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Well that is true, but as has been said there probably aren't any laws to be complied with and ultimately being close to water is dangerous, and that risk can't be eliminated. So the answer is to accept the risk or buy a caravan. Or choose a marina where they have more ladders and life rings if that is important to you. At our gliding club we have on occasion had a new member who proceeds to tell us how the club should operate. They don't last long. Or the marriage where the one partner, having married the person, then tries to change their behaviour to match the person they would have preferred to marry in the first place. Always ends in divorce in quick time!

AND the supposed human will have known how both helpful and rude people here can be, as it will have looked through a few posts first and still decided to ask. So it knew it's vague and poorly drafted questions would elicit requests for more info, so it could get all self-righteous and outraged.

What a strange character..... seems to me people were willing to help ( I certainly would if I could have) but when asked to provide some basic info a tirade of abuse follows. I don't agree with Nick only a human could be so irrational....

In this particular case I think it is because by modern standards, canal infrastructure is highly dangerous. In any other circumstance, public access to deep water would be controlled by fences, falls from height eg at locks would be controlled by fences both to stop people falling into the lock, or falling eg from the bottom end of the lock to the ground below. To match the levels of public safety we are used to in urban areas, the entire network would have to be fenced off or filled in. This is why boaters are generally resistant and defensive to ideas of making the canal system comply with modern public safety rules - the system could not possibly survive.

Yeah I agree, he is like almost every boater I know, it's an alternative life, It's not something you do if you want to live in a pure White House with no clutter! He's a lovely chap, has time to speak to everyone he meets. He is very obviously passionate about the canal network, something this world needs more of

Well, I remember when Mrs Tiger fell in, February, while we were loading up pre-trip at our marina on the K&A. So cold shocked she couldn't speak, and it was only luck that I poked my head out and saw her standing rigid, immobile, up to her neck. No way I could pull her out, deadweight. She simply couldn't shout - throat had constricted from the shock. Very luckily the marina office was close where there was a rescue ladder and that is how she got out. Quite a struggle to get her to move to the ladder too. Overall very frightening and how easily it might have been fatal. Took days to recover properly. That has given us both a new interest in knowing where the ladders and rings are etc, and now always have a safety ladder onboard. I think people are sometimes a bit cavalier about how potentially dangerous the water may be.

What's the difference between being in the marina to being on the cut . Do you expect safety equipment everywhere you moor ...dream on and get a motor home quick

I thought I'd put up a little log of the work we're doing on Cedar on here. I joined the forum I think about 3 years ago now, and I received a lot of help as a newbie boater. I was steered away from buying a historic boat, a good decision at the time! I thought I'd contribute to the forum in a way that isn't just asking/answering noob questions. She's staying as an unconverted butty. But she's been looking a bit worse for wear. Her bottom and footings aren't particularly old, so I am not expecting any project-ending metalwork to need doing. The work I can do myself I will be. What I know at this point: The whole boat needs blasting and painting. The hold is a rusty soup. There ironwork is thinning behind a few knees which need cutting out and a new plate put in. The knees will then be rivetted back in. The knee bends are in varying conditions. Hoping to have these restored with new steel. There's a one or two large dents which I may well have pushed out. The stern deck needs de-riveting, de-rusting, painting and re-rivetting, as rust has set in between the plates. New gunnels, cants and beams. New running gear in due time but I don't see that happening within the next year. New shutts New paint on the cabin - she'll be kept in Erewash livery. Any other work that shows up from the blasting. Work done so far - myself and Jon from Menzie's Marineware have started stripping the boat. The starting point - (I took some 3d scans for good measure and another project...) Once the running gear and cloths were off, we starting taking the gunnels off. We were given some great advice on how best to do this by a chap in the yard. Circular saw between each coach bolt, then hammer a wedge into the grain to split it. Grind the coach bolts off. Splitting the rotten cants off: Cants/gunnels off. The gunnel angle looks in reasonable condition, so that's good. We left sections of gunnel where the crossbeams are, to give her a bit more rigidity when she's craned. Paint can hide the true condition of wood, the deck beam looked decent. As you can see, it was not. The problem here is the coach bolt holes were covered with filler. As the wood contracted, it pushed many of these plugs out and the seal broken. Water was able to get in and rot the wood out. It has been suggested to me to make plugs out of the same wood (expand/contract at the same rate) and fill the gaps with tar. Cabin beam wood was good, but we had suspicions there was rust setting under it. Off it came, and yes - there was a decent amount of corrosion. The interface between wood and metal had tried to be sealed with a bituminous strip - but this had not really helped. Very difficult to get a long term seal between wood and metal as I understand it (difference in reaction to weather/temp, means the seal will eventually fail). Starting to take the shutts out and cleaning up the soup. Some of the knee bends really are held to together with hopes and prayers. And here she is as she sits. Rest of the shutts to come out, and the stern cants. Then stripping off portholes, vents etc ready for blasting.

