Leaderboard

Any care charity has the option of not providing the care if it can't achieve the standard - CRT don't have that option - they don't just have to meet statutory requirements, they have statutory duties. There is a difference between holding CRT to account and "being on their case" - one frequent FOI user was found to be vexatious and CRT no longer have to comply with their requests. Those who want CRT to improve (and that's probably most of us) should pick their battles, not just try and make CRT's life difficult.

Dealing with ridiculous FOI requests must waste loads of money that could possibly fix a paddle or two.

Tixall Wide this evening.

They were in operation on Czech waterways until about twenty-five years ago. One is preserved in the Berlin Harbour Museum, but it proved a little difficult to photograph, so this is the stern in 1996. You can just make out that there is a port and starboard wheel cover, so steering could have been by varying wheel rotation or speed. There is a rudder as well. The second photo shows one working on the Elbe at Dresden, photo from https://www.der-lustige-modellbauer.com/t29821-heckrad-dampfer-friedrich-der-bn-alles-unbekannt

Yep. Only fair for all boats mooring on the towpath to pay my proposed towpath mooring fee. Whether or not they have a home mooring somewhere else. The point is to correct the inherent unfairness and at the same time, raise funds for maintenance of the waterways. Heavy going, wasn't it!!

"When we use the canals we might damage them, so we're going to stay put and get in the way of people who do want to use them" Not moving to avoid wear and tear on the system defeats the very point of having a canal system

Let me help you here - I'm one of the folks who works on the grant funding - in the case of two canals (Cotswold & Droitwich) I was the guy handling the money for HLF, and two more (Rochdale and Huddersfield) I had a responsibility for seeing that the restoration was in accordance with the grant terms, which in turn depended on who had given the grant - I was part of a team monitoring for English Partnerships and had to scratch my head very hard when upon abolition of EP the scheme was handed to NWRDA but without enough budget to finish the job. That's one of the reasons the shallows through Miles Platting (?) was only partially excavated - me (and others) deciding that so long as a navigable corridor was created that "would do" for fulfilling the grant purposes. Grants ALWAYS have a term limitation, as in, the grant contract has a stipulation that the grant purpose must be maintained for a given period once the works are complete. If land purchase is involved in the project, it's usually 80 years. The only way to wriggle out of this would be to argue that, say, navigation wasn't the purpose of the grant but arose as a result of the grant works that are otherwise being maintained - such an approach is unlikely to succeed. The alternative is to pay the grant back - this is on a sliding scale but may also be index linked, so closing a canal 25 years into a grant funded term of 80 years might mean paying 55/80ths back but that would be adjusted for inflation... inflation since 2000 is approx 80%, so closing a canal restored with a grant, before the grant term expires, can be pretty expensive. BW tried to stop running trips into Standedge Tunnel as they were losing money, but the boats etc were grant funded (this time 30 years) and repaying the grant would cost more than they were losing.

It seems a meaningless question to me (as a continuous cruiser myself). If people consistently move just once every 14 days, to my mind they'd have to move many miles each time to be in the spirit of things. If you're travelling hundreds of miles overall and feel like moving a few yards around the corner one time, who cares? It would matter if CRT tried to rigidly police every movement in isolation, but they don't. Taken over months it's obvious who's really moving and who's shuffling.

My personal view of the NBTA is that I'm pretty sure they have a fair proportion of members who genuinely need their help and are trying to boat within the law. No doubt there are plenty of the alternatives, but that's true of any association. All the grief to do with non moving CCers, and most of the arguments, are due to the fact that CRT and the NBTA are trying to deal with symptoms, not causes, which are out of their control. And so there simply are no solutions, because nobody is looking at the root cause of the problems, nor does anyone have any intention of doing so. People need somewhere to live, and want to do it where they have work, family or friends. Until someone decides to sort that out, our little waterways problems aren't going to get solved. A few quid in CRTs coffers is possibly the best they can hope for.

I'll leave you to it as once again, you employ the debating technique of a six-year old.

Boat owners say their traditional way of life could be wiped out leaving them homeless if the Canal and River Trust presses ahead with plans to increasing prices to live off the grid by up to 75%. That's the bit that always get's me. Most of them have only been living on boats for a couple of years but somehow it's their "traditional way of life". 🤣

Obviously not a memory foam mattress

That's where the cafe boat (Moonraker?) used to be - I last saw it in Lincoln. My favourite mooring in Slawit right next to bakery, brewery and dog walks and handy for the best pub, the Commercial.

I have started this so I will go on. These are photos of Rhine paddle tugs. I have been and continue to be looking for someone to identify two them, or at least their owning company. There were not I think very many of these tugs still operating in 1957. Three of the photos, the ones taken from the shore, are of the Gustav Wegge. Built in 1926 by Gebr Sachsenberg, the builder of so many of these ships, she became part of the famous Braunkohle fleet, immaculately maintained, two years later. Scuttled by her crew in 1945, to avoid capture by the Allies, she was salvaged the next year and continued in service until 1957, the year I watched this magnificent piece of engineering forge past. Even in those days these giants attracted attention. I feel privileged to have seen them at work. The Gustav Wegge was sold for breaking in 1959. And just in case it is of interest, three of the Rhine passenger ferries. You bought the postcards on board with a souvenir stamp on. We spent the night on the Rheinland in Cologne after the journey from Boppard. It was exciting, but the heat from the steam engines was what I remember most. There we are. I hope of some interest.

This is just the stern end of the butty Achilles, now going backwards. Achilles was cut by Roger Farrington in about 2015 amid much concern from historic boat enthusiasts that yet another of the few remaining full length butties had been lost. I see this displays the name of the original boat. At the time it was cut I thought it would be more appropriate for the front end, which is most of the original boat, to carry the name Achilles, and the back end should be named Achilles Heel.