for 6 months or so of the year then the extra space of the larger boat would be welcome. My ideal size was 57feet long as this size boat can travel anywhere on the canal network. On some parts of the network, boats larger (they can go up to 70feet) than 57 feet cannot fit in the locks – so they don’t have the whole network to travel on.

The price you wish to pay is another important consideration, however if you have £40,000 available say then look at boats up to about £50,000 and negotiate hard to stay within your upper limit. It is somewhat easier to negotiate with private vendors especially if you have the cash. It is important to ensure however that the person selling the boat (and relieving you of £40,000 say) does actually own the boat. Be aware that there is no national register for inland boats – so be very, very careful to verify ownership. If you have any doubts then walk away. Remember if the deal seems too good to be true – then it probably is and could well be a stolen boat.

You will need to do some research into the style of boat (trad, semi trad or cruiser stern) that suits you and as there are various internal layout configurations, I personally made this high on my list of considerations. Top of my list was a “Pullman dinette” which enables 4 people to sit properly at a table for meals as well as dropping down to make a second double bed as and when needed. Another “ideal” was for a bath with shower over as my partner wasn’t keen on just a shower and most boats are only fitted with a shower. I think internal layout is an important consideration and ranks equally with the price band you can afford.

It should also be mentioned that in addition to buying the boat you should have money available to cover the Licence fee to British Waterways (around £700 a year), boat insurance and the cost of a mooring (typically around £2000 a year). Also rather like a car needs an MOT after a certain age, a boat needs a Boat Safety Certificate every 4 years – so ideally ensure it has a valid certificate when you buy, otherwise you may be involved in considerable expense getting your new purchase through the Safety Certificate.