THE BORN AGAIN BOAT OWNER
NICK BURNHAM: Thereõs no such thing as treating your boat to a few cheeky extras. The little things nonchalantly add up, burning a big tailor-made hole in your pocketé
Remember my offhand comment a few columns back about how I have finished spending on the big expensive mechanical bits and am now able simply to enjoy the odd discretionary purchase? Well so do the boating gods, and they were none too chuffed by my glib remark. Naturally I had to be punished.
The tonneau cover was first. With the stitching rotting and coming away, seams parting, and water finding its way through, it was finally time to put it out to pasture. Adrian at Bay Covers is a lovely chap and made a splendid job of my winter cover. The thing with Adrian is that if you can take a somewhat ‘relaxed’ view of delivery times then you get a great product at a reasonable price. I gave him a call and he wandered over for a chat.
I told him I’d like a white vinyl one, he explained that I meant a dark blue Sunbrella canvas one, and we shook hands. Now this new cover was going to be a little different to the last, so it wasn’t just a case of patterning the old one. I wanted the new one to go to the base of the windscreen (the old one fitted to the top) which required new fittings to be attached to the boat. This threw up another issue as there’s a nav light jutting proud from the centre of the windscreen frame.
It took several visits to the boat, painstakingly measuring and fitting before the cover was produced and it is magnificent. It even has a little hat built into it to fit over that nav light, and a pole props the centre (clipped into a popper) to hold it aloft. I love it, as do most of the seagull population of Torquay Harbour. The cost of this handmade bespoke item? About £500.
No sooner had my lovely new cover gone on than I noticed diesel in the bilge beneath the 140-litre aluminium fuel tank. I checked all the fittings and the filter – all dry. My tank was leaking. I recalled the broker telling me that the previous owner had had it patched in the past – alloy tanks do corrode. This was going to require a whole new tank.
Of course these things are a very specific size and shape for every boat, you can’t just call ‘Tanks R Us’ and ask for a size seven. I called a couple of companies and got a competitive quote from Phoenix 316 in Plymouth. They subcontract for a certain Plymouth boatbuilder so I figured they must be good. We drained the tank, lifted it out and shipped it down. Only I didn’t go for aluminium again. Oh no, this was to be finest marine grade 316 stainless steel! Double baffled and made to precisely the same dimensions as the old tank, with fittings for the filler, send and return feeds, fuel gauge sender and breather lovingly replicated, and then pressure tested to 5psi to ensure absolute integrity. It’s a work of art and they turned it around in less than a week – impressive! The cost of this British-craftsman created-and-honed one-off? £566.40 inc VAT.
Finally, my outdrive tilt rams are leaking. I’ve had issues with these before but struggled on. However, with the slick behind the boat spreading and Greenpeace circling in fast RIBS, it was time to bite the bullet. Fortunately this time there was no customisation needed and the rams are just very simple pistons. All that’s required is for a man in a brown store coat to get a couple off the shelf and pop them in the post. The cost for a pair? £1,460! Can you guess what colour my engine is? (If you can’t, just ask Bruce Banner…)
No sooner had my lovely new cover gone on than I noticed diesel in the bilge beneath the fuel tank