Leaderboard

Just completed our first boating break. We used Silsden Boats (Richards Drum) and we absolutly loved it and will do it again. Apart from a Micklethwaitw Swing Bridge failing on us and having to call the emergency helpline (apparently this bridge is notorious), itnwas a great exeperience. Silsden Boats are also a great company to use.

It used to be said of certain shops (think Bond Street) that if you have to ask the price the you cannot afford it. Much the same, it seems to me, to apply to cruising/mooring rules (aka expectations): if you have to ask if your hoped-for pattern is acceptable then you already know that it is not. This is made even more likely since CaRT are only able to pursue the most egregious cases and anything that even begins to look like an acceptable pattern will be accepted. Those who seek to have a legal rule on how much they have to travel are more often than not those who want it to be as small as possible - there are a few calls from those who want to set it much higher, more consistent with an actual cruising pattern. However, as things stand at the moment there is little chance of there being new legislation and therefore we are all stuck(?) with what exists which pretty much comes down to: (a) maximum stay of 14 days in one 'place' (and remember that no satisfactory definition of place has been found) (b) boaters without a home mooring must engage at all times in a bona fide navigation, making progress around the navigable system. (c) apart from the 14 day (or less if signed) rule, everything else is dependent on the boater convincing The Board (ie CaRT) that they are compliant. Originally, the Board was the last level of appeal on the matter but today there are generally more opportunities to challenge such bodies, but the principle remains the same: the Board's decision if the effective one, subject to them complying with any other more general legislation (human rights, equality and diversity, reasonable admin etc) In other words, if you have any doubt in your mind that your cruising pattern is or is not compliant then you had best assume that it is not. If you cannot convince yourself, what chance do you think you have of convincing The Board? As others have discovered, once you come onto the Enforcement Radar, life can become quite difficult if you do not accept that you are wrong.

Sadly I am old enough to have bought mine when it first came out ☹️ What people did then was buy two copies, one copy for best and one for the boat with the canals coloured in ?

It keeps getting repeated that a past civil court verdict by a judge meant that a boat with a home mooring wasn't bound to use it, and that though they still had to go by the "14 days in one place" ruling like CCers, unlike CCers they didn't have to meet the "bona fide navigation" rule and could therefore shuttle backwards and forwards between two places rather that having to go on a journey round multiple places of a length sufficient to "satisfy the board" that they were cruising. This case has been posted many times, usually by the same person ? CART recently updated their rules to close this loophole and apply the same "bona fide cruising" requirements to boats with a home mooring. I'm sure somebody will be along to say that they can't legally do this because of the judge's finding, and then somebody else will point out that a civil case does not form UK case law and could be decided differently if a similar case ever came up again -- but the upshot is, the new CART rules say you have to follow pretty much the same rules as CCers, except you can stay at your home mooring as long as you like. As Mike says, people asking this question are not usually doing it because they want to cruise the canals and are worried about being unfairly accused of breaking the rules, they're usually wanting to cruise in one small area -- clearly against the spirit and letter of the rules -- and are trying to find out how far they can push this and still get away with it, often without even having a home mooring. Most boaters not trying to bend the rules don't like people doing this, because if too many do it the likely consequence is that CART will tighten up the rules further, and more "honest" cruisers will be impacted as well as the rule-benders. If the OP is genuinely wanting to know what the limits are with the intention of staying safely outside the limits rather than seeing how far they can push inside them, Mike's advice is good -- if you're worried about whether you're meeting the rules, you're probably not...

Theres no OR Athy, one and the same.

Better to tell CaRT that the overhanging trees are interfering with people cycling and walking. Much more chance of seeing some action. Or tell them that getting your hat knocked in to the water by branches is bad for your well being.?

On this day in 2009 A Lock To Nowhere Droitwich Junction Canal Lock 7 which would later be joined to some more canal, and looking t'other way. Compare posting this day 2020 of the same occasion

While I was at FBS at Foxton Locks in the mid 1980s Avon spent a winter at the yard. I had the job of modifying the sidecloths to make two short sections each side which could be removed as ways in and out for a towpath shop. But I can't any more tell you the owner's name at the time, or what he wanted to sell, or how he got on. I also had the job of running the (hand start) HB2 once a week to charge the battery for the automatic bilge pump. Especially memorable for me was that the joins in the top planks didn't line up with the stands - I undid all the sidecloth strings and then cheerfully walked along the top planks, landing unceremoniously in the bottom of the hold under a shower of woodwork when I reached the first unsupported join. Happy days ...

This is how I ended up doing it. I put the anchor, chain and some mudweights on the trailing edge of the boat and lifted the leading edge as much as I could. Cruised for 3 days without a problem.

But this thread isn't about CCing, it's about what you do as a home moorer. There's only two reasons to have a mooring that I can see, one is to live on near your job, kid's school etc, and the other is to keep it somewhere while your home is somewhere else. The former won't travel much, that's not what it's for, and the latter will either be cruising round on holiday, or nipping out and back on short trips both of which are fine. The t&cs simply don't cause a problem in either case. As far as the complexity of CCing goes, it's really rather simple. You've got to satisfy the Board. Every case is different, so there are no hard and fast rules, just guidelines which may or may not apply and which may change on a whim or as circumstances alter, or simply as too many people push the boundaries.

