Mike Todd
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Posts posted by Mike Todd
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3 hours ago, Midnight said:
I went over awhile ago accompanied by a fellow aboard an old wooden boat which I was told had a 33" draft. Mooring on the Lancaster will be your main issue I suspect.
Leaving Tarelton you get hit by the incoming tide but your Beta 43 will manage quite well. Give it some so you don't get diverted into Preston Docks.
Coming back over it's better to slowly leave the sea lock and hang back in the brook waiting for the tide to ease. The first time I got some rope around the prop leaving the sea lock pontoon and was 25mins after the other boats. We were right behind them when we reached the Ribble. When I brought a boat over for a friend a few years back we were accompanied by a local boat. He suggested we go very slowly down the brook to the Ribble which worked a treat.
We are thinking of doing it again in July. That's if C&RT can keep the Pennine canals open long enough 😜Diverted into Preston Dock is not a bad thing - quite interesting on the one time it happened to us.
The draft limit relates to Ribble Link and not the Lanky, even if the comments are actually true. You will soon get used to overnight mooring out of sight of land (!) Having a K&A length plank is a help.
The comments about punching the tide are also true and you do need to be alert about timings even if the lockies are not always very accurate in advising. The tide will turn whilst on the Ribble and it is easy not to notice that you have almost come to a stand still with the engine set for a reasonable speed over the ground as you emerge from the Douglas. It is then you you will need some reserve power to avoid missing the time into Savick Brook.
I suspect the main measured draft limit is the half tide rotating lock. The usual procedure is to have to wait on the mooring just after that, before the A583 road bridge. When you arrive the level will be too high to get under (and over the lock cill) and so the wait is to let it drop - this does not seem to be explained in the guides. Same happens in reverse when coming back again, except that you will be waiting for the level to come up after the flotilla has come under the bridge. Watch out for an over-enthusiastic lockie when you are set off from the pontoon on the way out - ours last year opened up so fast it gave us quite an 'experience' (!)
For all that, it is a great trip and the Lanky is good so long as you adjust to a different speed of life! If the available Link slots mean that you have time to spare there are lots of great things to do off-canal, mostly available via public transport. Try Ribblehead Viaduct for example.
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22 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:
The consultation made three proposals (options B, C and D). There a nothing intrinsically wrong in asking if people agree with proposals or not. The consultation also tried to find out why people made the choices they did.
By simple majority, boaters rejected all three proposals.
Not so as, in perhaps many cases, when responding to a Q 'do you prefer A or B' with no option to say 'neither' then you cannot say that any percentage agreed with either option. In any case, decision making of this sort is often about selecting the least-worst not the best (see traditional maths Game Theory).
It does suggest that CaRT were more concerned to identify any group that would be able to express sufficient opposition rather than looking for the holy grail - something that everyone agrees is a 'good idea'. After all, the only option that would garner wholesale support is to make boating free for all!
That slightly frivolous extreme suggestion is intended to point up that surveys are actually not very good at assisting decisions where factors other than the primary dichotomy are important in making a choice. In the current instance, whilst most people would like a 'free' right to navigate, it is generally recognised that the costs involved in maintaining the network are considerable, and considerably more expensive than they were, all of which has to come from somewhere - but then we were not asked about that question, especially as CaRT has little control over much of it - principally how much should the general community pay for an amenity which is enjoyed by a large number of people to some degree. Consider the reaction if it were suggested that access to urban parks and gardens should be restricted (like NT) to those who pay on entry, or via an annual subscription.
In the case of licence fee surcharges, which have been around in some form for a very long time via length or area based costs, some of the debate is about the 'fairness' and the impact on disadvantaged groups. As with tax, this never very easy but more complex in this case as the overall impact is very much affected by the interaction with the benefit system.
Perhaps one of the reason why the report was redacted is that CaRT wish to be cagey about what they were actually trying to measure.
