Archive for December 1st, 2009
Originally, the idea was to look for, buy and move onto a Dutch Barge. After having looked at some barges and spoken to their owners it seemed that the ideal course of action was actually to get a barge built to order. Neither of us wants to live on a floating museum, so the idea of buying an original Dutch Barge and renovating it to its former glory has never appealed. Quite the opposite, in fact. I, more than Selena, am very keen on the idea of building a modern boat that uses the most appropriate technology to create a new kind of living space. Plus, converting an existing boat that was designed for carrying freight means that there are unwanted bulkheads and anchor wells in all the wrong places. With a new build there is less necessity for compromise.
Whilst it is all very well for me to extoll the virtues of modern boats and materials there remains a single, seemingly insurmountable problem – where will we keep the bloody thing? We live in east London, and want to continue living there. We had already chosen Springfield Marina as the destination of choice, and we knew full well that there was no chance of turning up there with a 70ft boat and asking for a place to stay. So, we thought, why not buy a smaller boat, one that we can get lots of use out of and which can familiarise us with boats and their ways (and they do have their own ways!).
The best way to get a boat is to buy one that is already on a mooring so we started looking for a barge (a narrowboat, that is), 30-40ft long, for sale in the marina. We also looked elsewhere since it was much more likely that we would find something we wanted that didn’t come with a mooring – we could worry about that when the time came. The best place to look for boats is on the internet, with Apollo Duck and Boats and Outboards being the best sites. Personally, and in contrast to my opening statements about new boats, I wanted to get something classic. Something, that is, with a bit of character and not some plastic monstrosity. I was also looking for other boats besides narrowboats.
In December of 2005 I saw this advert on Apollo Duck: “27ft/8ft converted WW2 Dutch Patrol Boat (1941). Steel Hull. Double Bedroom, incredible use of space with decent storage. Fully equipped bathroom with shower/sink/toilet. Spacious wheelhouse/kitchen. Beautiful carpentry. No other boat like this on the Thames. Reluctant sale after very happy time living aboard due to pregnancy.”
Hmmm….. I thought, that sounds more like it. I went to see the boat in Kingston. ‘Ordu’ was moored behind Marks & Spencer for the day, and I loved her as soon as I saw her. I now committed the cardinal sin of buying boats – I wanted to get it without having a survey done. And this in spite of the fact that I knew that the gearbox needed replacing and that the boat didn’t have a safety certificate (or, therefore, insurance)! Well, I just felt that it was right and that it was an adventure and that the best thing to do was to go with it and have some fun.
Anyway, Selena came to visit the next weekend and she fell in love with her too. We brought a chequebook with us so that we could put a deposit on her immediately, which we did. Rather than being moored in central Kingston, this time she was moored at the bottom of the garden of an abandoned house in Thames Ditton along with a motley collection of narrowboats. This was not a good sign, but we went with it anyway. The deposit was given on condition that the current owner replaced the gearbox for us. We tentatively arranged to pick the boat up on Boxing Day.
When we got home we looked up ‘Ordu’ on Google. We found this advert from the previous owner: “1927 Dutch steel cruiser,`ORDU’, really lovley little craft, 15,000 pound overhaul 2 years ago, change of situation means quick sale required, this little boat is a huge bargain. Shower room, fridge, electric central heating, solid fuel stove, etc.”
She now appeared to have been built in 1927 (the correct date, as we subsequently discovered). We also found that we were paying somewhat more than the current owner had paid, but since we were happy with that price we couldn’t complain. We had, after all, found ourselves a boat!
Selena and I bought ‘Ordu’ in December 2005. We had been thinking about living on a Dutch Barge for several years in a fairly abstract sort of way, but during the course of 2005 we started getting serious. We scoured the rivers and canals of east London to see what sort of residential moorings were available and how we could get hold of one. Anyone who has ever undertaken this quest will tell you at the start that it is a lost cause, but I guess we just had to see for ourselves. Well, we saw. There are plenty of tiny moorings on the Regents Canal but the chances of actually getting a Dutch Barge that far up the canal are slim (no pun intended!), let alone the chances of actually securing a mooring there.
There are plenty of moorings on the Thames but very few of them are residential. Boat people will tell you not to worry about whether they are residential or not because British Waterways turn a blind eye, but they have started cracking down on unofficial residential moorings and are turning people away for staying where they shouldn’t.
Neither Selena nor I want the uncertainty of being kicked off our unofficial residential mooring with nowhere to go and a 70ft boat to house, so we looked at the ‘official’ residential marinas. These are Poplar Dock Marina on the Isle of Dogs and Limehouse Marina in Wapping (at this point you might be asking why we haven’t considered the Thames in West London – the answer is that we live in, work in and like east London). Having looked at these marinas we crossed Poplar Dock off the list immediately, even though we looked at several barges there that were for sale (have you ever been to Poplar? Perhaps a more pertinent question is would you ever go back?). We loved Limehouse, but the chances of getting a mooring there are roughly the same as of me being asked to captain the England football team.
What, then, were we to do? There is a marina in east London that just happens to be 25 minutes walk from our flat. In the summer we spent most of our time in park opposite and we had fallen in love with the marina years ago, so it made perfect sense to look for a mooring there. Incidentally, I’m not going to tell you exactly where it is because one of the best things about it is that very few people know about it (although, given that no-one is likely to read this perhaps this isn’t too much of a problem)
OK, so now we have decided where we want to put our boat how do we go about getting a mooring? Um… we don’t! When we asked at the marina office about putting ourselves on the waiting list we were cheerfully told that the waiting list had been scrapped some time ago when it had reached a wait of 20 years! This, unfortunately, is the problem with all residential moorings in London. There are so many people like us who want a boat that once someone gets a mooring they don’t tend to part with it. Even if they are getting rid of a mooring, the chances of it being advertised outside of the marina are miniscule. The only way you can get into the marina to hear about such opportunities, however, is to have a boat there because the marina is only accessible to berth holders. Hmmm, catch 22.
It seemed as though there were only two options: buy a boat that is already on a mooring in the marina of your choice and risk having to wait years, or maybe even decades, until that boat comes up for sale (and then have to bid against several other hungry potential boat owners for the privilege) or buy a boat that you like and wait until a mooring becomes available. The second option is risky, because you may spend years moving the boat every two weeks (you can’t stay longer than 14 days on a temporary mooring) until a mooring becomes available. That is the option we took, though, and it paid off as we now have a permanent mooring just where we wanted it.
