It's been a pretty good season for us all told, kicking off with the Thames Valley rally, and culminating in last weeks BCC laying up rally, every event and trip being, well, uneventful really!

The little B was polished twice, serviced and other than a slight drip from a hose, which was fixed in a few minutes (I wrongly identified a gasket, fixed it just to find a nearby hose had rubbed through, DOH!) has not suffered a single failure or glitch in 120 hours of use!

Yet, we feel a larger vessel is in order, so we can invite a few friends along for overnighters, and two beds-two heads are required.

Having seen an immaculate Broom 30 III with flybridge (Can you believe the guy had it re-gelcoated and remade the windows??) we will be offering No Regrets up for sale.

The name is a problem, as we love it, but feel removing it from the boat is like ripping her heart out, as she was born with it back in 1978, so perhaps 'No Regrets II' or 'Still No Regrets' will be our next boats name...?

While we never looked back at FuFu, or Shamby, this is going to be a hard one  

No we have looked at a few larger Birchwoods, but very few have a Flybridge, and many are well abused examples, whereas we had a choice of many B25's, and picked the one which ticked all the boxes. There are not enough B33's, or whatever, to choose from.

We might even scrub the idea, but this Broom is truly a sight to behold  

http://www.thamesboatsales.co.uk/boat_detail_xml.asp?ID=13136174&btpFN=13136174_2.jpg&btsBoatName=Nephthys&btsMan=BROOM%2030%20MKIII%20Flybridge



Heelp...am I going to regret this?  

--Last edited by No Regrets on 2008-10-27 19:54:55 --

Any move away from a Birchwood is always a bad move.  ;)

Looks good and solid boat. Change in Gelcoat colour! Well if it was from that green colour to white, fair enough. But from cream to white. Hmmm only slightly suspicious but looks good anyway from the photos

 know those Brooms are well sought after - the mechanic at our last marina has his eye on an excellent one that was hardly being used and moved quickly to snap it up when it came up for sale. Took him two days to give it a polish however - there is a lot of boat there!

It all depends on your reasons for changing boats as to whether its a good idea - this one has a great deal more accommodation and it could be a coastal boat with that back up engine -if that's what you are after.

We have looked at various boats, and indeed other 25s, and came back to the view that we  have the boat we need - we just need to get it properly sorted!

If I was going to move up a boat to one I could just about afford, it would be a Fairline Mirage 29. But the one with the Aft cabin on shaft drive. Look modern still for its age and solid build quality.
Ok forward space is amaller but more practical overall as the aft cabin can be left setup as just the bedroom.
Sometimes the B25 can be tight when you have extra bodies on board with having to roll the bed up every day to make extra space for everyone.

Money no object. Well give me a Haines 320 anyday!

But its what needs you want it for and what is on the market at the right price.

I did not know you were that old!

1) Buy a Broom

2) Buy the Giant Slipper that you put BOTH feet in

3) Buy a nice Cardi

4) RETIRE!!

       

I like those TS31's, but the cost....ouch!

A flybridge is essential though, and I have an idea of chartering her weekends at £200-250 per day for up to 6 guests.

Is that feasible?  

Insurance company might be rubbing their hands with glee if you plan to charter it.

Oh yes, and don't forget a pipe to smoke when at the helm  

£600 a year to insure....

So are you putting an offer in for it then?

Not till this one's sold...

Been there, done that, and owned three boats at once due to buyers pulling out  

Accommodation on a boat all depends on how you use your boat - we usually use ours for family outings and frankly the B25's large aft cockpit is virtually unbeatable for that - unless you go up to a 32 foot Princess or similar. Our overnights are mostly just the wife and me and we would need to be very good friends with anyone else seeking a bed! OK there are six berths in theory but its a nice cabin for two!

As for flybridges and chartering - these are not things we get up to on our river system here in the Fens - stand up in a flybridge and we are likely to hurl insults at your presumption!

She's gone!*

We have accepted an offer on No Regrets, and our offer on Nephthys has also been accepted.

*subject to survey etc...


Do I have to resign now?  

You can stay... you are a founder member after all.

I hope you got a good price for No Regrets (you heartless monster you!)  

A slight gain from the buying price, but we spent lots of time and money over the last year, improving, upgrading, repairing and polishing.

I stood in her cabin yesterday wondering if we were doing the right thing. She's really very presentable these days, and all the toys work too, heating, lights, you name it.

And thats rare if the Sales pontoon boats are anything to go by  :/  

Still, we had a superb year on board, and no issues at all!  

--Last edited by No Regrets on 2008-11-03 16:10:49 --

If you sell for about the same money as you paid, that's about right for this end of the Birchwood market.  Depreciation, inflation, work done, minor damage suffered, etc... all seem to cancel each other out.

Well done!  

(So, where is the Broom forum?  ;) )

Oh, there was a slight loss if you consider the money spent, and improve,ments, but it could have been worse, as I did much of it myself.

The joys of these old boats...

The newer technology of our previous boat was scary. Sterndrives, Diesel turbo's and the Volvo EVC stuff...great until it goes wrong, then the bills are vast.

Watermota goes wrong: open drawer, pull out £3 worth of parts and fix it with a 13mm socket and screwdriver...Bliss!

Well I really hope it all goes well too.
Remember you can't slate Birchwoods once you've moved over to the dark side though.  

And talking of the dark side, as the new boat is named after a goddess of the dead. You might still wanna consider swapping names over.
But I have seen a boat called Le Osiris on the river. Its her brother!

While I don't particularly like the Brooms name, I'm not a big fan of changing them either.

Upon saying that, 'Nephthys' doesn't really suit her...

"While I don't particularly like the Brooms name, I'm not a big fan of changing them either.

A name has to be appropriate.  Before we bought her, Nimue was called Nathan after the owner's grandson.  The name meant nothing to us and nothing to the boat, so we had no hesitation in changing it to something more appropriate.

It may be that the name Nephthys was given in order to amusingly imply something like 'SWMBO', but Wikipedia says that that is wrong.  The currently accepted meaning is much darker (even more so than Nimue) and I'm not sure I'd keep it.  

--Last edited by brianlj on 2008-11-04 10:40:25 --

Quote :

Nephthys quite often is featured as a rather ferocious and dangerous divinity, capable of incinerating the enemies of the Pharaoh with her fiery breath

Ooh, I quite like the sound of that.

Just imagine all those Narrow boats on fire along the river...[quote]