Jeff wrote:
* biz wrote, On 3/6/2007 4:14 PM:
I've got an unsecured loan from my bank at quite a reasonable fixed
rate 6.9%. I've got about 60% of the asking price in savings
actually, but I don't want to leave myself with no ready cash. But
then I'll need quite a bit to pay for the survey and haul-out, and any
hull-work that needs doing while it's on the hard.

So you're going to buy a boat you can't insure with money you don't
have? That makes sense.

Heh - I have found an insurer that's quoted me 400-500 quid. Got a
couple more leads to try too.

You're assuming you can find a yard that would haul a wooden boat. They
won't at my yard, or most of the urban yard where space is cheap. I
don't even think they would haul to scrape the bottom, they certainly
wouldn't to replace planks.

It's currently owned by the owner of the marina. He's hauled it himself
in the past couple of months to paint the underside.

With vintage glass boats being relatively cheap, why would you consider
a wooden boat? At least with a glass boat, if it passes the basic hull
survey, then it has a predictable value and you can fix up medium size
problems like a soft deck or old rigging or engine without worrying that
you're throwing good money after bad.

Yes, the economics of this are interesting. There's a magazine article
I haven't read but have seen referred to that tots up the cost including
initial outlay and ongoing maintenance and compares GRP to wood.
Comes out about even. Then it's a question of whether you're interested
in actually doing the work, year on year.

I can't get a mortgage on a wood boat, and so have limited my budget to
GBP10k (not including survey 1.5k, 1st year's insurance 0.5k and
immediate work 2k). I could get a mortgage on a glass or steel boat
(even then I can only get a 75% mortgage, so unless I get a loan to make
up the rest this only extends my budget to around 12k).

Another thing that keeps me awake at night is if wooden boats are hard
to sell.