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I appreciate that constant moorers has been discussed to death on the forum; but I can't get my head around the logistics of it. You often read statements about people who don't move their boats for "months" If you live aboard, how can you be a constant moorer? I mean, we have a fairly large water tank, but would be really hard stretched to go for 2 weeks without taking on water, never mind any longer than that. If we both shower daily, and do 2 loads of washing as well as the dishes 3 times a day, we can get 8 days out of a tank, longer if I cut back on the dishes and only do them once a day. Never mind getting rid of the garbage and the monthly pump out. So what do they do? go top up with water remove waste have a pump out and then go to the next winding hole to turn & go back to the same spot they were? If your moving the boat anyway, for water or whatever, why would you go back to the same spot? I just don't get it. I'm really not trying to start yet another debate about CMer's; just don't understand "why" a "liveaboard" would find a need or desire to do it.

the crt are more likely to get a volunteer to bucket water down to you on his back than put money into boaters facilities

Quite, and plenty of people seem to manage it without getting too concerned about what everyone else is up to. I've said it before - if a boat isn't causing a problem then who cares if it's been moored in a spot for 2 days or 2 years? A lot of noise is made about "CMrs" by what I suspect is a minority that worry about what others are up to albeit a vociferous minority that appear to have CaRTs ear. The problem is that such people are never happy.

It's nice to learn that others get by on limited funds. Usually when I tell people what I live on I get told it's unsustainable, or I'm bending the truth cos no way can a person get by on £100 per week.

It's evening, I've just listened to the Archers (Help!! - actually it's fun hearing the 'plot' develops) because SWMBO does. The remains of a Whisky Mac to hand, so rather than avoid the inevitable desire to click on the next thread, Here's my two penn'orth:- (Firstly - disclaimer, I bought the hull to order from a traditional builder and suffered what he wouldn't do, then I fitted it out with what I thought was the best, affordable, sensible kit that I could find at the time, and I thought with some flexibility as t what I might want to fit later) Boats are not like cars each / most are different, some subtle changes - materials, equipment, what the market is perceived to need, what the specific customer wants. Boats are not like houses / flats. If the layout is bad / needs changing, it's more of an effort. Given the nature of the beast it may be impossible / impracticable. There are no design standards = Building Regs: There are few wrongs and rights (within reasons) The important bits that make changes difficult are invariably hidden (cable runs, pipe runs). The most important point when seeking advice is to realise that the above is an absolute minefield. There is no standard There are degrees of rightness and wrongness. Most of which may depend on the buyer. It's incredibly difficult to translate the things you would expect in bricks and mortar to translate to a boat Perhaps I'm being complacent; I built what I thought was right, I've modified some of the bits inside to accommodate The Management's changed needs, avoided others, have got stuck with what was sufficient initially and is now to capacity. I still thing the boat was right for what we wanted and now would like. Run out of steam - would others now like to pitch in and expand on the above - even demolishing my pitch. I don't mind, just get the dialogue going....

Appropriate changes would involve a paradigm shift throughout the organisation, starting from the top. Adhering to the simple governmental remit as expressed both in the BW legislation and the Trust Settlement would be a good start. There is also much good advice to be found in the two ‘Monopolies & Mergers’ reports into BW, plus the content of the last Select Committee report. As many others here have called for: the emphasis should be more on maintenance and improvement of the infrastructure, and less on controlling user behaviour patterns. [Not suggesting that the latter should not be controlled, simply that the control should be centred on use patterns that genuinely interfere with others, as provided for in statute]. So far as enforcement itself is concerned, proper education and oversight of the individual officers is way overdue. A very large part of the blame must be laid at the door of government. It was always their emphasis on relieving ‘the burden on the public purse’ that dictated the type of personality they appointed to controlling positions. It is not that I quarrel with the requirement for the organisation to conduct itself as a fiscally efficient business, but the too narrowly focused appointees needed far more DEFRA control and oversight than that body was ever prepared to contribute. There is always a very good point in attacking rogue individuals – not excepting those at the top. The problem with bureaucracies is the invariable immunity of individuals acting on behalf of the bureaucracy; they are too often protected regardless of wrong-doing, with that self-justification imperative I mentioned earlier. There has been a move in recent years to strip away some of that lack of individual accountability within companies for example, such that Directors of companies can now be held personally liable for criminal actions of their company [as can relevant decision-making employees]. The same goes for the provisions within the Fraud Act. Only when individual employees from top to bottom realise that they will be held accountable for anything they do in their company’s name, will they start to take their responsibilities more seriously. That has yet to happen within BW/CaRT, and law aside, that approach of personal accountability needs to become part of the paradigm shift. It is possibly the single most important necessity for a better management policy. There are no formal measures that can be taken by members of this forum. However, the very existence of it as a publicly accessible source of expressed opinion is in itself part of the ‘groundswell’ of boater opinion that CaRT take note of. In that respect, any who wish their views to be counted will express them here [and elsewhere of course]. Edit to add: Change doesn’t come about until the need for change is recognised. That is why the refusal to acknowledge, and face up to the ramifications of, improper enforcement, will continue to bedevil any efforts to improve proper enforcement. The implacable determination to uphold the actions of the officer in the instant case [not to mention those of the relevant individuals in the legal department] is a demonstration that reform is not [publicly at least] on the agenda. As I said, the one glint of light at the end of this tunnel is that someone, somewhere, has managed to persuade the organisation to pull back despite Parry’s determination to push it through.