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1 hour ago, haggis said:
Good drive down today despite a bit of dampness. We were going the right way as the north bound lanes were much busier - all those folk going to Scotland for the festive season. Car unpacked, fire lit, water filled, dog walked and Iain is doing boaty things 😀. Walked up past Orchard marina and it is full of water but no boats and stop planks are still across the entrance .
We'll stay here tonight - might even put up some decorations - then head off in the morning. Down the Shroppie as Iain wants to visit a museum near Autherley.
But it is over a week to the 'festive season' for Scotland.
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21 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:
Options
1. Do it now and have a BSS cert dated from the test date
2. Do it within the 2 months before you go - which may not be possible
3. Ask CRT and they will -
A). Say it’s ok to be a bit late, but probably they won’t as the rules are clear
B). Say it is definitely not ok. In which case it’s either option 1) or ignore CRT instruction. Not wise.
4. Say nothing, do it as soon as you return. If CRT notice which I doubt, say ‘very sorry, I tested as soon as I realised I was late’.
I know which I would do as it’s always better to say sorry than try to explain why you disobeyed an instruction. But if you don’t like being a bit naughty, or worrying about insurance, upsetting CRT etc then it’s option 1.
A further option is to arrange for someone else to enable access for the examiner whilst you are away. Most marinas will hold the keys for you and hand them, to the examiner. Since we are not close to our marina this is how we do it without having to be in a foreign country!
Depending on the examiner, you may need to ensure that anything that needs to be moved (like 'extras' in the gas locker!) is fixed before you depart. Our last one fell due during Covid restrictions and the examiner was very 'helpful' as he could go there but we could not.
The only problem is if the test reveals something that will need to be done before the cert can be issued. Whilst this will not be picked up by CaRT until the licence needs to be renewed you need, as has been said, to check your insurance small print as you may not be insured until it is fixed, but if you are concerned, ,belt and braces would dictate asking them to be lenient. Unless it really is serious then I doubt if they will be picky. But doing nothing risks having a claim rejected when it is too late to do anything about it. Again, if you have an existing maintenance person you could arrange for them to have access via the marina office.
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15 minutes ago, davidg said:
As the person who derailed this thread by objecting to this and subsequent similar claims I will attempt to put this to bed so contributors can get back to discussing the Schleswig-Holstein question. Some of this will be repeating what others have said and some of it is down to semantics, I hope that most (all? ...please) will be motherhood & apple pie*:
First a definition: water used is the amount of water which must be added to a pound to maintain the water level. This is all the reservoir keepers (when such a thing existed) care about: how hard and for how long do I have to turn the valve on for?
Secondly, said reservoir keepers don't care if the pound is full of water or 99% full of boat shaped holes in the water, so long as the remaining 1% of water keeps that gauge out of the red they can stay in bed.
Part the third: when a lock is operated the amount of water which flows through the paddle holes is w x l x h and is independent of what is in the lock. Please don't argue with this, it just is. If you do wish to argue I'll leave it to others, I can't be bothered to waste my time drawing pictures etc.
Next a digression from locks: imagine a pound with a boat in it. Draw a line across the pound in front of the boat, one side of the line where the boat is side a, other side of the line where the boat isn't is side b. Boat moves from a to b. a now contains more water, b contains less water.
Does the lock keeper have to get out of bed to top b up? No, he doesn't because the boat shaped hole in the water occupies the same volume as the water which isn't there.
a contains more water but does it run over the weir? No it doesn't, because the extra water fills the boat shaped hole which previously existed.
Amazing how that works out isn't it? Does the boat “use” water by moving from a to b? Not by the definition in part 1, the reservoir keeper hasn’t had to do anything to maintain the water levels.
