Buying a boat without a sea trial is a short sighted economy.

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Crick Boat Show 2026 opens at Crick Marina in Northamptonshire on Friday 22nd May.  Britain’s biggest inland waterways boat show opens its doors to trade visitors before the public arrive on Saturday.  It is Britain’s largest inland waterways boat show and draws hundreds of exhibitors, thousands of visitors and has more dogs than Crufts!

I”ll be there on Friday and Saturday. If you’re going as well, keep an eye out for me or drop me line at [email protected]

The 2nd edition of the Maritime Professional Council's 48-page guide ‘Lithium-ion battery fires: what we know so far’ , co-authored by Frances Birkett and Mike Schwarz from IIMS, highlights the growing risks of lithium-ion battery fires in the maritime industry, warning of rising risks that require stronger regulations, improved training, and coordinated safety measures.

Read more here: https://iims-media-library.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/31082047/Lithium-ion-battery-fires-what-we-know-so-far-E2.pdf

Buying your first boat is a BIG THING. There are a whole raft of things you need to think about and for the inexperienced first time buyer that can be pretty daunting. Being able to take a knowledgeable boaty friend along with you on the journey makes sense, but not everyone has one. That’s where 'How To Buy Your First Boat' comes in.

This free 50 page booklet will take you through the key steps you will probably encounter in a typical boat purchase. It will do this in a logical order and with suggestions, tips and advice along the way. It will equip you with enough knowledge to help you go from the first tentative steps of working out what you want, to looking at adverts, to how to view and then buy your first boat, taking the keys for the first time and preparing to head off into the sunset. You will gain the knowledge and confidence you need to make sensible decisions, choose the right boat for you and navigate the buying process from start to finish.

“It’s not very fast, is it?”.

When surveying older boats I often find it is the ever growing list of seemingly small defects that eventually leads to a ‘Walk away’ conclusion. They all cost money and take time to fix and as we all know, any marine shopping list gets expensive quickly. Fine if you are after a project boat, not if you want to just pay up and sail away.

So it was recently on a mid-1990s 38’ twin engine motor boat with a nice pair of original Volvo Penta straight six diesels. Both were low on oil, had cracked fuel hoses that were still partly sprayed green (a good clue they were original), a leaking diesel spill rail on one, a puddle of green coolant below the other and both with bubbles and diesel coming out of number 6 injector. Recent invoices for servicing from a Volvo Penta authorised repairer did not quite tally with what was on display.

Less than 10% of the inland waterways and 30% of coastal surveys I do involve a river or sea trial. They take time out of the day and require the owner to be present or willing to let the broker take the vessel out. Yet they are so important in a pre-purchase survey as it proved to be in this survey 

With a freshly cleaned bottom and 5 litres of oil added to the engines we headed out on sea trial. Both engines struggled to get above 3,000rpm (rated max 3,800rpm), the turbos did not spool up and the vessel barely made 10 knots. As new it would have made 20+ knots easily.

On paper, this was a promising boat for my client, but on sea trial the poor performance of the engines on top of a long list of defects made their decision to ‘Walk away’ easy. Had there been no sea trial, that poor performance would have come as a rude shock weeks or months down the line. And it would have been an expensive mistake indeed.

Diesel engines tend to burn more oil than petrol engines as they age. As a very rough rule of thumb plan on adding 0.5 to 1 litre of oil for every 1-2000 miles driven. In boats of course it is all about hours run rather than miles driven. So an easier figure is to plan on 0.25 to 0.5 litres of oil consumed per 100 litres of fuel used.

Keeping track of the oil used in your engine is good maintenance practice, so when the rate increases you notice it quicker and investigate.

There are several possible causes for increased oil consumption, none of them are good news. Piston wear allows oil into the combustion chamber which when burnt gives off the tell-tale blue smoke we associate with burning oil. N.B. Fuelling issues usually cause black smoke whilst coolant issues cause white smoke.

When piston bores / liners and rings get worn the compression pressure usually starts to drop which will reduce engine power. Compression testing compares the peak pressures in each cylinder with the engine running.

Turbocharged engines rely on a good flow of oil to AND FROM the turbocharge to allow it to operated efficiently. If the turbo bearings are worn or the pipework is blocked oil can get into the high pressure side and be forced into the combustion chamber.

Worn valves, guides and seals can also play a part in allowing the oil to get into the combustion chamber. A vacuum test can help diagnose this.

Finally the most obvious cause of oil loss is leaking from seals and gaskets, which usually shows as black runs around the engine. This is why giving your engine a regular wipe over with a bit of rag not only helps keep it corrosion free but allows you to spot leaks quicker.

Take a note from a good ship engineer’s habits: Add a column for fuel supplied, oil added and hours run to your engine maintenance log. From that you can see what is normal and spot changes in the overall pattern which might give early warning of failure.

Yachts are expensive, if you want one when you retire it makes sense to get good financial planning advice early. Fisher Investments have been giving financial advice and panning for 45 years and have nearly £300 billion of assets under management.

Most people saving for retirement have a number in mind. Fewer have a plan for turning that number into actual income.

The Definitive Guide to Retirement Income walks you through the questions that matter: what things will cost, where the money comes from, and how to keep your portfolio aligned with your long-term goals.

If you have $1,000,000 or more saved, download your free guide and start building a retirement income plan that holds up.

Download your free guide.

Boat Chat continues to grow well and now has OVER 1000 subscribers across all platforms. It’s all about:

‘Helping People Understand Boats Better’

In a recent YouTube video I found a very wet balsa cored hull on a Freedom 35 sailing yacht. Not a great finding on a pre-purchase survey and a difficult one to put right.

Sippers – Taking a small sip of your (or your shipmate’s) drink. The opposite of Gulpers

Which vegetable is banned on all ships?

Leeks

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