C'mon! We've had HDMI (for video) for far longer, and between manufacturer's... Turn on the Blu-Ray to play a CD, the TV comes on (It's a CD, no pictures...). Turn the TV off, the Blu-Ray goes off... Turn on BT-Vision - it turns the TV on (because HDMI supports that) but doesn't switch the TV over to BT Vision... Turn on Sky - It turns the TV on (as above) - it would switch the TV to the Sky input but by then the TV has gone to it's "no input" menu On a more practical level, I spent hours (many years ago) debugging a link between two telecoms providers as one had assumed a six-digit decimal number was padded with zero's and the other had assumed it wasn't - if only we had standards...

But a marina isn't a public park. It is private and thus the risks and degree of risk averseness is different. One could equally say that the entire thousands of miles of canal network is a public park, but you don't tend to find life rings every 100 yds along the cut. You do find them in some high-footfall urban places though, which is interesting - presumably the consensus is that people who live in cities are stupid and have no concept of self-preservation. Which is probably correct!

That was her! Let me be absolutely clear that I will stop participating in this thread if it's going to be hijacked into yet another RCR discussion.

Indeed, but my wife might be dead were it not for the marina having a ladder ready. I am certainly pleased that the pontoons at Crick are well served with ladders.

Most boat electricians earn their living by installing stuff plus the markup on equipment they supply. I don't think there are many out there who offer a consulting service - advice for a fee without also supplying and installing stuff. And no professional is going to give you anything beyond generic advice for free, until you have committed to spending more. In contrast there are several folk on the forum who will freely give of their knowledge and experience. The downside is that you have to sort out the knowledgeable from the bullsh*tters ( but then how do you know your paid professional is one of the former, not the latter), and none of the advice comes with any guarantee (and any guarantee from a pro is largely unenforceable anyway!). You also have to accept that there are sometimes personality differences between forum members that can deteriorate into personal attacks that achieve nothing and alienate other readers. So better if you try to rise above any negativity, answer any follow on questions or requests for information as best you can, and accept that sometimes the answers you get may not be what you want to hear.

Especially as the thread title actually says "Traditional working narrow boat", a type of boat which has no plumbing or water. Its a bit like asking "I have an electric car, where do I put the petrol in?" Just put up a photo of the boat and people will then understand how to help.

Unbelievable how so many on here are still living with a 1970’s attitude. A multi million pound organisation are in the wrong yet it’s me who they turn on. Im done!

It goes in the same place as the beer goes in, where it comes out depends on the model

Sent last week on the Caldon. Met some egregious people. The people who helped my wife (and me!) with a stiff paddle on the staircase. Horrible. The people who found us a table in their pub despite it being clearly rammed to the gills with prebooked tables. Awful. The people who warned us of a hidden underwater obstacle at Cheddleton Flint mill. Vile. The dozen or so CRT volunteers doing a fabulous job clearing the towpath. Terrible people. Dreadful canal as well. All the locks working (bar the one stiff paddle), everything well maintained. I trust that fits in with the style of posting people like to read on here. I'd hate anyone to imagine we had a good time on a nice canal with some lovely people.

There will likely be some compromise and conflict between water supply and navigation, and despite any agreements that might be made the water companies just can't be trusted and will walk all over CRT. They are happy to break the law and dump raw sewage into our rivers so blocking navigation will be no problem at all to them, they will just claim they don't have the money to sort things out.