Part 4: If a boat is worked through a lock then a boat shaped hole in the water will be transferred from one side of the lock to another. First the boat enters the lock and the gates are closed, the boat shaped hole in the water is now in the lock but the water levels in the lock chamber and the pound are exactly as they were before the boat entered. No reservoir keepers will be troubled by this. After filling (or emptying) the lock, tipping wxlxh litres of water through the lock (which will trouble the reservoir keeper) the gates can be opened and the boat can move out of the chamber. Now the boat shaped hole in the water is in the other pound but again, neither the level of water in the lock chamber nor the level in the pound have been altered by the act of the boat being moved out of the lock and the reservoir keeper can go back to bed.
There is now less water in the pound the boat has entered (and more water in the pound it has left) but that water has been replaced by the boat shaped hole in the water (or the boat shaped hole in the water has been filled by water).
What all of this means is that everyone is right. Yay!
For the crack-the-egg-at-the-blunt-enders there is less water in the pound the boat now occupies and more in the pound the boat formerly occupied (so by this definition of water “used” larger/heavier boats should pay more for a licence when going up, and less when going down).
For the crack-the-egg-at-the sharp-enders the reservoir keeper doesn’t care whether there are boats or water in the pound, all they care about is how much extra water is needed to maintain the water level which is wxlxh regardless of the size or number of boats worked through a lock.
So, is everyone happy?
*Things we can all agree on, Carver Mead 1981
I think I can recall, perhaps five years or mroe ago, seeing a lock that works just as you imagine but not since. Do you know how they actually behave?
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56 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:
Right, I think I understand again,
I’ve visualised coming down the Marsden flight where the pounds are so short and small one has to fill the lock ahead before emptying the lock above,
Now, at lst, we are getting a mor sensible perspective. The debate so far is overshadowed by the realities of: meeting locks that ar4e set 'against' the boat, not being able to catch before throw, pounds that are already full and running weir, in-a-rush merchants who draw just as you are about to leave the previous lock etc etc. All of these can consume a lot of water not to mention the crazy folk who open paddles for a laugh.
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1 minute ago, IanD said:
Yes, but this hasn't "used" any water -- no extra water needs to enter the upper pound to keep the water level the same.
I did not suggest any such thing!
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16 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Irrelevant. When the boat goes in, the gates and paddles are open. Nothing suddenly changes when you shut the gates, the situation is identical to when they were open.
If i have my toy boat in the bath, and move it from one end to another, nothing changes if I suddenly put a block down the middle of the bath. It can only act as a closed cube if it's shut before the boat goes in, which would involve either a crane, a helicopter, or a bizarre gravitational anomaly.
But is the hole deeper if it's a BIG rabbit? Or if a badger goes down instead?
When a boat enters the top of a lock its displaced water is pushed back into the upper pound. Hence the upper pound has more water in it when the gates are closed than before the boat arrived.
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6 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:
I very much doubt that will work on steel or concrete piling, especially if it has a waling bar. I think a number of potential solutions are needed, depending upon the situations.
Hence my proviso. OTOH, there are few times when we come across such smooth banks . . .
4 hours ago, David Mack said:In my experience of strong crosswinds, it can work out fine up to that point. But as soon as you take off the astern power and go to forward, the boat is blown back onto the bank before you have built up enough forward speed to be able to steer against the wind.
That was why I noted that at times you have to take the stern out much further than you imagine necessary.
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Go into fwd gear and turn the steering to push the stern out into the deeper water. Then go hard astern with opposite or straight steering until bow is free. You often have to take tte stern much further out than you first think. On most canas no ropes are needed as the reeds hold the bow enough to turn out.
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3 hours ago, IanD said:
This whole idea that boat displacement has any effect on water usage in a lock is wrong, the above post which says it's just lock area x lock fall is correct.
Imagine you're going down and the lock is full. When you go into the lock the water level doesn't change, regardless of the size of boat. Now empty the lock, the water level (drawn from below the boat) falls by the drop regardless of size of boat, so the water used is the same. Now open the bottom gates; moving the boat out of the lock doesn't change the water level.
