Sunday 27 November 2011

Pick of the week - Lilly's Girl

In view of the declining real estate market, we got talking about what we'd do if we don't get a good price for our house.  It's looking increasingly likely!  We've been looking at boats we could get for around the £45,000 mark and this morning we stumbled across this one.  Scope for a bit of improvement!

Nb Lilly's Girl is listed with Great Haywood Boat Sales : Click here.  She's a bit dated and there's quite a few things we'd change but at £33,950 there would be room in the budget.  When we first thought of spending some time afloat we had toyed with the idea of buying a lined sailaway but Mick decided he didn't know enough about boats to tackle a project that size (and where would we live in the meantime?) but improving a slightly older boat would give him something to do.  One of the main drawbacks of an older boat is that few of them have spray foam insulation.  My research, and advice from several boaters, has suggested that we should make spray foam insulation a "must have" on our list. 

We were pleasantly surprised to see that this 1999 narrowboat has sprayfoam.  She might not be our first choice in boat style but when it all boils down, we know we'll only have our boat for a year or two.  We might be fussier if it was something we planned on keeping for 5 or 10 years.  I'd prefer a reverse layout so that's a big plus on this boat.


Things we'd change : toilet, shower, remove dividers between galley and saloon, put in a pair of single dinettes in place of the sideboards, the tiled galley walls, the wall lining in saloon and bedroom, central heating.  There appears to be a bit of a sag in the ceiling near the rear hatch so that would need attention too.  Overall I think we could make this boat into a comfortable floating home.



Length : 60ft
Stern : Semi Trad
Price : £33,950
Year : 1999
Plating Specification : Steel 10/6/4
Flat V-Hull Or Keeled : Flat
Built by : South Port Boats
Fitted out by : South Port Boats
Source Of Hot water : Calorifier/ immersion/ back boiler
Central Heating : Back boiler
Solid fuel stove : Yes
Water tank capacity : 624 Litres
Engine make : Beta 1903
No of cylinders : 4
Keel, water, air cooled : Keel
Gear box make : PRM 260
Bow Thruster : Vetus (not working)
Diesel tank capacity : 200 Litres
12 Volt : Yes
240V landline : Yes
Inverter : 2000w
Generator : Beta 3.5kva
Batteries : 1 starter, 3 leisure & 1 for bow thruster
Type of toilet : Porta pottie
Bath/Shower fitted : Shower over bath
Vanity Basin : Yes
Fixed Berths : Fixed double
Cooker : Yes
Fridge : Yes 240v
Additional Notes : Washing machine, Front cratch cover, reverse layout, spray foam insulation, laminate flooring.








 
 


3 comments:

nb Chance said...

Hi Elly an Mick, I think these days you will find a good liveaboard for under 45K, its a buyers market over here, as well as Apollo duck its amazing how many boats have for sale notices on them along the cut! Hope you get a sale soon, its no different with property over here either!

Peter Berry said...

Hi Elly. The world is your oyster at the moment. The market is full to overflowing with high quality boats in that price range at the moment. What you have to watch for though, as this sector of the market becomes flooded with boats from the higher end that aren't selling, are the dogs that used to inhabit this area, and are still there, ever hopeful of an unwary buyer to come along and buy it.

Elly and Mick said...

Thanks for the comments. It's all a bit of a balancing act! We've been worried that a lower house price may jeopardize our plans. The exchange rate has subsided and those two things together could make a significant difference. The glut of reasonably priced boats is good news for us. It perhaps calls for greater caution and definitely a detailed survey I would think. Hmmm... this discussion may be worthy of a new blog entry!
Thanks to you all... Elly