ahoy ahoy
Fanum said:
Always been interested in a house boat.......
The neighbours boat is up for sale, £95-100k worth a look. Try apolloduck.com or .co.uk or some sort of ending, there's a ship load (pun intended) there.
Mine's a 65ft, gaff yawl clipper conversion with a 1870s hull and internal fittings below deck and a new deck house, overlooking the harbour at Mersea island. Pop along and I'll show you around. It's no good adding pics as it's like the tardis...ask EPO1.
Life onboard is different, but not dramatically so. you just need to regard space as precious and be clever with storage.
There are tips I could let you have when it comes to buying one, such as you can't get a mortgage on a wooden hull vessel, insurance is more expensive, mooring fees have to be considered and access to utilities, such as water, electric and telephony.
Also, it's not peace and quiet, in fact it's noisier than a house, but the noises are seagulls, oyster catchers, the tide and wind etc...which somehow don't seem to be so bad, even with the 4am seagull wake up call (bastar*s)
We have found that size is an issue. larger vessel owners seem to look down on smaller houseboats and the yacht club think we are low life gypsies from what I've heard. Still I don't sail so they aren't really an issue unless I take up social climbing as a sport.
If you want to take a ride out our way, drop me a line and I'll let you have the tide times-the road gets cut off at certain times-but I can recommend the 20th August as it's the regatta weekend saturday, with much merriment and fireworks and boaty stuff.
Avast ye for now m'ol' salty seamate, may the fair breeze never leave you luffin', or some such nautical salutation.
Lamble.