One lock turn -- in either direction -- uses the same amount of water whether the lock has one or two narrowboats or one wideboat in it, or indeed no boat at all.
When a boat goes into a full lock, it displaces its volume back into the pound above. This affects the calculation.
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4 hours ago, magnetman said:
Quite a few yars ago BW sent out literature to all boaters. I remember it in the late 90s. There were several things such as having children in school or needing access to work and the last few words were "This defines what continuous cruising is not".
There were loads of warnings about what would and would not satisfy the board. In fact this is the reason I took a mooring. We had children and due to my having been on boats for so long and understanding the situation it would not be viable to cc and have kids.
Of course things have since been watered down but there was a time when BW did tell people this won't work properly.
The problem is because everything has all got a bit exciting and people getting a bit political, claiming rights and being generally noisy it all comes up on radars.
It may be difficult but not impossible. I have met two separate CCers this year who proudly told me about their offspring who were about to go to university (and Oxbridge to boot!) after having been educated whilst living aboard. In one case at least the result was achieved after obtaining a scholarship to a prestigious fee paying school accessible from the canal.
2 hours ago, agg221 said:I do not have a widebeam and cannot think of any circumstances under which I would ever do so, so my thoughts are not based on personal gain.
On the one hand, widebeams occupy more space on the water. That means they use more water per lock cycle than a pair of narrow beam boats, they occupy more space in a marina mooring and they prevent double-mooring online. They also cause a level of inconvenience to other users in less well dredged channels (exacerbated in slab sided boats which are not really designed to move) and in passing certain parts of the system such as Braunston tunnel.
BUT
On the other hand, they do not put more pressure on services such as water, rubbish and elsan points, there are not that many locations outside London and parts of the K&A where breasting up is a necessity and occupying more space in a marina is only relevant to the marina operator, not CRT. How many times do narrowboats actually encounter another boat to share locks with? We sometimes do but often don't. Additionally, there are large parts of the network where they cannot go and many of these are the older canals with higher cost for infrastructure for heritage reasons and because, unlike rivers, almost all of which are widebeam, they do not have a natural water supply. It clearly wouldn't put anything like the pressure on the system for a widebeam to cc around the Trent, Calder and Hebble, Aire and Calder and the Ouse as it does for a narrowboat to do the same around the Oxford and Coventry.
I am not putting forward any particular suggestion for change here, just noting that there are some points which could be made. Actually, they sit rather in favour of regional charging but not assuming the same rate for all regions?
Alec
I thought that the established formula for water used per lock cycle expended on the weight of the displacement so no difference at all for equivalent 'tonnage'.
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1 hour ago, David Mack said:
Is there a hole in the top so you can reach through from the weedhatch to the prop?
And also, how far can you push the tiller over? Does it limit the ability for tight turns?
At first sight not so. Many steerers make the mistake of pushing the tiller further than adds benefit, even to reducing turning.
The turning effect is a combination of the direct force of the prop flow hitting the still water behind and hitting the rudder. The latter is most effective around 45o whilst the former closer to 90o.
I have no experience with such as this boat shows but I do not know how much force the prop flow exerts on the nozzle - is it as great as on a rudder and how much greater force is exerted by the flow through the nozzle on the still water? Purely from the turning circle, I's be surprised if the overall difference is great but experience will tell.
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19 hours ago, IanD said:
If they genuinely haven't got an alternative -- say, some boaters -- then there's nothing hypocritical about having a stove and also being concerned about the climate and pollution.
If the stove is a "lifestyle choice" -- and that is the reason for the big increase in woodburners in recent years, having a "cosy wood fire" in a town house or flat -- then it is rather hypocritical for them to carry on using it while claiming to be concerned about pollution and the environment.
There is pretty much always an alternative, even on a boat - diesel, gas or whatever. What there is not is a heat source that is supposedly better for the climate ie electricity. What we can say for certain is that heating by hooking up to a mains bollard diminishes the impact of a moored boat on adjacent 'shiny' houses. Is that a good thing?
