HOW IT BEGAN

I first saw Pentargon in August 2011. 

​It had taken a while to get to where I was at that time, many miles, many detours, many viewings, each an eventual time-waster.   
​I'd been told that if YOU have the patience to keep looking YOUR dream will find YOU 
​
​Pentargon had bided her time while I had pursued my quest, waiting patiently until I was just about ready to give up searching. 
​
​My patience tank was running on the fumes
as I left the latest 'offering'
somewhere in Buckinghamshire. 
Or was it Bedfordshire? Or maybe Cheshire? 
My notes said, tersely
​"Pentargon. Marina. A5 Weedon. Near M1" 
​Deciding there was nothing to lose,
I motored up the A5
til fornenst Watford Gap
and drove through a field of rapeseed
behind which hid a ​'marina'. 
It was nearing the end of August
and nearing the end of my patience.  

I'd been to one marina too many
and had viewed more than one crappy canal boat
Online pictures for Pentargon were not appealing. 
The associated sales pitch was not appealing. 
The price was somewhat over my depth. 
​(slide show here from original brochure)

​But Pentargon's spirit nudged me to at least look. 
You really can't beat a real-time look.
That's where the internet fails me  
​I want to feel the width

​I want to macerate in the material.  I want to smell the coffee rather than look at a picture of the rising steam and marvel at the photogenic qualities of the cup it's in.  

​When I want something I will not be side-tracked by a deceitful web trying to sell me tat I patently neither need nor want.  

​​I am inured to a churning  algorithm. 

I am the Origin of my Species: 

The  Off-grid Floating Caveman. 

​Gaia my god. Nature is my teacher.

​I am searching for my man-cave.

Something about Pentargon was "right".  She ticked all my wish list boxes and my every instinct screamed "This is the one" 

NEW PAGE AND WORK IN PROGRESS

How to buy a boat

To purchase a boat youmay  use  an internet site like Apolla Duck  or canalside chines whispersy or throw caution to the winds and buy on the spur of the moment.   Few come with a pre-existing experience of floating on water.  The very best advise I might give is that if you are even considering living on the canal you should hire a boat for a week in the middle of winter ideally of the size you might like to live in.  Pretend to yourself that you are thinking of buying it and spend the week listing all the reasons you would buy it and all the reasons you would not.

Reality Starts Here

​You can pay serious bread-loaves
for what you can see above the water line
and more for what you can not see under it.  ​
​You can buy a floating water sieve
​and an unseen money-sieve
into which to pour
all your present savings
and your future hard-earned
​and buy a total junker. 

Throw in a Full Survey and with any luck get a nice boat.  Surveys cost! 
Alternatively to all the above schemes you can deal through a broker. 
​ I had no option with my acquisition. 
​Pentargon was with a broker 

​If you want to do business through a broker, you can't just rock up kick a few tyres haggle a price and maybe a guarantee or call in an 'expert' or a surveyor  to give it a going-over as you would with a house or a car or a painting.   

​Buying a boat through a broker is done on the same contract as you would use to purchase the Britannia (or the Titanic now I come to think of it). 

Brokers can be tedious; mine was a classic.
I found out later he had sold insurance and had only fallen into this line of business by marrying the boss's daughter.  Insurance is a great place to learn how to read small print without seeing the bigger picture. 

I took my broker off guard
​I pointing at my boat and asked:- 
"How much?" 
He told me how much he wanted; 
which was about twice what I had in mind
I asked him what he would accept 
​​He told me to make an offer
... under contract!  ... 
with no back out clause! 
​
Having a drive was out of the question. 
​Even starting the engine was a no-no. 
​You only get to drive a boat you want to buy from a broker if you're very lucky with your broker.
​May I point out that, in a brokerage, every boat is owned by a private individual.  The broker is a custodian but responsible for the security of every boat under his charge.  Someone who has an insurance background may be good at minding boats but not necessarily at selling them.  ​To even look inside the boat, I had to prise the key from his clenched teeth and walk unaided to it. 

But, having looked at her lines and had a quick look round inside, things  looked promising.  ​She matched every item on my "Wish List".  ​But if I were to sign a contract, I would need to, de jure, commit to purchase without sea-trials
A "full' survey would cost around £500 plus the dreaded VAT (£120) and first I would have to pay to have the boat hauled out. 
Looking at a SPRINGER, as I was, the broker told me he would need an 'excess' on the basis that he would have use extra gear. 

"because it has not got a flat bottom and you will need to hire our special cradle". 

Hauling would be £400 (VAT included) and the survey total would ascend to £1000+ 

​This "excess" is a total load of horse-bollox but you don't know that so you pay up.  36ft Springers have a very shallow angle and can be treated as flat-bottomed.  ​ How could you have known?  I'd come in from the sea and had been told that ALL canal boats have flat bottoms and not yet studied the theory and practice of 
Sam's 
Springers. ​
​TWO hyper-links here!
​Press the back button to return! 
​
​You can only have a boat surveyed at a
brokerage after you've made an offer in
​writing on a legally watertight contract 
subsequently accepted by the  seller. 
​
​That is how the system works.  Also, you must lay down a 10% deposit and commit to purchase before a surveyor is allowed near  the boat. 

