Overview This website describes our transition
from our ‘old life’ on land to our ‘new life’ afloat
in our narrowboat ‘BELLE’ and our adventures and experiences
thereafter within the The Idea – August 2004 Picture this: We have just set up a new business and our
joint income is marginally above our outgoings and likely to be that way for
quite some time to come. What
could we do to significantly reduce our outgoings whilst still maintaining a
reasonably comfortable standard of living? “Simple says I [having seen two or
three episodes of Waterworld on the TV], let’s downsize and live aboard
a narrowboat for a while” “Have you completely lost your
f*****g mind?”, was the response. “We could sell the house, redeem
the mortgage, clear any other debts and use the rest to buy the boat and
still have some money left over for a rainy day”, not actually knowing
how much a decent narrowboat will cost us, but they can’t cost that
much can they? Hmmm – some research required me
thinks. Research completed – January 2005 So, about six months have passed. We have bought most of the glossy
magazines, been to a couple of boat shows, watched even more of
‘Waterworld’ on the TV, spoken with countless narrowboat owners
and viewed their boats, been on a really enjoyable weekend cruise on a 50
footer [putting aside the events that nearly sank us in the River Trent] and
we have visited half a dozen boat builders. We have consolidated most of our ideas
into a provisional layout drawing and provisional specification – this
helps us to get our ideas over to boat builders and to get some budget costs
from them. No mean feat
considering all of the ‘heated discussions’ we have had between
us about which would be the best end to locate the bedroom, should we have a
straight galley or a cross-over galley, a cruiser stern, a semi-traditional
stern or traditional stern, cassette toilet, dump-through (don’t you
just love that term) toilet, macerator toilet, and so on. As if this was not enough, we even
tinkered with harder, ‘trench warfare inducing’ topics like; So what colour shall we have the boat then? It would be fair to say that we have
taken boats to pieces and we have put them back together again in our sleep! Now for the really strange part. Our outlook has changed significantly
- we are now moreover motivated by our desire to live what promises to be a
much better lifestyle afloat and we are much less motivated by our desire to
reduce our financial outgoings.
This is just as well really, because we have learned that securing a
narrowboat to suit our requirements is going to cost us a lot more than we
originally thought – in fact, there will be nothing left over for a
rainy day! However, living costs are almost
certainly going to be significantly less than they are for our
land-base. We have heard that
mooring costs and annual licensing costs are slowly increasing and that the
abolition of ‘red diesel’ may be imminent – these increases,
whilst they are disappointing, are unlikely to drive us back to our land-base
in the foreseeable future. We are hooked. Decision – February 2005 We have provisionally costed the boat,
obtained a redemption value for the mortgage, estimated the value of the
house and generally totted up the likely costs and confirmed that our venture
is feasible. We have also discussed our plans with
family and friends and we have convinced them that we are not suffering from
a mid-life crisis and we are not overdoing the drugs, etc. In fact, we believe that there might be
a few envious ones out there. A
stroke of luck – one of our relatives has offered to put us up in Let’s go for it. Making it happen – March 2005 The house goes on the market –
luckily, we receive a lot of interest and we have a buyer for our house in
what seems like no time at all.
We intensify our discussions with boat builders with a view to
selecting one or other of them to build our boat as soon as possible. We have decided to call our new boat We have also decided that we would like
a pseudo ‘trading name’; something with a traditional appearance
and including the family name “WELLS”. We hit upon the idea of of Order placed – June 2005 We decided to order BELLE from Sandhills
Narrowboats Limited. We found
Dawn, Gary and Mark very helpful whilst we were researching our boat –
they provided us with lot‘s of advice and guidance and they allowed us
to look at the boat they were building for another customer. We saw it at the bare shell stage and
several times thereafter before we decided that we would place our order for
BELLE with them. We must say that
they were very patient when confronted by two would-be narrowboaters that
wanted to know everything about everything to do with the boat that they were
building and the boat that they would build for us! Our order is based on the British Marine
Federation (BMF) Construction Agreement - you should be able to access the
latest version of the construction agreement here. We feel that now would be a good time to
warn potential narrowboat owners that there are many pitfalls out there and
that they should take great care when selecting a boat builder. Just to focus the mind – you are
about to spend what will probably be a six figure sum on what could turn out
to be a glorified floating waste skip.
Whilst there are many reputable boat builders out there, it appears
that there is an inordinate amount of ‘less than reputable ones’
as well – we could tell you some real horror stories! Do not be rushed into anything and be
very thorough when assessing what is on offer from the boat builder. View boats in build and the boats
already built for other customers.
If you get the chance, speak with previous customers about their
boats. Carefully assess the
workmanship, not just superficially, but under the skin as well. If you do not feel up to it, then get
a friend or colleague with a bit more knowledge about mechanical and
electrical equipment to help you. We generated a checklist to help us
assess what was on offer – you will find it here. Take the time and trouble to generate a specification
and a scaled layout drawing for your boat – this will help you to check
that your ideas are workable and you can use them in your discussions with
boat builders, updating them as you go along. Most people have access to a computer
with Microsoft Word and/or Microsoft Excel software – all of our
layouts, graphics and our specifications (and even this website) were
produced using Microsoft Word and Excel. Site Map We started our BLOG
the day we placed the order for BELLE – we have updated it as and when
we have encountered something that we thought may be of interest to
others. We have tried our best to
avoid blogging the tedious and we have also tried to strike a reasonable
balance between the topical and the technical. Our specification
is quite detailed – we have included our final layout drawings and
graphics as well as many of the prototypes along the way. Our gallery
contains regularly updated images of BELLE’s construction – it
will eventually contain images of the launch and ultimately images of items
and places of interest, etc. that are connected in some way or other to
narrowboating in the You can contact
us if you wish by email or by mobile phone. All the best, Chris & Stelle Copyright © 2005 - 2006 C J Wells |