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1 hour ago, peterboat said:
They arnt a housing authority! they pretend to be a navigation authority 🤣 which clearly they are failing at badly ☹
If you want to be fair, you should distinguish between failing because of incompetent and failing because of inadequate income (for whatever reason) To me it is largely the latter as it appears to me that the the 'team' are doing a pretty good job at using their income, some of which is mandated, as best they can, yet still having to cope with falling below any historical standard.
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2 hours ago, nicknorman said:
Oh dear resorting to sarcasm already! There is no shortage of home moorings in general, though if you are London based I can see why you might think it. Speaking for myself I don’t have a mooring out of any philanthropic tendency. I have a home mooring because we live a long way away from our boat.But regardless of why people have a home mooring, the FACTS are that most people with home moorings pay additional money to CRT. Either because the moorings are owned and managed by CRT or because the marina is forced to pay 10% of the mooring fees to CRT - a sort of “marina tax”. We are in the latter category and so pay roughly an additional £300 annually to CRT via our mooring fees. This is more than the CCing supplement and so even with the supplement, we are still paying CRT more to use the system less, including using less water, sewage and rubbish facilities, compared to a live aboard CCer. And yet you still moan about how unfair it is for you!
Just to sum up, CRT receives more money from me than from you so I don’t think you should feel too hard done by.
The marina is not forced to pay fees to CaRT, any more than they are forced to pay for the electricity, business rates, etc etc. It is simply part of the contract that the marina agreed to up front (NB the NAA was not imposed retrospectively on those who already had more favourable long term conditions) It is not a tax as it is part of a contract - to be valid it must satisfy the 'person on the Clapham Omnibus' test of appearing to be a reasonable payment in relation to the benefits or services received.
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19 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
That's another one who hasn't read the thread , or read it selectively. Of course there are costs when you CC, especially for the ones who actually do. Mind you, those are the ones who vacate the towpath regularly, anyway - I gather not the ones Colin is referring to.
Why should livelihoods become unviable for CCers? It's a lifestyle choice, to go cruising on a permanent basis and needs funding just as much as any other. It will always be a cheaper way to play on a boat than paying for a mooring , and you get the benefit of cruising all year round, which most of us moorers would love to do.
Of course, if you don't want to cruise, but just shuffle about a bit, bending the rules as far as you can and depending on an outmoded law put in place to benefit genuine cruisers, you could be in trouble, but that's what happens if too many people extract the urine.
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It would be interesting gto know what the average stay in one accommodation is for the people who try out being a canal liveaboard. I suspect that many come and go as that is a facet of their lifestyle anyway (and, in case someone reacts otherwise, that is not a criticism of anyone, but a warning to be very careful with so-called statistics)
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11 hours ago, nealeST said:
Yep, I much prefer to use the middle of the canal but some none hire boats I have encountered whilst exercising the same preference neglect the mandate that vessels that meet head on, should both steer to starboard (to the right) and pass each other Port to Port (or left hand side to left hand side). Or is it ‘cos I is a hire boater?
In some contexts this makes passing easier as it minimises the time spent in the bushes or shallow towpath edges - as the boats pass each pulls the bow of the other back into the centre line almost without having to steer, other than to straighten up again. Done well, it is quite a balletic 'docey-do' (OK so mixing dance styles!)
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19 hours ago, nealeST said:
I’d be wary of dismissing all hire boaters as inexperienced. True, people like me have start somewhere…(I’m
not the one driving on the wrong side of the canal as I’ve witnessed privately owned boats on occasion)…some people hire boats for decades.
There is no rule/law about which side of the canal you must navigate - you can go wherever you see fit in the circumstances. However, with a very few exceptions, you must pass on the right. Common misunderstanding?
