Advice needed for an important project

My checklist at the moment seems to be:
Diesel
Shaft driven
Fiberglass
24+ feet
keeping it warm
Ability to explore the uk rivers.
Unlike a lot of couples we are use to living inside each others personal space, 20 hours a day is spent with each other and 99% of 19 years has been spent in the same space together, long ago I started doing 99% of our shopping via Amazon/tesco, never drove either of us crazy being inside each others pockets (only reason I used to go out was to walk the dog) the first two places we lived in had tiny rooms and galley kitchen smaller than you see on a 24ft (for 16 years of Paola's illness we only had to visit the hospital every 6 months for a consultation and blood test) I never had an urge to go to the pub or go anywhere without Paola.
So a small boat has benefits, our last house was a specially constructed bungalow we rented where everything is within hand reach and no big open spaces really helped with Paola.
Same goes for food we do not enjoy take outs and with the added complications I can pair Paola's food down to a very small shortlist and her new medication does not even require special storage.
Last year I invested in a couple of Ravpower 24w folding solar panels + 2 2600ma batteries, between them I have kept 3 mobile phones 2 tablets and 6 game controllers fully charged for the last 8 months, that will be useful on boats (the panels will hook and hang on just about anything, I've gotten good charges from shed roofs, fence posts and just laying flat on tables.
A smaller boat should also be more economical 25-30 seems to be sweet spot, will probably have to figure out a rack for the wheelchair.
I can also cook full meals on one single hob/ring.
Entertainment we have a Synology Disk station, about the size of of a boot box and runs on 30w with a very low amp draw which contains 12000 pieces of music, 3400 films and 115 TV series everything from blake 7 to black books, it was created because we started to run out of space for all the DVD we owned and so I spent nearly a year ripping them all to disk, Paola goes to bed at around 10pm but does not sleep till 2am, she can hook into the disk station from her tablet or phone, most of our books are already ebooks to save space these kind of things fit a small boat very well.
I will probably also take one of our spare wireless routers and setup a local net on the boat so just like at home anything can connect via the secure system. If we miss the internet I will setup a mifi with one of our all you can eat data sim depends on how things go.

But without a boat this is all just theory crafting and without the money to buy the boat its just a pipe dream so, timetable 7 more days from today see if any of the extra plans come to fruition, if not I start putting together a raffle, I've worked out that I can put together about 5,000 worth of good quality tech as the prize, Paola does not want me to give up my gaming pc but if I put that into the mix then we are closer to £8,000 (I have built and rebuilt my gaming pc over the last 8 years, it is now a very respectable i6700k, gtx 1080, 16gb ddr4, samsung m2 950 pro 500gb as its heart).
lets say 25000 tickets at £1 (was going to go £2 but what if some one donates odd number) that covers the budget + cash alternatives.

And if that fails then I will ebay nearly every bit of tech I have (do not have much time for them anyway) failure is not an option :)
 
If this is a con, it is a particularly nasty one. It reminds me of the Capital_R thread. Full of lots of detail that dont add up.
 
OceanSprint said:
If this is a con, it is a particularly nasty one. It reminds me of the Capital_R thread. Full of lots of detail that dont add up.
Click to expand...
Can you please let me know how and why it doesn't add up I know not spending a lot of time on forums and all that stuff I am not use to all the scams that seem to be so prevalent, (I am not naive when it comes to email and phone scams I know all about those and how to deal with them and keep our computers protected) but when it comes to what to me would be really sick to scam about something like this I seem to take things at face value.

I am not going to go back into "you came here to get money" its a useless argument for some reason I messed up the gofundme but that is my screw up, I also messed up some kind of net ettiquet when coming to the forum and being open about what I was doing, even when I say if anyone has a problem with me lets trade phone numbers and talk it out, or if you think i'm lying I can scan in doctors letters with all the information, then people say I am being creepy or stalking? I really can not win oh and if anyone is in the stoke on trent area give me a pm and me and Paola will meet you out on one of our wheelchair walks (no no I couldn't offer for you to visit my house thats also classed as creepy) :)

Okay thats an official thing just asked Paola, if any one of good standing on this forum wants to meet us around shelton or stoke on trent for a chat (hanley park near the college and staffordshire university) certain places are hard to get to, we can have a chat while I push Paola around and hopefully come back here and let these people know how normal and genuine even if a bit weird we are and that all this suspicious stuff was just stupid silly mistakes.