​This is a good time to underline that particular brokers may have "a mutual arrangement' with particular surveyors.  ​I know of at least one marina where, if you want a surveyor who has no 'agreement' in place, they require the survey to be done out in the cut, but in clear view! Fat chance of getting at the only part which matters.  The wetted hull.  Watch yourselves.  There are some right sharks around. 
The broker now has you over a barrel. 
He brings in a few apes on day rates,
pays them peanuts
gets some monkey work done,
sweeps up the shells
and the surveyor oks it! 
There is some VERY interesting small print in a "legally watertight contract" 
​like:-
if a survey shows up defects which can be 'fixed'
within a contracted budget,
fixing is done by the SELLER or his "AGENT"
but at the BUYER'S expense. 
No prizes for guessing who the "agent" is?  ​
Muggins pays wads ON TOP of the price,
for a boat which enters muggins life ropey 

"The broker has you over a barrel. 
He brings in a few apes on day rates,
pays them peanuts
gets some monkey work done,
sweeps up the shells
and the surveyor oks it!"

This was NOT applicable to my purchase
but appears to be what had happened to Pentargon 
when a previous owner purchased it  ...
Buyers come in all shapes, sizes and skills,
sometimes (but rarely) with experience
in sheet metal fabrication, 
plumbing, carpentry,  engines,  gearboxes, 
sign-writing,  galvanic corrosion
and the price of a short length of string. 
 SMALL PRINT
​If a boat should fail a marine survey under the terms of a legally binding marine contract (because the faults cannot be put right for x% of the agreed price) the 'buyer' can walk away. But all you get back is your deposit.  You should be prepared to 'lose' up to £1000 (for survey, slipping and slippage) and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day apart from a gaping hole in your wallet about the same size as a nice holiday for two in Madeira

Interesting side issue to a failed survey
​
​Sometimes, in doing the test, the surveyor might knock a hole through the hull under the water-line with his little hammer.  Under these circumstances, the boat is instantly failed by the surveyor and the broker is notified.  The boat cannot be put back in the water until "repaired".  

As of that moment, it is both unsailable and unsaleable because the hole so hammered might cause it to sink in the water. 

​This clause matters with the Titanic, which went down in 11,000' of water but it also applies to canal boats which might not have two inches of free water under them

​The broker is now under notice, by the actual survey and marine law, that the boat is unsafe and he has to henceforth declare this fact.  Before that he could (and would) stay mum and be legally entitled to. 

​This little is gem is entered for readers who might be SELLING a boat which gets surveyed.   This law applies only under brokerage where participants are deemed to be qualified bull-shitters capable of delivering expert opinions and NOT to unqualified owners

QUALIFIED BULLSHITTERS

There is quite a difference between unqualified boaters and qualified bullshitters.  The difference is even greater than the difference between boaters and boatmen.  A private owner is not 'qualified' because he can not show certificates therefore [s]he is not LEGALLY ABLE to KNOW a boat is dangerous ... even if he is told it is by a qualified bullshitter or by a marine surveyor, the majority of whom are highly qualified, competent, skilled and experienced and even more like to be thus if their hair is grey.  Watch out for BSS examiners who may be certified for BSS but may NOT be qualified and certified surveyors.  If I were buying a boat described as 'BSS certified' I would want to know WHO did the survey in case it was a qualified bullshitter
​
Meanwhile back at the survey.  If the survey is not quite 100%, maybe a weak spot in the hull or some dodgy problem which could fall under a definition of 'boat not fit for purchase' but which can be be fixed for [up to] say 5% of the agreed purchase price (on a £20,000 punt that would be £1000!) you the purchaser is obliged by contract to ask/demand that the seller fix it, but at the purchaser's expense, after which the surveyor rubber-stamps the fix and certifies the boat as "fit for purchase". 

​See notes on connivance of interested parties.  Be assured the seller is [almost] never party to these shenanigans. 

​The purchaser is obliged to go through with a contracted purchase without any legal or financial recourse.  I can guarantee from observation, research and talking to unqualified boaters who got burned thusly,  you'll have bought a pup, a dog, and a-pig-in-a-poke all in one transaction.   "Think Fast Buy Slow". 

​Once the boat is yours and the cheque cleared, so are ALL the inherited problems.  It is entirely justifiable and eminently sensible to make haste slowly.
​
The 'normal' or usual way a marine surveyor proceeds is to go over the boat in the water "as seen".  His "brief" is to find anything and everything affecting its 'fit for purpose'  status which his client - YOU - could use to pull the price down! 

​Once the inside is done and the engine is tested at the moorings, the surveyor gets the yard to haul the boat out (at your expense!) so he can check the "wetted hull" provided of course that he is not on the yard's black list. 

​Canny purchasers might be able to use this haul-out  IF THE BOAT PASSES SURVEY  to steam-clean or pressure-wash the bottom, check or even replace anodes, examine blacking OR PAY THE YARD TO DO IT, thus securing maybe four years of happy boating before the boat it has to be hauled out again. 

Be aware however that at law you are messing with someone else's boat and the charges come out of your pocket 
​
Most surveyors are separately BSS certified and will [usually] include a Safety Certificate within the cost of a full survey if this is helpful or applicable.  In Pentargon's case her BSC was due to run out in April 2012 so a bonus would come with the survey (provided it passed).  The survey was in mid January but the BSC could be forwarded to it's expiry date.  In the event it did not apply. 

​Pentargon's survey was eventually signed off in May after she'd been bottomed.  The very best surveyors charge higher rates but you get a better product. 

Buying a boat from a broker is outside credit card territory.  Broker Marinas have separate accounts for sales, moorings, repairs, and fettlin 'n' fuellin'. 

​Your hard-earned may have to be moved to a current account to pay the balance by Cheque.  Provided of course your potential purchase has passed it's survey.  To reduce pissin about, you might consider getting a banker's draft: it might speed things up? ... Or not? ...  

... ​Pentargon FAILED on the 4mm rule ... 
​
As of that moment, it was [legally] ... junk

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