I've told this story and emailed it several times now. It seems there's a bit of curiosity out there about how we came to do the very thing we said we wouldn't - buy a boat we haven't seen!
Firstly, we were contacted earlier in the year by a lovely Tasmanian couple who had just bought a narrowboat - sight unseen. We've kept in touch with Peter and Jennifer since then and waited with eager anticipation for their opinion of their purchase once they arrived in the UK. It all appeared to go as well as can be expected.
Peter and Jennifer "introduced" us to John and Jen, also fellow Aussies who were in the UK on their boat Aussie Mossie, built by Crown Narrowboats. They were planning on selling at about the time we were arriving but after much studying of photos and many discussions we decided it wasn't the right boat for us. It was a stretch on the budget, and there were a couple of things we couldn't change that we would rather be different. It was a lovely boat and we're glad to hear that the first person who came to view the boat bought it. Good news!
nb Parisien Star was my "pick of the week" at the end of June. It stuck with me because the dinette was in a cabin of it's own and as I'm going to be working about 3 days a week on the boat it would be far preferable to have a separate space.
We had a comment left by Adam from nb Briar Rose (one of my all time favourite "pick of the week" boats) telling us about the builders of Parisien Star. I made contact with Yvonne and Roger and they were very helpful with a couple of queries we had about narrowboat matters.
At the end of July we had a comment left on the blog from David, the owner of nb Parisien Star. He wasn't well and had lowered the price. We took another look at the details of the boat and asked Yvonne and Roger what they thought. Lynne, our friend in England, went to check it out for us and after a couple of sleepless nights agonizing over it we paid a deposit and booked a survey.
We were basically happy with the survey, we were impressed with the excellent communication and help from the broker, and here we are.... owners of a boat we haven't seen.
We'd like to thank Peter and Jennifer for unwittingly starting the ball rolling and for putting us onto Towergate Mardon for our insurance.
And to David... if you're reading... we'll take the best of care of her.
We are two Australians who lived the dream and spent 20 months as liveaboards on narrowboat Parisien Star. Life before.... during.... and after.
2 comments:
Glad it all worked out. Yvonne and Roger are lovely, so I'm not surprised they helped you out.
Hope to see you out on the cut sometime, so you can come and have a look at Briar Rose -- although you're not having her!
Hi you are so lucky we are looking to buy are own narrow boat next year so Will keep on reading your blog for Advice enjoy yourself
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