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Boats may / or may not be exempted from the 'requirements to use smokeless fuel' - - But, if one knows that the fuel one's burning is putting out (high) quantities of sulphurous fumes (such as house coal, tyres, plastic etc) then is that not the time to consider your fellow man - whether they be house and or boat dwellers, and treat them with a degree of courtesy - - and burn smokeless fuels instead. Boaters frequently complain about the unreasonable treatment we receive from others - - - should we not set the example, and treat them with courtesy?

I really dont understand. I seem to remember the furore when IWA took three of the boaters representative spaces on the Trust. Anyone thinking that this was wrong would have thought so because IWA do not represent boaters, but the waterways as a whole. So the voice that boaters should have had was stolen away from us. What John is doing is helping us to have that voice, all of us. Like it or not most people's idea of a CCer is the Continuous Moorer and this is the idea that permeates the CRT. It is only right that the CRT is at least corrected in this poor assumption. Personally I think there are few paid moorers who could/would honestly put the CCers position to the CRT. (CCing today is quite different from when I started six years ago). So am I wrong in thinking that in reality only CCers can really understand the CCer's situation and will be prepared to ensure that the CRT at least understand, even if they do not take it all on board. As I understand it, wrong though I may be, this is the purpose of John's meeting. These meetings by their very nature have to be limited a, because of the venue size and b. because if a thousand people turned up nothing would be achieved. In the interests of fairness, given that the IWA has loaded our bases, these meetings should be positively encouraged by us all.

David do you see a conspiracy in everything? As it happens I phoned the local CRT office today to ask to stay an extra week at a spot where I have been for 14 days as I need to go to Poole to help my 91 yo Mother. Do you recon I should bring a note back from my Mother or should I get one from her doctor. The chances are that I will also have to go and help my sister who is undergoing chemotherapy soon what should I bring back from that visit?

My hat is of to John, Alan and Steve amongst others who are acting as all encompassing Boaters Representatives, whilst those we voted for to do that job do anything BUT represent all boaters.

Speaking for myself (a CCer), you have nothing to fear from me, unless my very way of life bugs you. It's not what I want CRT to do, more what I want them to stop doing, namely trying to subvert the nice simple law that allows me to navigate the network (all of it, including interesting urban areas) stopping for 14 days at a time if I wish (longer if good reason dictates). In all this debate about VM's it is easy to forget that this is the norm, what the 95 Act provided for. I originally got involved with the CRT meetings because they were billed as a mechanism by which ordinary unaffiliated boaters could HELP the Trust (in particular, to encourage cooperation amongst boaters) and I recognised that some short term VM's in certain areas, sensibly used, might help. I never gave a thought as to whether the Trust had the legal power to introduce them, nor did I quite frankly care because I never envisaged them being used in the network wide, fundamentally changing way which now looks ever more likely. I mean for goodness sake, whole lengths of canal being made no mooring at all, for what looks like local residence appeasement! The only thing I ever wanted to change was the 'I'm all right jack' culture between different groups of boaters that I saw as a threat to my enjoyment of boating by its tendency to attract ever more rules to sort out issues that boaters should and could easily do between themselves. My dismay and lack of confidence with the Trust, grows by the day and I now find myself at a crossroads, do I turn left, pack up all together and buy an off-shore boat, do I press ahead and try to cooperate with the Trust or do I turn right, join the rebels, help finance legal challenges to CRT and perhaps even engage in acts of civil disobedience. I'll be honest I'm tending towards the latter. If that happens, I probably really will be a nuisance.

Don't know about any exemptions for boats - they may be exempt, but I don't know. As far as smoke is concerned, it's not a local byelaw, it's The Clean Air Act 1956 , as amended 1968 & 1993. If you live in a smokeless zone, you can basically only burn stuff that makes no (..or very little..) smoke - basically only oil, gas or smokeless solid fuel. Wood is forbidden unless you have a specially designed and defra approved wood-burning stove. Even then as I understand it, you can make some smoke during a 20 minuite lighting up period whilst the stove is getting up to running temperature. A friend of mine got in a lot of bother from the local council when a neighbour of his complained about smoke, though he was burning stuff other then pure smokeless...

Why not just cut a big hole in the bottom of the boat and cover it with a sheet of plastic. This would give you a waterbed without adding any weight to the boat. Am I missing something here?

I don't know, other than I am not a CC-er, but 50% of my nominations to run for council were from live-aboard boaters, (quite by chance), and almost certainly at least half my total support base was from the same. I have also had very high levels of support from people who are without home moorings, particularly in the South East, and who have been keen that I represent them at meetings with CRT. I have thus sometimes ended up as almost the "token" "shiny boater" at meetings otherwise largely attended by live-aboards, (from the boater side of the meeting). Only you can judge if you think someone like me is sympathetic enough to your situation or not, (or indeed that of CC-ers generally). What I can say is that is shakes CRT up more than a bit when they find they can't use the "divide and conquer" routine on a "leisure boater" - perhaps why people like me are taken seriously enough by John Dodwell to be invited to meetings to discuss the concerns that I have for the whole, boater population, not just the bit I currently sit in? From the other side John "Cotswoldman" and Steve "Jenlyn", have tried very hard to include leisure boaters and marina based boat owners in every debate that it is appropriate to do so. I genuinely think that together we have a far better chance of good outcomes for the majority, and that some in CRT are only to happy to see us trying to invent divides amongst ourselves!

We all had to start somewhere Bengt. You could always begin by buying a ''boat hole'' firstly, once bought you can gloat over ''the hole''in glee using imagination imagining that there's a boat attached to it. Then maybe one day your dream will come true Bengt when you present ''the hole'' to a boat builder to construct a boat around it. When the boats completed it would be best to get the builder to weld a plate over the hole as you will not need it anymore. You can then either flog it on Ebay or take it along to a car boot sale to sell it.

I've finally got round to getting my Pearsons off the boat so I can plan if this trip is possible in a sensible time. The good news is YES we can get there. So Tawny Owl is planning to arrive at Gnosall on the Friday evening, unforeseen problems permitting. (we'll try hard not to blow the engine up on the way this time ) We intend to stay for the weekend, and then go off for a weeks cruise. At the moment I believe we have 3 beds booked, ours and Wriggles, so if anyone needs a bed let me know, potentially Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Looking forward to it even more now I know the timing works. Sue

All I can say is that my liver is very pleased it is just once a year even though my heart wishes it were every month