oldairbear

Fairies hill is within two miles of Normanton and has a bus stop at the bottom of the lane with a choice of three bus services in and out of Normanton and Wakefield so you don't necessarily need a car. It is offline and secure. www.fairies-hill-moorings.co.uk

Can I mention www.seasafe.co.uk it is a company that service life jackets of any make as we'll as making their own. They are based in the isle of white but have service points around the coast and inland where you can drop your jacket off, it then gets couriered to them for a service. Service costs start from less than a tenner and no I am not indebted to them or part of them, my marina - Fairies Hill Moorings on the Aire & Calder Navigation is one of their service points. Peace of mind if you have one that gathers more dust than daylight. I personally wear an automatic life jacket of 270 not the standard 150 buoyancy, but then I am old, large and cruise alone on a very deep river, with rather large boats to bump into if I'm not careful! And trust that the extra buoyancy will keep me and my heavy clothes afloat it unconscious.

there was indeed a flood, flood gates were shut, but the lockies work these boats through no matter how much flood there is. On this day there was high winds from the west as well as around 8/9 foot of flood water. the photo shows we were within a foot of breaching at the lock. you have to watch these boats to see the complicated manouvres they go through just to turn round, it was during this the strong stream coupled with the high wind took his bows in the opposite direction to which he intended and grounded both front and rear on the two opposing banks with the wind and stream then holding him in place as he was now unladen and showing a huge side slab of metal to the wind. a laden boat arrived and even that pushing hard against his down stream side did little to move him, it gave us something to watch for a while.

Thank you PJ I think that one is what the old BW used to call an unplanned stoppage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Twas i who went to the aid of said distressed boater. He had to wait until i had taken divers and their diving platform down to Stephensons Bridge. Took him off on my return to Fairies Hill Moorings where i have been moored since 2005. Below hopefully if i have mangaed the black art of putting images into the post is one reason why bouys or markers can't be deployed. We have spoken to BW (now C&RT)and the engineers have been out on site. the sand bank is caused mainly due to the long sweeping bend, silt being swept down river will naturally deposit on the inside of the bend as the water flows round it. So dredging would have to be a continuous process. It is true that the sand barges move sand to the side but that is true on any river or canal, the deepest water is where the main channel of boats move. In this case the sand barges coming up laden have approx ten foot below the water line and are twenty foot wide, they tend to be on the left coming up stream so that the stern has somewhere to go as they turn into the wharf(they being two hundred feet long). so it follows that is where the channel is and it is very deep with a minimum of twelve feet of water below top. We are currently on normal river levels. As someone earlier pointed out the river rises when water gets poured onto the pennines. when it can and has raised the river level by over ten feet swamping our lock. Thankfully it goes down just as quick. I took another boater off that same afternoon who had got rather well stuck. Several years ago the RNLI granted me the status of Life Governor, I thought it was a honourary title, not an active role anyway if you think getting free from the sand bank is easy try it when you are stuck in one of these. It took several hours and the use of its sister boat to free it I have been unable to fathom out how to get images into the post, i have put four images into the members gallery under sand barge stuck to illustrate the above, if someone better than i could copy them into here then all can see other than that if you wish to see how the sand bank catches boats please visit the members gallery sand barge stuck. I clicked on public so they should be visible.

I take the point about police arrest for a byelaw offence being a sledge hammer to crack a nut. However, the police oath of allegence carries a line about prevention as well as detection. A mooring site where boats are continually targeted by mischief is hardly a mooring site where anyone would by choice wish to moor their boat. Why should that happen. Why should boaters be prevented from mooring in a nice area because those for what ever reason continually cause a nuisance. Surely left unchecked small happenings become big happenings?

Keep the replies coming -all additions welcome. In regard to powers of arrest, the local constabulary are never around at the same time as the perpetrators so no one is likely to be arrested at the scene. The object of finding legislation is to convince said constabulary that setting boats adrift can be down right dangerous and does require that they get out of mobile metal container (Car) and use the two apendages we all have at the lower end of our bodies (Legs)and take a stroll along the river/canal bank occassionally to safeguard the boats moored quite legally alongside. If nothing else, going by BWs Adverts it will save them money as well, they can cancel their gym membership!!

