Category: Buying an Ex-Hire Boat

Posted on

Our Boat Specification

I put this information together about our boat just after we collected it from Black Prince and forgot to publish it on the blog, so here it is finally 🙂

Hull

  • Length 18.89m/62’0” 
  • Beam  2.1m/6’10” 
  • Draft: 600 mm/ 2′ 0″
  • Hull manufacturer: Pro-Build Narrowboats Ltd (Closed?)
  • Completed: 19th December 2007
  • Style: Cruiser
  • Hull thickness: Base 10mm, Sides 6mm Roof & Cabin side 4mm.
  • Cabin insulation: Self-extinguishing polystyrene foam.
  • Fitted out by: Black Prince Holidays Ltd
  • Unladen Weight: 14.5 tonnes
  • Max loaded weight: 17.3 tonnes
  • Max load: 905Kg (Max people 600Kg) excludes Water and Diesel.

Propulsion

  • Engine: Isuzu 42 4-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine.
  • Power: 42 hp/31.31 Kw @ 3000 pm.
  • Cooling: Water cooled via welded skin tank in hull.
  • Gearbox: PRM 150 manual marine gearbox with a 2:1 reduction.
  • Prop: 3 blade right-hand bronze propeller, 432mm (17″) diameter, pitch of 305mm (12″).
  • Max speed: Approx. 7.4 knots

Electrics

  • Alternators: 2 X 80 Amp
  • Leisure Batteries: 4 X Leoch Adventurer SFL-110
  • Starter Battery: 1 X Leoch Adventurer SFL-110
  • Inverter/Charger: 3500W (Sterling PCS123500)

Heating & Water

  • Calorifier: 54L/12 Gallon vertical twin-coil
  • Water Heating: Eberspacher D4W Hydronic diesel heater and the engine
  • Heating: Radiators via Eberspacher D4W Hydronic diesel heater

Tanks & Gas & Toilet

  • Fresh Water: 640-litres/140-gallons
  • Fuel Tank: 350-litres/77-gallons
  • Toilet Tank: 550-litres/120-gallons
  • Toilet: Tecma macerator type toilet (1 removed in redesign)
  • Gas: 2 X 13kg Calor propane bottles
Posted on

Repainted Roof

Today we went to collect Floydtilla from Black Prince at Stoke Prior, she had been returned to them to have a problem with the roof paint fixed, from what we can see they have stripped off the old paint and reapplied the primer and yellow topcoat, it now all looks beautifully smooth.

New roof paint

We had a lovely sunny day for our trip back to Droitwich Spa Marina, the only problem was the wind whipping across the marina, which made the slab sided canal boat into a sailing pushing us sideways when we tried to approach our mooring, after two attempts going up wind and turning, we decided to reversed past out berth and tried going downwind which made things a lot simpler. We are learning all the time.

Posted on

Teething problems and quick response

Floydtilla in our mooring
Floydtilla in our mooring

When we dropped Floydtilla at Droitwich Spa Marina last week, we had a little problem with using the marina power to charge the batteries. We did not have time to investigate then, so we left it all plugged in and hoped for the best.

Mary (daughter) and I decided to take a quick trip up this weekend, so I could investigate and she could decorate her bedroom area with some pictures.

I emailed Black Prince when we arrived and found the leisure batteries to be flat. I did not expect such a fast response but within an hour I had an answer and a visit was planned for the next day.  In the meantime as we had not arrived that late, I charged the batteries with the engine.

The next day we had a phone call, and Black Prince agents arrived within 15 minutes to take a look. A quick diagnosis was made,  the inverter was working, but the part that charges the batteries was not, a replacement would be ordered and fitted as soon as possible (We are lucky we are relatively close to their base, I was worried it was an 1D10T operator error, so I was a little relieved).

We also had a couple of paint issues, on the side, where the boat had been lifted, we had a couple of holes in the paintwork.

Holes from boat lift
Holes from boat lift

We also noticed that when the hatch was closed a patch of the roof paint had started to flake off. We had not noticed this when we collected her, as most of the time the hatch was open and only closed when we were inside or leaving in the rain.

Rust and flaking paint on roof
Rust and flaking paint on roof

These paint problems have been referred to Black Prince, I will be interested to see how they fix these. I imagine there must have been some surface contamination under the hatch lid, as there are no other problems we could find on the roof.

UPDATE 14/05/2021

Very quick response from Black Prince, they will repair the paintwork, we hope to drop Floydtilla off at the end of the next trip on the boat.

Posted on

Picking up Floydtilla

We were all very excited as we set off from Somerset to go and pick up Floydtilla from the Black Prince base in Stoke Prior. We aimed to get there for around 11:30 am so the rush of the hire customers getting underway would mostly be over.

Inspection and payment

When we arrived at Stoke Prior we could see Floydtilla in her new bright paint work, and we parked up in the yard. We had had the roof painted yellow and in the bright sun it will probably need sunglasses while we get used to it.  Hopefully this will keep the roof cooler, as the normal Black Prince dark blue can become a little hot to the touch.

They were all ready for us so we had a tour around and an in depth explanation of what we needed to know as an owner not a hire customer.

Black Prince Owners manual
Black Prince Owners manual

We got presented with what will become the Bible for Floydtilla which was a folder with all the manuals for the Engine, Gearbox, Heater etc, as well as 37 pages of general information and diagrams of all the systems. This was a gold mine of information and covered all the questions I had in my notes and I am sure many more to come.

In one of the cupboards they had also included two spare engine belts an air filter, fuel filter and oil filter, it is the little extras that make life simple.

Next came the fun with the bank: We had transferred all the money into our current account ready to make payment and informed the bank what was going to happen. They said that we would probably have to call to make such a large transfer as it could trigger the anti fraud limits. Once we were happy, Sonia tried to call the bank. The message on the automated response  let us know that “they have a high level of traffic at the moment” we did start to wonder when they didn’t! After 40 minutes hanging on we got to talk to a person and then a few minutes later we owned a boat.

Off to Droitwich Spa Marina

The Black Prince team had prepared everything, the diesel tank was full, all the beds made up, the boat had all it’s equipment just as we had used it in the summer.

I checked the engine hours (11,588) and then we asked them to help us turn her around and we set off down the Worcester and Birmingham canal towards Droitwich Spa Marina. What a great feeling, it was all finally ours.

We had a lot to learn as we found out a few hours later once we arrived at the marina. We had never moored in a marina before, and while we tried to find our allocated space the weather rained, hailed and blew us about.

Joining the queue at the Hanbury top lock

In a simple mistake we had been given the wrong berth number and when we found it, it was already in use, so we headed in to the next available berth. This took us many attempts and finally after a few four letter words we managed to get the bow in and finally tied up for the night. The office was now closed so we would sort out the correct berth in the morning.

Back to top