Boat Maintenance

mark55man

My nephew has got himself into a pickle, living on a boat (he is quite handy and hardy) but it broke down and needed repair - so facing a bill for

a few hundred quid recovery - thats a given now,

The rest just seems a bit on the high side and I dont like the thought of
£450 for engine service
£700 for lifting cleaning and recompounding
unknown extras for any additional work

+ a quote for £1800 for installing a new shore electric system. My thought is this would be better done separately after more research

This is for a 4 berth boat that he is living in (cost price £10K 18 months ago). So he is still just up compared to renting but he has no idea if this is fair, and neither do I.

This will pretty much destroy savings for him and his dad so if it needs done then fine, but if we can shave the bill a bit that would be grateful.

The boatyard seem straight, but they say moving to another boatyard would cost any savings that might be made so it is a bit of a forced deal at the moment.

Anyway - appreciate a bit niche hope someone can help

glasgowdan

I'm not sure how anyone on here can help. He chose to live on a boat, which needs a lot of looking after to keep it afloat. These expenses are going to be regular.

mark55man

Thank you. I don't disagree, but I just wanted to check if these were reasonable. This thread is called "is this quote fair", not "is this a wise lifestyle"

As it happens he has shown a lot of gumption and sorted a number of peripheral problems himself, which has taken a significant chunk off the bill

steeeb

Without knowing the boat and more details it's impossible to say.

For example, ring other boatyards and ONLY give them the following details:
- I've got a 4-birth boat and it needs an engine service - how much will this be?

Without any other information it's impossible to say.

Is the boat 5 years old? 50 years old? Is the engine a year old with parts readily available, or it a 20 year old engine from some small time manufacturer who went bankrupt 15 years ago and only made a small number of these engines?

If you can provide more details to the boat model, the engine, more details as to what exactly is wrong then it's possible there might be someone here that can help.

Otherwise it might be worth looking for a forum of boating enthusiasts - you might be a better response than on a more-general forum - again - give them as much detail as you can or you won't get a useful response.

arbrighton

It is called Is this quote fair, yes, but as a sub-board of In my home....

As steeeb says, try a specialist forum, shop around.

Nephew was perhaps naive to think boats needed no maintenance/ had low costs