where do mobos go to die?

ian38_39

ian38_39

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With the current economic climate and ever increasing fuel costs coupled with the age of the oldest GRP boats I started thinking that sooner or later boats will get to the point that you can't give them away.

So what do you do with them then?
 
Theres one beside the railway line in a ditch.

But the more general answer is "Up the river, where they go green".
 
This is a fairly new thing as GRP boats are only just starting to get to an age where they will need to be scrapped.
There are plenty of car breakers but does the same exist for boats?
 
ian38_39 said:
This is a fairly new thing as GRP boats are only just starting to get to an age where they will need to be scrapped.
There are plenty of car breakers but does the same exist for boats?
Click to expand...

Not really, much of the stuff on a 50 year old GRP boat will not be that valuable even as scrap. Many larger raggies get refrbished from time to time & retain their value. MoBos have a problem in that the major part of the value is in the engines, once a boat slips down the value chain, the engines don't get properly cared for & replacing them just isn't economically sensible.

Most big old wooden MoBos seem to end up as house boats, I'd expect GRP ones to do the same. No need for engines, but the accomodation will still be sound for years to come & stuff like cushions, white goods etc can easily & relatively cheaply be replaced.
 
'But the more general answer is "Up the river, where they go green".'

Off the back of this a couple of years back i was approached by a Thames boat yard to work as a consultant surveyor for an EA project. Effectively they wanted to gather up any old decaying boats that hadnt been licenced for a few years, lift them, have them surveyed/valued and then either sold on or disposed off. As has been pointed out FRP isnt an environmentally friendly substance to dispose off, and it means that most owners dump their boats rather than pay to have them safely disposed of them. I think it indicates that the authorities realise that something will have to be done in the long term.
Interestingly many of the early production FRP boats i have worked on have been built like brick out houses (usually where builders went for a safety in numbers approach to lamination where exact tolerances werent known) and apart from soggy bottoms are usually fine for messing about on the rivers.
 
ian38_39 said:
With the current economic climate and ever increasing fuel costs coupled with the age of the oldest GRP boats I started thinking that sooner or later boats will get to the point that you can't give them away.

So what do you do with them then?
Click to expand...

People buy them to use on the river, especially the old gas guzzling petrol ones :D
 
Thats a very good question because AFAIK, grp is non recyclable so its not as if the hulls can be broken up and the material re-used and so far, nobody knows how long grp hulls will last anyway. I think the answer is that, apart from the few that sink to the bottom of the briny, grp boats don't die. Of course this begs the question as to where they've all gone because marinas certainly seem emptier in the UK and some parts of the Med than a few years ago. Manufacturers keep building them, importers keep importing them albeit in much smaller numbers than a few years ago and yet the older ones don't die. A mystery indeed. Some have certainly gone to Scandinavia recently but I guess that can't account for all of them. Maybe people are increasingly finding cheaper moorings away from marinas or more people tow their boats from home? I dunno
 
I think most of them are on the River Ouse between York and Naburn camourflaged by a thick green moss.

For a boater (OK ex boater) its quite a sad sight to see so many neglected vessels.
 
ian38_39 said:
With the current economic climate and ever increasing fuel costs coupled with the age of the oldest GRP boats I started thinking that sooner or later boats will get to the point that you can't give them away.
Click to expand...

Interesting! When we bought our boat seven years ago, I said to the dealer "I'm not buying a boat unless I can find a berth for it".
The situation then was that berths appeared to be so difficult to get, that many marina's were rationing them by a waiting list, which as I recall one had to pay for to get onto. I could never visualize that situation altering - unless of course more marina's were built, and this I could not see happening.
Major mystery to me as to just where all these boats have disappeared to? But vanish they must have done, considering how many vacant berths there are about. Quite a number have been sold abroad, I do know that.
 
I'm still trying to find the bottom of the ladder, to get some one to view my boat, both my broker and I get the usual e mails, but as what you say nothing happens.

I've lowered the price again. She's a well sought after boat, but after twelve months the result is nothing.
 
Does illustrate what I have been saying.
Older diesel boats, even popular models will hit a point where the traditional buyers can't afford the running costs, hence a link is missing from the chain that will eventually hit every one.

There will always be a pool of wealthy boaters who are fairly immune to conditions around them but the middle manager that bought these boats isn't going to be able to.

Hence older 30-40' boats, even good ones as this appears to be, drop in value like a stone.
 
I think the current slow trade in older boats is much to do with confidence. People who typically buy older boats are often downsizing from bigger houses or inherited some money. At present I think a lot of people are now worried about the state of their pensions and the house is not worth what they hoped. As a result they are sitting tight just in case things get worse.

Saying that I know some inland marinas last year were short of boats to sell across a range of sizes. Unfortunately anyone selling has either got to drop the price a lot or be patient. I suspect the belief that older boats stop depreciating isn't true anymore.
 
The closing gap between petrol and diesel fuel prices will, in my opinion, see many turning from expensive diesel to cheaper petrol boats.

The market does seem to be very quiet. My Settimo Velo (twin Mercruiser V6) has received much interest from enthusiasts but little interest of any worth from buyers.

As we now have some of the highest fuel prices in the world here in the UK - and a growing sense that we're no longer doing so terribly well for ourselves! - I can see people walking away from their boats and passing the problem back to the Finance company!

That said, with GBP continuing to be weak against the Euro, I can see our fleet starting to have some appeal to the Med, if the price is right. And if the price isn't right, we'll need to figure out how to dispose of a bungalow sized pieces of GRP!
 
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