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.?

That is a fatal flaw to my plan

That's amazing - my expectation from this post have been blown out of the water. I will talk to Kim and get back to you (like who he bought it from and sold it to) but what I do know is that he decked it out with bunks around 1976 and took groups of kids (scouts I think) on trips for £1 each per day. He also used it to pull other boats about between yards as they were being done up. They sold up and moved to Devon soon after, probably '77. I believe my mum wanted to stay and live in Braunston but we went to Devon and the rest is history. I so easily could have had a very different childhood.

It didn't happen where the skippers couldn't see one another because of overhanging trees, by any chance? ?

This rather sounds like somebody relatively new making it up as they go along. Point 1 appears to somewhat contradict points 3 and 4, though this 20 miles is a minimum figure plucked out of the air, and does not mean that 21 miles is ok. I assume that a home moorer when off the mooring is expected to behave like a CC'er, but not to navigate a significant part of the system? I suspect a lot of the initial warnings are generated by computer based on sightings, if this is the case it would be interesting to know what the algorithm is. My advice is to go boating and not to take the p***s. ..............Dave

If you think you've found a bug or an issue then please raise it in the bug tracker and Nick will look into it for you.

A bit of allsorts I would say. Fens, France, Bridge is sort of British with a dash of Venice, thatched building is Worcester / Holland, boat is maybe Loire, pollarded willow on the left is that nasty willow tree from Harry Potter and as you can tell, I have no idea at all!

Having had both I used the sat dish fixed on my home mooring, and the Moonraker when away, disadvantages of each: Sat dish, big and cumbersome when boating and you need a clear view of the satalite. Moonraker, you need a reasonable strength of TV signal and an app ( or look at local TV antennas) to tell you the direction to point it, yes they are directional. Also you may have to retune TV depending on where you travel to. Obviously it's two different receivers Freesat and Freeview but if you already have Freesat then the TV usually will have Freeview providing it's not to old. Different HD channels on each system (more on Freesat but not Ch4)

You won't get freesat with a moonraker, it receives terrestrial channels like freeview.

Whaaat - they burn't C&RT bins (bet Biffa were not happy)

Is this why he has to isolate?