Small Boat Big Plans

By David Bewley

A light hearted and factual view of buy, and prepering a 30 year old boat for a big trip. 

This takes you from inital viewing, surveying, and use of a 30 year old Carver, in the UK. Through succesfully completing a passage. At times you will be doubled in laughter, and other times reading with suspense, at a couple approaching retirment buying their first boat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Bewley
• Release date: Jan 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393415053

David Bewley

David was born in Leeds in the UK in 1957 to a hard working, working class family. He grew up, and developed as an engineer, working in that industry for 30 years. From an early age he developed a kean interest in motor racing and formula 1, and all mechanical things.  For a time he was deeply involved in UK kart racing, even racing for a time against stars of the future. Although it was far too late for him, he was in his mid 30's. At the age of forty he suffered a heart attack, which meant he had to stop some of his more strenious activities, and during a period of recuperation in 1997 he penned his first novel 'The Diamond Seat'. Further novels followed some years later, with "The Extinguisher" and then the final one in that series "The extinguisher, Revenge". Planning for retirement, he and his wife of 42 years bought a boat, in which they plan to cruise around the British Isles. They are sure there will be more books to follow, logging thier avdventures along the way.

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my long suffering wife Janet. She has helped tremendously in contributing to the facts and the story. As well as putting up with me.

I would also like to thank all the friends mentioned in here, all of you are precious to us, and in your way have contributed to the fun, and experiences.

Also Russell and Nichola our grown up kids, and their families, they don’t quite understand what mom and dad, Grandma and Grandad are doing. They think we have gone mad in old age.

And for just putting up with us Kit and Pepe our feline friends.

Small boat Big Plans.

In the beginning.

Where did it all begin . Well we can’t say this was plan ‘A’, in fact that had been to retire to the north of Scotland, building a house on some land we had been trying for quite some time to purchase in Caithness on the top of cliffs adjacent to Forse Castle. That plan fell through when the landowner died without a will, and a messy estate, which would take years, far too long for us, to sort.

We had a bit of a deadline, we had already sold our house, and we had moved into the flat above our shop in Tadcaster, as with most of the town centre properties, ours was leased from Sam Smiths Brewery, and was due to renew in 2020. We had decided that once the lease was up, we would not be renewing, and therefore created ourselves a deadline.

We didn’t just want to retire, and do nothing, and plan ‘A’ wasn’t going to happen, so we talked about plan ‘B’.

For a long time, we had both enjoyed, being on and around boats, we both enjoyed traveling, and we both felt actually we wanted to break the ties, and restrictions of the land.

So, in 2017 we started to look around for a boat. We determined we wanted a motor cruiser, we wanted one that was seaworthy, and not an inland craft, and whilst sports cruisers were a plenty, and looked good they weren’t for us. We want a craft that was roomy, a good saloon, a galley, a large heads and shower, a good double berth, and a good-sized separate berth for the grandkids if they wanted to visit. After all this was going to be a live aboard as well as a boat to tour with.

The boat also must have two engines, must be diesel powered, also be Volvo powered, and preferably have a flying bridge, and ideally have a maximum price of £50000.

So, no restrictions there then.

We had looked at lots of adverts for Birchwood’s, Sealines, Fairlines, Princesses, Brooms, etc, etc. Non worked for us, they were either too old, in poor condition, too expensive for the condition, or just too expensive. Then we spotted a 1989 Carver 3207 at York Marina. She had been on the market for about 6 months, and had just been reduced in price, so the owner was motivated to sell. In fact, she had been under offer, and for some reason the deal had fallen through.

We made an appointment to go look at her, the brokers information said lightly used, and in good overall condition for the year, yeh well we’ve all seen that before.

She didn’t look that exciting at first glance, she had a black cover over her aft deck, and a Tourneau in black over her flying bridge. Both of which were in poor condition. Inside the pictures showed plenty of space, and whilst a bit grubby, nothing a good clean wouldn’t hurt. PitterPatter as was Description automatically generated

On inspection our first thoughts were just what we thought from the pictures. Whilst the electronics and radio were old, and would need upgrading, everything else just needed a good clean. Talking to the broker, we found she had spent 5 years on Lake Windermere, before being transported to York Marina by the owner to be sold, he was getting out of boats. (We later found out from the owner after we purchased her in five years, he had only put ten hours on her.) Prior to that she had lived for a time on the Norfolk Broads, and on the River Thames.

We decided that we liked the look of her and made a cheeky offer (well below the new asking price) after a bit of haggling we agreed on a price subject to survey in the middle.

So, one cold November afternoon we met the surveyor at the marina, a bit nervous, wondering what would he find, was this going to be our dream boat, or a walk away. Especially given a deal on her had fallen through.

I should say that whilst we had waited for the appointment for the survey, I had done some research on Carvers, especially the 3207’s. We hadn’t ever come across them, and found that they were built in the USA, that Carver did have a good Reputation over there, but not so in the UK. They were seen more for the mass market than, let’s say the traditional UK customer. They were built in their hundreds per year rather than 10’s per year from a traditional UK builder. One very good point I found was the below the waterline hulls in the 07 series are solid glass fibre, and not cored with balsa or foam. This gives a level of rigidity to the hull and gives the hull good sea keeping especially in chop. Plus, if you ever had a leaking through hull or worse, damage you wouldn’t suffer from rotting cores.

A bad point though was like many boat builders in the mid to late 80’s Carvers did suffer from hull blisters, that horror word ‘Osmosis’. Again, I did my research and the advice ranged from walk away if theres any sign to, use it to reduce the price, and buy. No boat has sunk due to Osmosis.

Any how the survey started, it was late as the surveyor had been held up on another boat. It was clear from the start he hadn’t done much research on the brand, he spent ages poking around understanding the layout. Muttering, I don’t like American boats, stuff is all over the place. Then saying it would make a good West Island cruiser. We were getting mixed messages.

When it came to engine start, big problemo, the batteries were flat. This led to more delays, and questions, is the battery charger working? Issue was no credit on the shore power so the charger wouldn’t work. No electricery trickling down the shore power cable to feed the batteries.

After a wait a jump starter battery was brought down, and the big diesels fired up, filling the pontoon and half the marina with smoke. Hmmm.

The marina pilot took her out onto the river for a test run. The smoke settled down, and she ran like a dream upriver. Nobody fishing, good. He opened her up, and wow, 24 knots ( sorry, sorry did I say 24knots, erm I meant he only took her to 6 knots) you could feel her wanting to go, she came up on the plain and felt alive.

The surveyor looked impressed, so it was back to the marina to be lifted out. Time was marching on, by the time she was on the lift, and the first signs of trouble, the port prop had a slight nick in it. Then a close inspection of the hull, and yes there were blisters, looked like lots at first, then we saw these were runs in the paint or epoxy coating. She had been epoxy coated at some point about 10 years ago to protect against osmosis, but there were some just below the waterline that were