First Boat - Help Needed - I Think I Want This....

|Argonaughty said:
Ahoy there!

I've lurked here for the last three years whilst I've been trying to find my first boat and trying to learn from the various posts. Like a few I'm in the 'if not now, when?' position with dodgy knees, devil foot, and many of the post 60 embug*erances

In an ideal world I'd be donating my inheritance to Windy or Paragon, but with a child still in education for the next three years....

Then I saw this:

Carson Interceptor 850 2019 Used Boat for Sale in Crinan, Argyll, United Kingdom

All that the current owners do my husband and I wish to do, save can't get up to the West Coast too frequently. Keen wildlife photographer and want to do coastal cetacean survey.

Would be very, very grateful for some help/thoughts/things I should consider (and may not have done- am prepared to empty portapotty and throw good money out the back as I scud along).

PS Beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)
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You say ideally you'd go paragon or windy, so given that windy (and arguably paragon) is essentially a leisure boat brand rather than a commercial boat brand,have you considered other cheaper ,but still fairly capable all weather leisure boats?

Axopar 28 cabin should fit the bill and be easier to sell on in future, and be in budget

Or an xo of some sort might work?

How about a saxdor?

They won't be as capable as a commercial rib, but they might still do what you want and be nicer to live with, it will depend 9n the conditions you expect to go out in/get caught out in as to whether you really need a commercial rib.

And they'll all have an actual loo.
 
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dunedin said:
I am no expert, but believe the RedBay cabin RIBS are used for many of the passenger ferries amongst the Scottish isles - eg the Jura passenger ferry and some of the trip boats that bash out to St Kilda with passengers. They are pretty tough craft taking Thea weather that can be thrown at them, without wrecking their passengers.
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Absolutely and that is why we ended up with two of them.

When we were researching options another well known RIB manufacturer hired a professional skipper to take us out on a sea trial and when we mentioned that Redbay were also a consideration he described them as the equivalent to F1 in the RIB world.

Redbay use KAB suspension seats, which allow you to dial your weight in and do a pretty good job but here is no getting away from the fact that going fast in a seaway means a certain degree of being bashed around. Undoubtedly better in a Redbay than some others but those suspension seats are still a must have. Of course, a skilled helm also makes a difference and whilst I do occasionally skipper the boats at work I wouldn’t necessarily put myself in that category. 😉
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robmchugh said:
Always remember the 2 happiest days of boat ownership.

1. When you buy your 1st boat

2. When you sell the bl***y thing

;)
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I don't know why people persist in trotting out this 'bar room expert' nonsense. If it were remotely true, who would buy another?
 
ari said:
I don't know why people persist in trotting out this 'bar room expert' nonsense. If it were remotely true, who would buy another?
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There is some truth...because once you sell...you know that you can buy the boat you really want...
 
ari said:
I don't know why people persist in trotting out this 'bar room expert' nonsense. If it were remotely true, who would buy another?
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It’s one of the most annoying comments to make. Often by someone who’s never had a boat.
 
paradave said:
It’s one of the most annoying comments to make. Often by someone who’s never had a boat.
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Sorreee.... Jez keep your bloomin knickers on. FYI I have had 6 boats incl 2 commercial. Selling my first boat was the 2nd happiest day of my life since I realised that, while it looked okay, it was really not what I wanted. Sold it sight unseen to a guy in NI who met me at Stranaer, paid cash and caught the ferry home.
 
jfm said:
A few thoughts, recognising that it has many strong features and is a head turning purposeful looking boat:

1. Not worth £119k; not easy to sell on
2. Pointlessly heavy build (too much plywood sheathed in GRP, giving you no benefit but adding weight). 2700kg displacement is 4-500kg too heavy.
3. Underpowered. It won't do 40 knots. To cruise at low 20's knots those engines will be screaming at something like 4000rpm. You should think about whether you're ok with that noise for long passages. (They're good reliable engines of course, and very low hours, just underpowered/not a great choice. A pair of Yam 300hp would have been perfect)
4. Rough interior will make it hard to sell on. Finish of the kitchen units is raw GRP chopped strand mat over plywood, with painted grey GRP resin, with all the lumps and bumps showing - that will be a deal breaker when you come to sell it, so drive the price down now.
5. As already noted, needs 2 x new chairs
6. Anchor = 9kg - that's some kind of joke.
7. Let's be honest: the inflatable tubes are doing nothing whatsoever :)
8. The foredeck pulpit rail is a shocker. Mitred welded corners. Has a real home made feel, corner cutting, not made by proper boar builders. Many amateurs do much better work than this. This will add to its difficulty to sell on, so get the price down. Similar, foredeck cleats are unpolished and appear held on by 2 M8 maybe M10 screws - awful
9. Decent size fuel tank - 500 litres
10. Hull shape (wave piercing type) looks good in choppy weather. The hull steps are pointless at the slow speeds this will run at, but harmless, so no need to worry about them.

So in my mind, if you can live with some compromises, and all boats have compromises, it's a good boat, but at £85-90k to reflect that the potential buyer demand for this boat is 2 or 3 people in the whole country if you're lucky .
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Absolutely agree with every point you've made there jfm. They won't come down that low, so moving swiftly on...
 
oldgit said:
For most of us the boat we regard as the one ideal to fulfill our dreams is rarely the one we actually need.
A lack of funding usually brings most of us up with "a sharp round turn", into the real world and be prevented from making some really expensive mistakes.
Those with limited funding can look forward to making a lot of slighty less expensive mistakes instead as we climb up the boating ladder.
At some point, after five or six goes you will probably end up with what any really rational person should have bought in the first place. ?
The awful alternatives are worth considering, you may at some point give up and pack it all in ,cheerfully give any money you have left in the boat to some broker and go back to golf or caravaning.

A trip out on the boat of your dreams is advised, it is usually sufficent to bring most of us firmly back to earth, just getting on and off might be enough.

:)
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And it's the worst time in many, many years to be trying to buy a boat. Stuff Davey Jones should be repossessing is going for 50K.
 
Alicatt said:
The ferry I have seen operating out round the isles like Eigg has been an ex RNLI Tyne class lifeboat

Coming in to Armadale on Skye to pick up the doctor to go out to Eigg, while in the pic it looks fairly calm, it was blowing hard and the car ferry was cancelled for it being too rough.
View attachment 160304
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Speed bonny boat,
Like a bird on the wing etc

Got all moist of eye there.
 
Greg2 said:
Absolutely and that is why we ended up with two of them.

When we were researching options another well known RIB manufacturer hired a professional skipper to take us out on a sea trial and when we mentioned that Redbay were also a consideration he described them as the equivalent to F1 in the RIB world.

Redbay use KAB suspension seats, which allow you to dial your weight in and do a pretty good job but here is no getting away from the fact that going fast in a seaway means a certain degree of being bashed around. Undoubtedly better in a Redbay than some others but those suspension seats are still a must have. Of course, a skilled helm also makes a difference and whilst I do occasionally skipper the boats at work I wouldn’t necessarily put myself in that category. 😉
.
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Dial your weight in? What fresh hell is this..?
 
Bouba said:
There is some truth...because once you sell...you know that you can buy the boat you really want...
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.................................but never quite have the money to do so ?

Some poor soul starts a thread wanting advice to spend about spending £50 quid on a boat, which is probably £25 quid more than he actually has to spend.
1001 posts later he will be getting advice about where the 2nd helicoptor pad should be located, closer to the crew cabin and not the master.

BPC. **.
Everytime you log onto the broker websites your max price slides heedlessly up, curiously never down, until you are so far out of your league that only a lottery win would really solve the problem, this is usually followed by dire warnings that you will be mostly anchored off shore as the boat will be to big to get into most marinas.








** Buyer Price Creep.
 
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