London Enforcement Manager Simon Cadek sent an email to a boater who was warned that they were on course for failing their six month restricted licence, telling them what they would need to do to pass. The email is on public record as part of advice to boaters in the London Boaters Facebook group and dates from the end of 2016. “When we are looking at boat movements we are looking for characteristics of bona fide navigation, these fall roughly into four categories: 1) Range: by range we mean the furthest points a boat has travelled on the network, not merely the total distance travelled. While the BW act does not stipulate what that distance is the Trust has previously said that anyone travelling a range of less than say 20 miles (32km) would struggle to satisfy the Trust that they are engaged in bona fide navigation and that normally we would expect a greater range. For the avoidance of doubt, a small number of long journeys over a short period of time, followed or preceded by cruising in a small are of the network would not generally satisfy the Trust that you are engaged in bona fide navigation. 2) Overstaying: we look to see how often boats overstay, either the 14 day limit on the main length of the canal, or shorter periods where local signage dictates, for example short stay visitor moorings. While we are flexible with the occasional overstay from most boaters due to breakdown, illness or other emergencies, we will look at the overall pattern balanced with range and movement pattern in order to form a view. Overstay reminders are issued when a boat is seen in the same area for more than 14 days. While we are unable to say how far you need to travel each time you move, we would advise that you normally travel further than a few km each time. This will prevent you from getting reminders and depending on the length of other trips you make and how many times you turn back on yourself, should increase your overall range over the course of your licence. 3) Movement: Continuous Cruiser Licences are intended for bona fide (genuine) navigation around the network, rather than for a boat to remain in one mooring spot, place neighbourhood or area. We would expect boats on these licences to move around the network such that they don’t gravitate back to favoured areas too often i.e. in a way that it’s clear to us that they’re living in a small area of the waterway. 4) The basic principle of this is that these licences are not intended for living in an area and if it looks like a boat is habitually returning to a particular part of the waterway then this would not generally satisfy the Trust. Within an acceptable range we’d expect a genuine movement, so for example it would not satisfy the Trust if a boat went on a 60 mile trip during the course of say two weeks, then returned to cruise in an area of say 5 miles the remainder of the time (figures are examples only). Generally speaking, the smaller the range the less we’d expect to see boats back at the same locations. Of course people need to turn around and they’re perfectly free to re-visit places they have been to before, it’s living in a small area on this kind of licence that would cause a problem. But, then the rules are different for Boaters with school age children, following a constituant raising the question of equality with her MP, who raised it with C&RT who agreed on slightly differing 'rules' : Copy of letter from R Parry to the MP, (confirming that a movement of 3 miles - 5km - during term times was acceptable), and an example from a presentation of what he would consider adequate movements

We have both satellite and terrestrial systems . Blackrose - as you may remember when you were on the Thames, there's a big hole in terrestrial reception between (say) Windsor and Reading, thus our dish comes into play. One thing about satellite reception is that you always know where the sat: is and can plan where you stop to avoid signal blocking trees. With terrestrial signals you have to know where the appropriate aerial masts are (details on the web) - frinstance Reading to Lechlade and the Oxford canal is well covered by the Oxford transmitter. Well into the midlands is covered by Holme Moss (?) and so on. You can buy various sizes of dishes from the very small camping variety that Aldi / Lidl occasionally sell (of marginal utlity IMHO), through Sky type and larger work well. I bought a Selfsat flat panel from Amazon before the prices went silly.

Precisely - Canalplan is an estimating tool, its not a sat nav, or an itinerary planner. It's designed to give you some idea of what you can do in a specified time window or give you an idea of how long it will take you do to a journey. The defaults are just defaults but Canalplan can't know know if a section of canal is shallower, or deeper, than the sections either side of it, nor can it know how well your boat handles in different conditions.

There's at least one 'punt' boat there. Transporting reeds / grapes perhaps? It almost lookslike a mixture of France and Italy.

You can't go and moor long term in Hebden Bridge if that's what you are hoping to do. ? The rules keep changing but whilst away from your mooring you are expected to behave like a continuous cruiser on some sot of journey. This is a rule, its not backed up by law, but you probably don't want to be the one to finance the test case. I believe that once you return to your mooring the clock resets, though I have no idea how long you have to stay on your mooring for this to happen. It would be quite reasonable to have a home mooring and go boating to almost the same place every weekend, I did this for two years ? Although you can't really satisfy continuous cruising distance on the Rochdale I think you could easily spend many months away from your mooring without getting into trouble as long as you do some moving. Sowerby Bridge to Summit and back with 14 day stops in nice places could take 6 months. ......Dave

I'm the person asking if I'm OK to tiller a boat with a brain injury Bui was a mistake