Out of season sales?

[Tideline]

Hi, new to the site, and have a question that any of might be able to answer - I am wanting to buy a 4 metre inflatable boat and have looked at prices and spec. As the UK summer has apparently been, and as good as gone already I am happy waiting before I spend out for a boat which will be used next summer.. My question is this - rather than going out to buy one this weekend, do chandlers and boat suppliers have out of season sales when my money will go further?
Thanks.

 

[alan006]

If you wait till the Excel boatshow in London in January you will probably get a good deal. This assumes it is not too far from where you are.

 

[BartW]

in this time of year you could also find some really good second hand boats, people who bought something before summer holliday, and notice they don't like it or bought the wrong boat, or some more experienced users who want to buy a bigger model, they start offering the boat for sale from now.... I bought my first boat, A 10 year old 5m zodiac in september, we used it for 4 years, and had lots of fun with it

 

[volvopaul]

Talk to David at BHG Marine at Bucklers Hard they have some good deals on, you may get a nearly new one at a good price.

01590613600 ask for david at bucklers hard.

 

[Cliveshep]

You don't say whether or not you are going to use this as a fun boat on a day out basis or as a tender. Assuming it's a fun boat, occasional use, then the cheapest large inflatable is probably the 12ft from Cleveland Pools, (you can Google for them) costing around £450. A word of warning, I bought one to go in the caravan when we went away, it has loose floorboards which lock together and comes in a coffin-sized bag weighing in at a back-breaking 96kgs! I had a purpose-made aluminium trailer made for the beast, which splits after 5 minutes work with a spanner. The whole lot with trailer, boat, 20hp Yamaha and 3.3hp Mariner stows (just) in the van, on the car's roof rack etc. We do have a 6 berth van and a large 4x4 to drag it all around but we are close to over-loaded.

Having it on a trailer makes trips out a lot easier. Another thing is pumping it up. With a foot pump it's "start today to sail tomorrow" and I bought an electric air pump and a small gennie to drive it (it's 240 volt) and this does the job in 10 minutes, not bad for an 8-man boat. It planes 4-up with the 20 Yammie and is roomy and a lot of fun. It has a vee-bottom with an inflatable sausage under the floor boards creating the vee. I used it off the coast in both Wales and Lyme Bay this year just after some pretty horrendous weather (red flags out) and so long as you don't go mad (fast) into the 5ft waves going out you don't get too wet and feel quite safe.

The Yamaha was £165 from E-Bay, non-runner, needing a lot of clean and painting, total carb strip including boring out the little balls pressed into the carb jetways and re-drilling them to clear corrosion blockages and re-sealing with lead hammered into the blocking-off points where I'd drilled-out the balls. I also made up some throttle linkages and a home-made twist grip control as it was remoted before but now it runs well and ticks over like new. Cost me £50 in bits and the same in Halfords spray-paint and lacquer and a further £11 for new decals. Lots of fun for little money. You can make your own trailer from an old ali ladder and some Towsure bits and I would have done that had a friend not made it at work for me.