Broom Tamaris LS

JackFrobisher

JackFrobisher

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Has anyone ever bought an ex-hire Tamaris, French or otherwise? There appear to be a number for sale and they fit the size/style of boat I'm considering. As an example: http://www.leboatbrokerage.com/cana...sp?slim=pp273417&sm=3&cit=true&searchtype=buy (picked at random)

My plan, such as it is, is to spend lots of my retirement cruising the waterways of Europe and perhaps even dipping my toes in the Med.

What comments, advice etc. would you care to give a mobo novice.
 
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A lot of the Le Boat fleet started life in the UK (Broads, Thames, Ireland) and got shipped abroad so may have had a hard life before they got to France.

I frequent another forum http://www.thenorfolkbroads.net/phpBB3/ and the guys on NBN are a wealth of knowledge on ex hire boats so might be worth a post there.

The Tamaris IIRC is an Aquafibre 32 http://www.horning.org.uk/stylegallery.php?page=aquafibre, the "hire" version of a Broom 32. Also do a search on this same site for "Tamaris" and it throws up a lot of Aquafibre 32's.
 
The boat in the picture probably came out of another hire fleet first as from memory the Tamaris's were oak interior and had different doors to the one shown and they also had different fendering. I know a few of the boat builders who built these, I worked on a few as well, and at the time Crown were buying from other fleets as they needed lots of boats quickly.
 
Went to look at similar type of ex hire boat the Powles 33,to say the poor things had had a hard life was an understatement,just imagine 40 odd years of absolute beginners hitting mostly solid stuff.The boats we looked at were all on the Broads and were in pretty tired condtion,although the interiors were clean enough the hulls were definately the worse for wear,an good hull survey vital ?
Prices seemed to range around the £25-35K mark and for the stuff we saw blimming ....err optimistic.

Couple more came up ex Irish hire and owners assured me they were in better nick,but looking at the two Broads boats could not be bothered going over to look.
 
Irish Boats

Could a boat like that make it from the Shannon to the Solent (home) and then across to the Seine under its own steam or would have to go by road?
 
JackFrobisher said:
Could a boat like that make it from the Shannon to the Solent (home) and then across to the Seine under its own steam or would have to go by road?
Click to expand...

Defiantly by road, these would be a bit under powered compared to the Broom 32 and not suitable to go to sea with
 
I bought three down through the years and always got them hauled from the uk to Ireland by truck,no big deal if you use the right guy.
 
JackFrobisher said:
Could a boat like that make it from the Shannon to the Solent (home) and then across to the Seine under its own steam or would have to go by road?
Click to expand...



All fitted with tenny weeny very low horse power engines ....50HP ish ?
Very slow at best of times and with a bit of wide and tide against you,marginal progress at best.
The mere thought of running the poor old thing flat out for hours on end would bring any faults to light very quickly.
 
I'll take that as a no then, however:

aquapower said:
Defiantly by road, these would be a bit under powered compared to the Broom 32 and not suitable to go to sea with
Click to expand...

I've searched for a Broom 32 that has (what appears to me to be) significantly more power than the run of the mill private/ex-hire 45/50 HP engines and drawn a blank. Did Broom/Aquafibre (et al) produce a more powerful version?

oldgit said:
All fitted with tenny weeny very low horse power engines ....50HP ish ?
Very slow at best of times and with a bit of wide and tide against you,marginal progress at best.
The mere thought of running the poor old thing flat out for hours on end would bring any faults to light very quickly.
Click to expand...

Having crossed the Channel many times with 28HP pushing my 6-ton Storm because of lack of wind (it sails faster than it motors given a force 4+ and a long crossing has become something of a habit over the years) pushing a similar weight with 45 to 50HP sounds blissful.

The details on many of the web listings talk of 12 knots cruising and 15 knots maximum. Is this the salesman talking up his commission? Should it actually be 12 kph cruising and 15 kph maximum?

Thanks to all for your sage words.
 
I hired one of these on the Broads last year so my (3) kids could have the experience. For what you are planning they seem great - easy to handle single handed if necessary (kids too often distracted by ipods to assist in crewing bit) and seem not to be too adversely affected to strong cross winds when mooring. Inside and outside steering option ideal for varying weather, too.

Yes they are no greyhounds - in more open water with single Thorneycroft engine which was no more than 50 hp or so, I would say (with the aid of my GPS which I took with us) that we had cruising at 6 knots - maximum at 7 knots.

The boat we had was not in the first flush of youth but the engine ran sweetly and never gave cause for concern. The guy who took us out on our initiation was telling me about the strict servicing regime his yard (Richardsons) undertook and he knew his stuff having previously been an installation engineer working on the Corvette 32.

I would not want one for regularly channel crossings but anything is do-able if you take it easy. IMHO more seaworthy than some things that set off to sea.

As to hull condition - again they are going to be bashed around a bit (we, of course, never touched anything... except when squeezing into berths :D) but they were built for this and a survey will reveal anything major. If you are doing the waterways in France etc., you want something well fendered and with a hull built for that purpose.

Prices, though, seem high bearing in mind that these are working boats the capital cost of which will have been factored into their working lives.

As many on here say (correctly!) - better to have a boat that has been used than one that has sat unused and deteriorating through condensation, etc. etc.

We did pass a couple of privately owned Broom/Aquafibres of similar design boats and I looked at one in a marina in Horning. The ones we saw seemed to be set up with low power but some twin engine installations about. Not sure this is a hull that would work well with too much power. The early Broom 35s with twin 145 Perkins had a problem with chine riding so they tended to put in lower power units after they found out.

Hope you find something that works for you.
 
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