But I am not going anywhere I like this forum and have learnt some really useful information.
 
calranthe said:
I am not going to go back into "you came here to get money" its a useless argument

But you did come here to get money :rolleyes::sleeping:


oh and if anyone is in the stoke on trent area give me a pm and me and Paola will meet you out on one of our wheelchair walks

Now i have visions of Lou and Andy from Little Britain lol :D

/QUOTE]
Click to expand...
 
OceanSprint said:
If this is a con, it is a particularly nasty one. It reminds me of the Capital_R thread. Full of lots of detail that dont add up.
Click to expand...

Pretty certain it's not a con. Not a penny has been given by anyone from the forum.

If I were the op I'd be looking at hiring a few boats on the canals just to see how he and his wife get on with it. Otherwise there could be a lot of wasted time and effort.
 
MrB said:
calranthe said:
I am not going to go back into "you came here to get money" its a useless argument

But you did come here to get money :rolleyes::sleeping:


oh and if anyone is in the stoke on trent area give me a pm and me and Paola will meet you out on one of our wheelchair walks

Now i have visions of Lou and Andy from Little Britain lol :D

/QUOTE]
Click to expand...

One day one day I tell you I will get you to understand I didn't but maybe not in this hour or this day but one DAY!!! *shakes his fist* :)

I added some pictures to the photo thing, I am not very good at taking pictures, Paola is far better, actually we had a great day out recently I should post some of those pictures.
Click to expand...
 
I have followed this thread from the beginning and immediately felt a little uneasy. I refrained from commenting until now, preferring to keep my thoughts to myself and allow the thread to develop.

Having said that, nothing about this thread feels right. The language used by the OP has many similarities with the sort of spam that is trying to con you, so if he is genuine he really needs to address this. The whole scenario from hating cars to deciding to take off around the coast with minimal knowledge or experience with someone who would be strapped in the corner of the boat just sounds too far fetched to be believable.

Tell me I'm wrong, but this has all the hallmarks of someone trying it on, to either to get a free boat, or raise a significant amount of cash.

Bottom line is, if this is genuine, while worthy it just doesn't seem right. Setting up a fund to buy a luxury item like a boat that has a high value is an odd thing to do and is likely to be greeted with scepticism. You would be better asking for free rides out on boats, something that has already been offered. On the whole, I think this is a generous forum, but it is also a clever and streetwise one. Any story that doesn't quite add up, will be seen through very quickly.

If your story is genuine, I apologise for not believing you, but I'm afraid you must be able to understand that there are some very strange bits to this story/thread and a very odd language used by the OP throughout.

My spidy sense is telling me that this is one not to get involved with. Sorry, I'm ooot.
 
I really wish people would let me know what and how my words have turned people against me to me i'm speaking just open and upfront and have tried to answer any questions over and over it is kinda sad, unfortunately I do not have the original newspaper headings from 1998 I wish I did, the offered holiday and free car journey too and from llanduno over christmas and while we were incredibly grateful it did not suit Paola at all, anyway I feel this thread is loosing focus, our plan is still the same modified by advice here and I will keep coming here for advice, it may also sound naive but I had no master plan no idea this place was filled with rich people it was just a forum recommended that had people who had boat knowledge :)

Perfect example and as you pointed out also people keep mentioning "strapping my wife into a corner" makes me sound like some half crazed lunatic, my concern was and this was more for a sea going vessel not a river boat, if caught in a rough sea hypothetically I wouldn't want my wife or anyone bouncing about, I found it very strange that boats don't have seat belts, then some one on this thread pointed out you do not want to be tied down if the boat takes on water, perfectly good point, so I came up with a new idea which I am sure will be taken the wrong way aswell, if paola is sitting on a seat either with me in the cockpit or down in the saloon on a couch we are thinking of a roll of foam like a rolled up towel but bigger that she can turn into a sort of mobile chair arm so she does not slide about.
This is a bit of a moot point because now we are going to be focusing on inland waterways but hopefully it shows how advice on this forum have helped change my thoughts in things.

To all those saying they are out I hope that means you are out as in no money for you, which I keep repeating is not my intention I really hope you stick around to give advice and pull apart my plans so I can evolve them and be in a better position and not as OUT meaning abandoning the thread :(
 
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I have to admit when I first read this thread my first thought was that it's been posted from Nigeria
 
The done thing on here is generally not to discuss matters of money. Indeed not really to discuss family / home. It tends to be purely about the boats, where we go and so on.

A bit of background particularly in relation to your case is fine but, and I'm really sorry if this sounds harsh but I'm not sure people are interested in the chapter & verse of where the money comes from.

As has been said before raising charity funds for a privately owned, non essential luxury item such as a boat is, can I say hopeful. I was out from minute one. Add in the fact many will see it as a lost cause, particularly when you were wanting to cruise offshore.