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2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:
Showers and washing machines were put into services when most boats didn't have either. Most now do, and certainly all boats have showers and toilets, so why should CRT spend useful money maintaining them? Especially when vandalism is so extensive - I don't think I've seen a functioning shower in a facility for years. It's a total waste of CRT's money, catering to the odd freeloader who can't be bothered to use their own.
Nowt to do with selfishness , just priorities. Perhaps those who rarely go through a lock and just expect everything on a plate are the selfish ones?
The more difficult case is that of laundry facilities. For similar reasons, the number of launderettes in the community has dropped drastically since their height. All new homes will come with at least a washer and dryer as part of the package and the lack is focussed on specific sectors, such as the lower quality rental market. Increasingly, new boats will have them as standard but the proportion of liveaboards with out is probably much higher than in most other parts of society and, in any case, they are a fraction of boaters as a whole, most of whom can readily take it back home at the end of their week or fortnight. In addition, CaRT laundry facilities do seem to be prone to misuse and have a high maintenance cost.
In our previous boat we were dependent on finding launderettes so I know how scarce they are, even 7 years ago. On our new boat, we specified a washer to be built in and certainly do not regret allocating that space for that purpose (being built in it only uses its own volume and not the space above it). Equally I am aware of the difficulty encountered by liveaboards without such a facility. One or two places, including camping sites beside the canal, are noted for being welcoming but it is the exception rather than the rule.
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2 hours ago, debbbbs said:
His website is all about how qualified and experienced he is and that employing him offered us a guarantee that the boat was worth the money and that there would be no major issues. As a newbie we naturally assumed that when you pay someone to do a job, they do it.
The surveyor saw water beneath the shower and at the stern access points inside the boat. On opening the access hatch beneath the shower which we know he did he would have been hit by the pungent odour.If the surveyor had simply made us aware that he had found water throughout the boat beneath the floorboards but was unable to determine where the water was coming from, even as newbies we would have been concerned and requested a more in-depth inspection to determine the cause of the water. However he told us that the water was the result of a leak from the shower that had been fixed. We don't know if this is the result of something he was told or simply an assumption on his behalf. So it wasn't that he missed the problem totally, he either mis diagnosed it or accepted a lie from the marina without question.
Ahh, there we have the fatal flaw - his advice was that it was worth the price, not that it was free of any major fault. Of course, we cannot say on the evidence so far evinced that this is not true. It would be even harder to prove to a court than that he had acted unprofessionalally.
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2 hours ago, MartynG said:
That is not 100% correct. The requirement is that a home mooring should be available throughout the period of the license.
Please refer to the C&RT terms and conditions which sets out the rules and requirements. This is nothing new.
Something written in a faq section on a website is just talk and not a rule or a regulation. The C&RT terms and conditions are the legal contract that is agreed to when buying a license.
As with the RCR - the regulations apply in law. Not the chatter on websites which is just talk.
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And, interestingly, 6.1 makes it clear, contrary to some boaters' assumptions, the boat has to continue to comply with BSS not just to hold a valid certificate. Hence, there is a liability to ensure that any modifications (or even breakdowns) are made/repaired to be compliant at any time CaRT care to check.
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2 hours ago, blackrose said:
It's very difficult for people new to boats. When they come on here with tales of woe about problems with boat they've just bought, the first question they're asked is "Did you get it surveyed before you bought it?" And if the answer is no they get duly criticised and chastised.
Then when they come on here and tell us about a new boat that was surveyed but that problems emerged afterwards, they get told that surveys are worthless.
They can't really win can they...
Ahh! At last someone has allowed the penny to drop . . . .!
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7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
It also seems to be discussing if a boat with a home mooring becomes a CCer when they leave the mooring for 3-4-5-6 months 'Summer Cruising'.
It matters not as the surcharge is not for CCing but for not having a home mooring. If you have a home mooring, you have a home mooring!
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C&RT License Survey
in General Boating
Posted
It also means that the survey can utilise person-specific data without disclosing it to CaRT.