Can not speak for anyone else but as this is I think the fourth thread on the subject I feel I have a quite good understanding during that time Tony and Nigel have provided copies of documents from both CRT and Tony and I personally have come to the conclusion that CRT have wasted a lot of money picking on a boater

Irreplaceable ancient woodland. Unless you are willing to wait another five hundred years or more of course!

I am not any form of chemist but am some king of a vehicle engineer and I mean engineer, be it at a lowly grade so should know a little about the subject. I have already posted this information on the forum more than once so may be instead of throwing insults a bit of searching may have answered your quetsion. When I first bought the boat and started the courses at Reading College I wondered why most boat engines seemed a LITTLE rougher and noisier than similar engines in cars. This was before ULS diesel and common rail injection so I asked the supplier of the College's gas oil for their spec. sheets for DERV (road or white diesel) and gas oil (red diesel). The calorific value of the red was slightly lower but not by much and in any case the engines diesel system would simply inject more fuel to compensate. All this would do is result in a slightly higher fuel consumption BUT I doubt it would be noticeable because of the inefficiencies of our prop sizing. The sulpher content (at that time -see below) was marginally higher but that could have been explained by the source of the crud oil being refined when that particular sample was analysed. On the other hand it might have been caused by less refining but the differences were so small I doubt it. The Viscosity was all but identical. The cetane rating was a little lower for red and in an engine this indicates that the injected fuel would take slightly longer to ignite so a greater build up of unburned fuel would be in the cylinder so you would get a later, louder and faster "bang" (pressurise in the cylinder). This explains the nosier and rougher idle when running on gas oil. It does NOT explain why the old gas oil caused such problems across the full range of this type of heater. In an engine the delay (known as the delay period) is measured in micro seconds in such a heater the glow plug would only have got warm in that time, not hot enough to ignite the fuel. Not long after this legislation forced our road fuel (DERV) to go low sulphur but gas oil stayed as it was. It was, as NEMA says, only when gas oil had to change to low sulpher did it become apparent that these heaters became more reliable in a number of cases and this pretty much points the finger at the sulpher content. However high sulpher road diesel was being used all over the world and vehicle versions of these heaters seemed to be reliable enough so that leaves either installation or operating conditions and I suspect pretty much in equal measure with the over specification of such boilers being a very large part of the problem. This is just my view based on my research so would welcome the input of a professional in the petrochemical field. Edited to add: Maybe instead of posting as he has Raymondh should do as I did and contact his local fuels distributor and ask for the specification sheets for the various fuels. However h may make the mistake so many others have in believing the cetane rating has any significant effect on the boiler ignition.

Increasing the number of water taps or elsans is not going to make a meaningful difference to the number of boats in London. It can be a pain waiting to fill up with water or empty the toilets but water and sewage points are accessible in London if you get up at a reasonable time on a weekend (and that's really not very early in the morning) or move during the week. Keeping the services so restricted will not stop people from choosing to live on the water. A few more water points where there are gaps would be nice though (I believe one's going in around Haggerston but another, maybe at the Sainsbury's by Ladbroke Grove would fill quite a large gap in west London). More important is an increase in the number of public elsans as there are only...7(?) inside the M25 which is clearly insufficient for the number of boats, especially when one gets blocked. Given that there has been this increase in the number of boats in the area I think it's not unreasonable to expect that C&RT should increase investment in the services which these boats rely on.

Don't seethe, smirk. You have your life under control. Some people don't even have themselves under control.

Augean stables Nick ?....thank you on behalf of everyone for your hard work

The hull of Sir Edmund was built by SeaSteel of Nassington, so it looks like the hulls were contract built and subsequently delivered to and fitted out at Norbury and/or Bunbury. I have, some time back, spoken to Jim Dyche and John Stothert? who were, I understand directors? of Shropshire Union Cruisers, later Dartline and worked out (from the hull number) that Sir Edmund was built early 1974. I have no meaningful history other than that and Dartline, in 1994 when I enquired, had kept no records of boats that had been sold out of the fleet. This craft has the diesel tanks built into the swim (both sides, with a balance pipe) and was apparently their 'experimental' boat, whatever that means. All their boats had blue hulls completely down to the water line and were painted with 'epoxy' paint. The GRP tops were in white gelcoat. The 'parallelogram' windows were supplied by Severn Yacht (now defunct) Do you have a hull number, scripted in weld, on the front of the weedhatch box?

ask the landlord, he's in charge!!

Not as good as solar, I agree. I have 375 watts of solar which gives me plenty of power but none tonight I don't regret fitting it at all. To me the turbine is a bit like an ecofan, which I also have... No great result, just nice to have.