Once again I apologise for the direct tone but if you are wondering where you're going wrong that's probably it in my humble opinion.
 
Okay so you have all had your laugh, my honor, my integrity, my ethics, the validity of my story, from your high castles you have lorded it over me with your absolute belief that I am scum and this "street wise" forum knows best, oh not all of you but I have apart from one outburst turned the other cheek.

When we moved house I thought we lost the old newspaper, feel free to call this another scam and throw more insults my way.

AXYV6WQ.jpg


I can give a 6mb raw file version but have no where to host it.

Oh and I found out how I got to this forum, I remember now.
http://www.boatbanter.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=998

Check the date a few days before I signed up here, the advice on the forum told me to come to this forum and talk to superheat6k
That is how I found this forum and my first act was to private message superheat, I knew I was getting in over my head so I saw this place had a motor boat forum and so I did the post.

My thinking was very simple, two weeks ago we came out of the latest appointment with Paola's haematology consultant, I think we were both on the verge of crying, I was being strong for her and she was being strong for me, Kidney counts were still dropping and getting close to the danger point eGFR 43 three months and it was still dropping (below 60 it is a sign of continuous kidney damage) and I made a decision in that hallway that I had to do something, had to give Paola something to look forward, she was breaking and I was helpless to stop it.

So on advice of a friend I setup the gofundme even though I had no idea what I was doing, I had this absolutely naive idea that people would see my campaign read those words and Paola's dream would become a reality.

Then I knew I had to find out more about boats and what I was getting into, and I had to be fast because in my own mind that gofundme was going to be funded in 2-3 day and things would rock!! I could give Paola something to smile about, a goal I knew she would start planning upholstry patterns, designs and paintwork for the boat, places she wanted to visit, it gave a distraction and I had to make that into a reality.

At this point the gofundme slowed down and I emailed a few people in different industries I knew so I was not to bothered but still I needed to get everything sorted in my head.

After my private message to superheat6k I started to think I need more advice and this forum seems to have a lot of very smart people, so I wrote my post without any kind of experience, all I had was the knowledge my wife was slowly dying and I was going to make sure she go to do what she always wanted to before getting too ill.

So yes I messed up, yes I was on a steep learning curve and I am still learning and damn grateful to all the advice that helped me change my idea to river and reduce my budget (as soon as I went from 100k to 20k, I changed my gofundme because I am honest because you people were right).

But some of you people should be ashamed of yourself, you may have money, some of you may be "rich" and I really hope none of you go through what we have the last 18 years you will realise just how little that money means.

So continue with the jokes and your gut feeling that I am some nigerian scam artist if it makes you feel all superior and righteous.

I am not going anywhere and I am going to keep asking questions because when I do get the money I can not make a silly mistake, I need as much knowledge on my side and this is the place to get it.
 
Please don't feel anything I've posted is patronising or in any way looking down at you. The content has been on point and factual. I'm a fixer ant rather than an emotional ant and I mentioned that from the start.

I can't speak for others on here.
 
henryf said:
Please don't feel anything I've posted is patronising or in any way looking down at you. The content has been on point and factual. I'm a fixer ant rather than an emotional ant and I mentioned that from the start.

I can't speak for others on here.
Click to expand...

you have been just what I needed facts and advice, yes me disagree, yes I will succeed and go through with this, wife wants a boat she is going to get a boat some how:) and our situation is very unique some advice does not fit but please keep poking at my plan because it makes me keep looking and relooking, learning so that once the money is in I can go and make a pretty good decision.

yes I know some people think my idea is crazy but I don't mind, the advice of people like you allow me to turn that impractical crazy idea into a semi practical plan with a lot of mistakes made on paper before the act of actual going to the marina and for that I am grateful.
 
okay plan as follows
1969 -1979 Fiberglass boat (from what I have read IF one survives this long and has been looked after they are supposed to be quite strong back then they used a lot more in the mix)
Diesel engine shaft propeller (also looking for well maintained and serviced, keep an eye out for warning signs of excessive blue/black/white smoke)
Look for water damage and ingress, check for water stains in the bilge, check that engine is cold before startup (as in the person selling it can show a cold start)
A level of wear and tear is fine but cracks etc.
Check the windows,
Check the flooring for spongeness
Check the batteries and electricals.
All the above before calling in a pre purchase surveyor
Try to be there for the surveyor keep out of his way but ask any questions ask his opinion
Check the engine model and type make sure parts are available, look for any usergroup or manuals
See if you can get a deal on berthing and or some freebies

If all that checks out then go for it make a fair offer.

Anything I am missing for that part ?
 
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