hi, profuse apologies for not getting back sooner, been squezing in visiting friends between amateur detective work. update on the boat is:
1) it appears to have been a taiwan/pae trader build
2) h.i.n. O.N.706533 R.T.23 90/100
3) 1989 build, launched 1990
4) brought to europe 2004, don't know what, if anything happened before that
5) she was called "my way" and brought into belgium
6) bought by a german 2005-6, name changed to "Anyway"
7) lying in gibraltar not moving for a while
8) sold by his wife when he was jailed for tax fraud
9) new uk owner living in spain buys and changes name back to "My Way"
10) uk ssr register won't accept another boat called "My Way" so he tries to name it after an older/smaller boat he has named "Alacan" but they won't accept a double up
11) so he renames the other boat "Alacant", sells it to a guy in holland and names the trader "Alacan"
- the papers etc going back to 2004 show the number 706533 no matter what name it had so that's good (belgium started the habit of dropping off the letters and only using numbers which germany, france and the uk have continued)
- long story short i got it cheap and as she is a 25 year old boat that has had nothing cosmetic done to her and is in ad need of a face lift.
- the survey showed she is structurally sound so i was perpared for some repair work........ and i wasn't wrong it cost me €3500 to get her back in the water, safe and up to spec the insurance company was happy with. it didn't have to be that much e.g. stern tube seals replaced with water flushed lip seals (i was a service manager for a large pump compny for years and hate packed seals!!!) but as it's our home i wanted to make it fit and forget (haha).
- i figure to get her up to what we want it'll be another €5-10,000 (new kitchen, paint etc etc) but that's ok as we spent our "house money" on her and love being on her so we want to make her our home.
- i'll change my attention to the fuel consumption one day, maybe a 30% hydrogen system will be the answer, but in the meantime i figure 1500 rpm should keep the cost down, and 7.5 knots isn't so bad when your not in a hurry.
- thank you all for your help and input and if i can ever be of any help/use to anyone here please ask.
- i was a product developer/enginner before i got lazy, with gas and electrical experience consulting to large and small companies on run-of-the-mill and cutting edge stuff so you never know what i might be useful for.