Shares this small don't come on the market very often - this is your chance to get on the canals for a quarter the cost of hiring.
After about 12 years of brilliant boating on nb
Shadow we now need to sell our half-share* as we hope to do more cruising on
Jubilee. Especially when Ally and Ben have (eventually) bought their house.
Shadow is a six-berth 58' semi-trad narrowboat built in 1995 by Pat Buckle.
The great advantage of a "half-share" is that all the costs are immediately halved. And you still get plenty of boating every year as there are often "spare" weeks to be had.
Shadow started out as a 12-share boat but, following the collapse of management company OwnerShips a few years ago, it is now a 10-share boat, meaning that my share is effectively 1/20.
Think of all the running costs of a boat over a year and divide by 20, and you can see that it's not very much. Certainly much less than hiring for the same number of weeks. If you buy my share you will become a member of the syndicate which owns the boat outright. We currently choose to have the boat managed for us by BCBM, one of the biggest players in the shared boat world. If you look at their website (
click here) you can see a breakdown of running costs for last year which will give you a good idea of the costs. Don't forget, you pay half the amount quoted for a full share, i.e. about £600 per year including the management fee. There is lots of other useful stuff about Shadow on the BCBM website.
saloon looking towards bow: the two armchairs convert to single beds
dinette: this converts to a double bed
galley with microwave oven, four-ring gas hob, gas oven, 12V fridge
view from galley past dinette to saloon
newly-fitted main bathroom with pump-out loo, sink, shower
battery charger and inverter
bedroom with fixed double bed: this extends to king size
view from bedroom to stern showing en-suite additional pump-out loo and sink to right of steps
semi-trad stern with plenty of space for crew
a lovely well-maintained boat ...
... with a very quiet engine, a BMC 1800 with hospital silencer
If we didn't have another boat we would not be selling, as
Shadow is extremely good value for money, and a fantastic way of getting a couple of weeks' holiday each year. The boat is currently moored at Wigram's Turn Marina at Napton Junction (near Daventry). The mooring location is agreed by the syndicate at the annual general meeting, usually held in Walsall in the autumn (attendance not compulsory!)
All we are asking for our 1/20 share is £1,250.
*Update to clarify re. half shares: When narrowboats started to be sold into managed shared ownership the boats were usually split into 12 equal shares. So a "half share" refers to half of a 1/12 share, i.e. a 1/24 share. A "half share" isn't half of the boat. As I have tried to explain above, Shadow now comprises eight "full" shares and four "half" shares making ten shares in total. Therefore my portion is effectively 1/20 of the boat; I pay 1/20 of the maintenance costs etc. But the syndicate is still trying to sell two more "full" shares to bring it back to a 12-share boat. If this happens there will be two consequences: each owner's costs will reduce by 17%; and there will be slightly fewer weeks available, but remember that there are often unclaimed weeks every year.