Keeping Up, you have just given me some food for thought. at least half the boats untied had been tied off on the boat after the rope had been passed through a mooring ring. Now that means that those responsible had to have trespassed onto the boat in order to undo said ropes, and as owners of the boats would not have given permission for said trespass. I think I might pass back to local constabulary that section and see if it upsets their dinner. reading that section - it does not say you have to know who it was for an offence to have been committed. Thank you all for your help. I am still interested if someone can come up with any other suggestions to make the local constabulary take interfering with boats as a serious problem and a criminal matter.

Thank you good folk for your comments so far, and thank you for the by law, as a start - something to annoy the police with, however, as keeping up says, I am sure that someone found a relevant section of maritime law, at the time it was suggested that quoting said act and section could be checked by the police internally with a force with a river section so it was definitely something stronger than BWs by law, and i would dearly love to find it. to the comment about securing the boats, i take the point. All boats had been properly secured, whoever did this task took some time doing it, undoing front back and centre ropes of 10 boats. to do so they would have had to have climbed onto some boats in order to undo the ropes. It took us (6 boaters) all morning to get them back on the moorings, it took the police until mid afternoon to come and visit!

Hello good people, ill health has kept me away from the forums for too long. But enough of that I am back on board now. I seek the help of the enlightened on this forum. I know the answer to my question was answered several years ago, old age prevents memory sifting and the forum search facility does not help me; Recently several boats on a linear mooring were set adrift, all ending in a gaggle at the nearby lock, except one which was overhanging a by wash. All were either untied or the mooring rope slipped off the boat, the boats then being pushed out into the stream. Police called and stated that as the boats had been untied or set loose rather than having the ropes cut then there was no further action to be taken as no criminal damage had occurred, and thus no offences for then to record or follow up! I recall that this or something similar was debated before with the result or a suggestion that the maritime laws covered such an event making it a criminal offence, I recall someone on here far more enlightened than I was able to quote an act and section. I would dearly love to find this, if for no other reason than to get the local constabulary to accept that setting adrift several boats is not "nothing", thankfully no one was on board any of the boats at the time. Your help will be gratefully accepted, even if it is to tell me that in my old dotage I imagined the references Thank you all

after the licence fee/fee discount consultations the results will be announced on the BW web site this afternoon or tomorrow morning. and then passed out to the waterways press through usual channels 1) 30 Day Explorer Licences will be kept for trailer boats 2) 1% will be added to all Licence Fees from 1st August (includes renewal notices sent out in June for 1st August renewal) 3) £7.50 surcharge for using credit card to pay. Direct Debit and debit cards not affected. this is the slim version. the press release goes into detail of how they arrived at each result

Moorings like licences are worked in whole months no matter what day you arrive or leave. You are required to give 1 months notice AND return the discs (2 months notice if you are on a tendered mooring). BW then calculate how many months have been USED not months left. They keep 10% of the cost for each month used (this includes the months notice period). so in the case of the OP if they had 4 months left after giving notice and returning the discs that equals 8 months used. BW would keep 80% and give a refund of 20%. Licences are worked out on a different scale which has been alluded to in the other thread someone previous has linked to

Standard Licence, England and Wales 3, 6 or 12 months, Canals & Rivers/ Rivers Only · Standard Boat Licences are for boats kept solely for personal use by the licence holder, friends and family. The Licence does not permit you to operate or offer the boat for hire, for carrying goods or passengers for payment or for any other commercial purpose. · The Licence does not allow you to use the boat for any type of business. extract from T&Cs page 13. in order to do what you indicate you will need a Leisure Business Licence. your insurance would need to be altered and most important of all the BSS cert would need to be redone to include the additional tests required for Hire Craft

Sue, i recall from earlier discussions in the office that they arrive at the uneconomic cost as the cost 'they allege' it takes to keep the site maintained! - the bit in commas is my personal insert. On some sites they are reducing the price where they cannot get anyone to take up the tender. BUT it does not come down by very much at all - Clarence dock opposite the office where no one is taking on the tenders dropped by £250 and they 'according to me' are well over priced as well as covered in non boater additional rules, some of which hopefully will be changing after my meeting with the moorings manager (they took on board the things i said). They came to me incidently to ask why no-one was bidding! i'll try and get an answer to the footage part of your question. Mel