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What is wrong with cruising at night? It's great fun!

Gas and coal and beer have gone up for everyone, welcome to 2024... 😞 Boat diesel has gone up like -- well, diesel. Fuel cost increases hit drivers much more than boaters. The duty change (getting rid of red diesel) was a genuine boater-only hit, but unless you travel long distances this increase is going to be tiny compared to all the others -- as are the recent license fee increases. So what price increases specific to boaters have changed that? Otherwise you're just complaining about general cost-of-living increases which have hit everybody -- some much more so than boaters (e.g. renters)... 😞 And these also apply to boaters who don't go boating, staying at home (and maintaining that home) is also more expensive nowadays...

It used to be almost cheaper to go away on the boat than stay at home in the house!

Agree that lots of prices have gone up over the years, and pubs have closed, and beer and food prices have gone up. Just like they have for everybody else. License and mooring fees may have doubled (over what time?), but then housing costs/rent/utilities for land dwellers have probably gone up by more than this. So yes, the cost of living on a boat has gone up -- just like the cost of not living on a boat... 😉

Boat diesel for a start, with the addition of a duty charge for propulsion. Also, as Arthur says, gas and coal - and beer!

Exaggeration for effect, methinks -- yes lots of boating costs have gone up over the years, just like everything else in life. What has gone up so much faster for boaters than "normal" people?

20 years as a civil servant...

I think Peterboat has a point. A few years ago I didn't have to think twice about trundling off for eight weeks. Now it's down to five in the summer, because I can't afford the diesel and gas, and ditto in the rest of the year because of the price of coal . The fixed costs of licence and mooring have almost doubled (probably more in the case of marina dwellers) and so have running costs. My blacking cost has risen by over 100%, safety certificate is now a ridiculous price (and some idiots, probably mostly examiners, now want it annually). You can understand why some continuous cruisers don't move as often as they used to and why leisure boaters go for shorter trips and shorter days. A lot of the attraction for short holiday boaters was pub hopping, too, and stacks of them are shut and, again, prices are through the roof.

Of course, for those of us who have owned their boats for a longer time, the cost of taking the boat out has increased significantly. For us, it used to be almost pennies per day now it is £'s per hour. My boat would sell for the same number of £'s that it cost. (Yes, of course, inflation will have had an effect but I don't worry about depreciation.)

I tapped holes in the roof and bolted my panels down on the boat using security Torx with a dab of sealant on each bolt.. No reason to use Sikaflex at all unless you have a fibreglass or wooden roof.😱

Yes but even you probably stay in the odd place for a couple of days or more and some of us need a simple steer as to when the batteries need charging before they are damaged. I know you can run the engine every day but this may be not very pleasant for fellow moorees . It’s much more considerate if you can wait until when you move off again

That's fair enough. We're not doing that here though, and experience on narrowboat roof mounted solar panels through several British winters seems a pretty fair test for the OP's similar application.

Given that the vast majority of the cost of a boat are the fixed costs of owning it and that moving around costs little in comparison, that seems unlikely -- if people can't afford to use them they can't afford to own them either and would sell up. Or if that's a thinly-disguised dig at CRT's increased license fees, these are still very low and are only a small fraction of the annual cost of owning/running a boat -- probably less than 20% for someone CCing on an old (not-depreciating-much) boat, less than 10% for someone with a newer boat on a home mooring, probably less than 5% for someone with a new (or relatively new) boat moored in a marina where depreciation is the biggest (disguised) expense, just like most cars.

Well, that's that sorted then! Thank you. For those who are not aware, this is what it says on CRTs page: "you will need to book your passage online and return to your home navigation authority within the ten days. You can revisit the other authority’s water again after a 28-day period." The 7 days and 3 more to return only comes to light when you sign in and complete their booking form and find there's a tick box at the bottom offering a return extension. Why don't they just say what @TheBiscuits said - it makes so much more sense. That's it, no more research - henceforth its straight to my oracle @TheBiscuits for all my north west advice!

My system is simpler. If it's daylight, it's time to cruise. The batteries sort themselves

As well as the real problems (services, planning permission...) in expanding the use of the canals for residential purposes, the elephant in the room is that this is a tiny drop in the very large bucket which is the shortage of truly affordable housing in the UK -- a need which used to be met by council housing at well-below-market rates as a social need, but not any more... 😞 Filling up the canals -- at least, near towns and cities and villages which is where most of the CMers (yes I'm going to use that term, I think everyone knows the meaning) want to moor -- with end-to-end boats would meet rather less than 1% of the UKs need for cheap housing, while making them much less attractive for boaters -- hire and owned -- who want to move around the canals, and who bring more desperately-needed money to the canals than the CMers. So it doesn't solve the housing problem and would have a big negative effect on the canals, which doesn't look like a good deal to me, or I suspect most others who love the canals. I'm not saying that CARTs current license/mooring policies couldn't be improved, but thinking that allowing mass uncontrolled mooring would magically provide lots of homes for poorer people seems deluded -- the solution to this problem is for the government (directly or indirectly) to restart building large numbers of truly affordable homes which are not then sold off to tenants or private landlords. But this is unlikely to happen with the current makeup of the government because it might lower house prices and depress rents, which is exactly what many Tory MPs (who are private landlords) don't want to happen -- look at their caving-in on leasehold and rent reforms... 😞

On this day in 1989 Lisson Grove Bridge RegentsC

I disagree, it's always worked for me. White spirit removes any grease or oil and doesn't leave any significant residue itself - at least none that would present any issue with most single part paints or modified polymer sealants from sticking. I wasn't talking about pouring the stuff on. Agreed, I wouldn't use white spirit to wipe over before applying epoxy, but I have used the correct thinners for the epoxy. Likewise for single part paints based on white spirit thinners I've used white spirit as a wipe. Doesn't acetone leave a residue too?

No as he already said, he's a watch clocker.

Why didn't you use your trombone to just knock it off the wall without getting out of bed? Oh dear, I've just made the assumption you sleep with your trombone... 😉

You are obviously not a clock watcher.

Ambiguous. Do you mean "use it for the final wipe" or do you mean "don't use it at all?" 😁