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As we all know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and after nearly three years not being able to enjoy this remarkable system we are back and loving it.

Hi Debbie. I am from the region, currently live aboard and am on the Ouse. However I only bought the boat last year with no family history of living on boats, and will be travelling to other parts of the country soon, so I'm not sure I'm exactly the sort of person you're looking to interview. Some relevant background detail to hopefully help your article Most of the UK's canal network was built specifically for carrying goods directly between industrial regions, which was undertaken by liveaboard boaters/bargees. In East Anglia, however it' mostly natural rivers (slightly altered for navigation as well as flood control) and drainage channels, so boat and barge traffic was never as important to it as other canals and it probably never had as many working boaters. Northampton is close to some of the most historically important canal routes, but getting there by boat from Bedford or St Neots is a journey of over 150 miles along winding rivers via Ely, Downham Market and Peterborough taking several days, instead of 30 miles up the road! The Norfolk Broads are connected only by sea. Related local issues for boaters are: - Unlike most of the UK's canal network, there is no automatic right to moor nearly anywhere along a towpath. The rivers and Middle Level are lined mostly by private land, and there are only a few designated mooring spots where itinerant travellers (and the many people taking their boat out of the marina for the weekend) have the right to moor. Also, the banks simply aren't as easy to moor up against, and there are fewer facilities like water points outside privately-run marinas. - The Cambridgeshire rivers are maintained by three different organizations (the Environment Agency, the Middle Level Commission and the Cam Conservancy) instead of the Canal and River Trust that maintains most of the UK's canal network. Each has their own rules and licenses, and the licensing situations have changed recently in ways which are complicated but basically increase costs for many boaters inside and visiting boaters outside the region (other people understand and are passionate about these details more than me!) - The rivers and Middle Levels are also much more involved in flood defence than most canals, and often aren't actually safe to navigate after heavy rainfall. - the traditional style of narrowboat common across most of the UK is not actually native to this region except parts of Northamptonshire (although people actually living aboard are likely to prefer modern variants of this design to the ubiquitous white plastic leisure cruiser) I suspect this will mean that finding multigenerational liveaboards who move around mostly or exclusively in this region more difficult, although obviously the river is very popular with leisure boaters and many people have in more recent decades chosen to live in Cambridgeshire marinas. The Great Ouse Boaters Association - goba.org.uk - might be able to help you too, Some more general points about boaters - although cost is often cited as a reason for living in boats, it's a bit of a myth that it's a cheap lifestyle. If you want to live somewhere expensive like Cambridge your only real option on a boat is join a years-long waiting list for very expensive rented moorings. Marina berths elsewhere might be more available and affordable, but once you've added maintenance/licence costs not necessarily cheaper overall than renting a [bigger] flat in say Peterborough. Moving around saves marina costs but has rules that you actually have to keep moving and not keep going back to the same place which are easier to follow in much of the rest of the country - Most people choose the nomadic lifestyle as an interesting way to spend their life rather than because of family history. Most boaters make a choice to live this way in their adult lives, without any background of itinerant travelling like gypsies or circus folk. Remote working and retirement obviously makes this easier, and more and more people are doing it everywhere - we're vastly outnumbered by the leisure boaters enjoying the sun on their boats or paddleboards at the moment, especially in Cambs Also, parts of the Cambridgeshire waterways are very nice indeed. Happy to answer further questions and chat if you want to message me (you can even visit me if you like- I'll probably be in St Neots for the next few days)

The "inaccuracy" of CanalPlan doesn't matter, because the margin of uncertainty is wider than the amount by which the calculation is wrong.

As you know we are on the Llangollen just now and to be honest we are appalled at the trees growing on both sides of the canal in places.. These trees greatly reduce the line of sight and are making it so difficult for first time boaters ( and others) that screw ups are occurring because of the situation. I was chatting to a couple of C&RT guys and mentioned it and I was told that the work has been in the last two winter maintenance programs but has been postponed both times. The guys said that if they get a lot of feedback about the trees from boaters the management might see it as a priority and something might be done. It would be very helpful for the Llangollen if a few CWDF guys and gals could sent C&RT a message about how bad it is and that it will discourage use of the canal if the overhanging trees are not attended to. Believe me folks, the situation is dire with the line of sight often being less than the length of a boat. Thanks, Haggis

The mobile data systems on vehicles are sent location data by the CAD, this then instructs the sat nav to get to an address. This can sometime go wrong due an incorrect ‘entry point’ or not having an an update with the latest housing/roads etc.

I looked at various options and made mine out of 2.5mm PVC - Bent into place and glued with a polymer sealant. About 5 euro each.

It is possible that when you split a journey and ask it to calculate each bit separately it ends up counting locks at the beginning and end of a day twice, so this is where the extra time comes in. I find single handing a boat that the default times match what I do pretty well for narrow canals, are a little faster than me for wide canals, but are much slower than reality for the commercial Yorkshire waterways. For a long multi day journey it is a lot easier to get an estimate than it is totting up lock miles from a paper guide book, or several paper guide books and gives a good initial indication if a proposed trip is practical in the time available. Then again, I don't plan journeys to the minutest detail.

You are so right, its a fantastic system that costs absolutely peanuts to be on. Full length licence works out at less than 25 quid a week, immensely good VFM in any reasoning.

A lot of boats, including mine, have a barometer aboard. An altimeter is just a barometer with a different scale under the needle, so effectively yes.

If you are getting A to B plus B to C not equalling A to C, then you may have found a bug in the software. In the past I have reported a couple of minor bugs and Nick or Steve have responded promptly and resolved the issue. Why not post here examples of the errors you have found?

I have always found canalplan to be very good. At the end of the day all it is doing is calculating the time based on distance and your speeds, and number of locks and your times per lock. Are you saying that if you plan a route from A to C via B, that you get a different time from planning A to B and the B to C and summing the two? I just tried that on an example and got exactly the same overall time, but you can see the rounding may put it off by a bit, but you would not expect it to be a significant amount. Do you have a specific example where it goes wrong?

I find it to be an excellent program and very useful; for me. Given the vagaries of canal journeys I think any prediction of travel times are a bit hit and miss at best.

No is the answer

I've always found canal plan to be consistent, I often do a total journey time to get locks, miles and hours, then I break down by individual day journeys but as Jen said you have to be careful you aren't double counting locks. If you have changed defaults and not signed in then also make sure the settings haven't reset back to the defaults

Whats the problem? A friend fitted them and they looked quite good, dunno how he did it and how difficult it was though.,, I assume they are quite textured on the inside, various epoxies stick anything to anything, but personally I like screws, I don't care if they look a bit industrial, just knowing that things will come apart when required makes me happy. Black screws are good ?