Decision made – A Piper 57N.
We have been considering a Dutch Barge for some time and have visited the Piper Weekend at Henley in 2013 and 2015. Subsequently we looked at various other models and makes but we finally came to the conclusion that it was a Piper we wanted. The problem is that Piper were always (and still are) quoting delivery 12 months (or more) away and we found this off-putting. David is not great at waiting and does not relish the thought of waiting that long to take delivery of a new boat. Of course, the fact that we haven’t placed an order means that we aren’t getting any closer to getting a barge. In fact, the delivery slots are getting further away! So we have now decided to bite the bullet. We have finally decided that we will order a Dutch Barge and it will be from Piper Boats Ltd. Here we go!
It must be said that at the two shows we visited at Henley and in our subsequent communications with Piper, there was never any pressure applied with regards to us placing an order. This was very reassuring.
We were still undecided as to exactly what layout we wanted so it is only today that we finally sent an email to Piper telling them what we wanted in terms of layout and our basic specification and asking for approximate costings and delivery. We received a reply by return with pricing, additional costs (transport, launch, fuel) and allowances. Fortunately for us, delivery is still being quoted as July/August 2017.
We met with Nick at Piper in August with a view to discussing layout, specification and general chat. When we arrived for our meeting, Nick told us that they were now able to offer us a delivery slot in March 2017 as a result of an American customer cancelling his order. However, they would need to have our deposit by the end of the following week. This was, of course, understandable. We discussed various items at our meeting and left agreeing to get back in touch with them early next week. I was impressed by my ability to resist giving him the deposit there and then!
We sent our deposit by BACS to Piper. They have already acknowledged receipt and have sent us our contract and VAT declaration. We have received the contract, signed it and sent it back.
We attended the Piper open weekend at Henley in September. Piper confirmed that our steel had been delivered and that they would start cutting it out on Tuesday. I agreed to make our payment in accordance with terms of our contract.
We spent time discussing details of the layout with Simon, Nick and Joe the CAD designer at Piper. Joe was very efficient at redesigning various items in front of our eyes. The wonders of CAD!
We also spent lots of time talking to and picking the brains of the many Piper owners who were there and allowing Piper to use their boats as “show” boats.
Finally, we enjoyed some good music, food, beer and wine in the marquee adjacent to the river.
In October we received some photos from Piper showing that our steel work has arrived and they started cutting it and we made regular visits to see progress.
We have had a couple of other new boats built in the past where we have been able to choose the name. We have also bought a couple of used boats where the owner retained the name. Whilst it is considered unlucky to change the name of a boat, in these cases you have no choice otherwise you will be sailing in an un-named boat.
However, given that our family name is Steel and the barge is built from steel, when we thought about a name for her, it just seemed natural that it should include the word steel. Add to that the fact that we are planning on living on her for a considerable time, which means that we will be “away”. So Steel Away seemed like an obvious choice. Add to that the fact that Steel Away is a very well known and much covered Spiritual song and we find boating on the water is great for replenishing our spirit, we decided that the name couldn’t be anything else.
We visited our boat builder last week and watched Steel Away being brought out from the fit out shop onto the yard.
The build is now finished and we will stay on board over this coming weekend to try out all systems etc before bringing her to the Thames for launch at the end of March.
We have produced a short 3 minute video of our build http://wp.me/p8eSsZ-9Z
Angie & David
Steel Away
Blog – steel-away.com
