Arthur Marshall

Do you mean those who buy a boat they can't afford, can't afford to run, can't afford to moor, haven't got the time to cruise and lie about their intentions? Would you sympathise with me buying a million pound house by misrepresenting my income, then can't afford the mortgage and it getting reposessed? And then blame it on the majority who buy according to their circumstances? I think CRT have finally lost patience with those who deliberately cheat the system. The fact that it's clobbering the dozen or so who don't is unfortunately what happens. Everyone got away with it by staying quiet and under the radar - then along came Dunkley and the NBTA... the first got ignored as a lone daft voice, but as soon as an organisation started, CRT had to act sooner or later. And maybe us moorers would have more sympathy if the CCers hadn't had such a good old laugh at us back when the charges came in. What goes round comes round.

Out if interest, is that the mooring fee paid to CRT separately from the rental of the mooring? CRT usually sets the fee (for those not on crt moorings) as half their local mooring rental, which I can understand would be astronomical in London. It's still a. ripoff (in my opinion) where I am as their "half rate" fee is twice the actual going rate for noncrt moorings.

Mooring fee (not rent) is around 80% of the licence fee, sometimes a lot more. If its based on that, 30% would be a win for the CCers.

Trouble with saying the licence fee is cheap for what you get is that, while it may just possibly be true (though I don't think it is, myself, taking into consideration the impossibility of cruise or holiday planning currently) it's only one factor in the boating costs , and all the others are going up by far more than inflation, too. Repairs, gas, diesel, safety cert, blacking all making the actual cost rises huge. And you always come back to the fact that due to the lack of maintenance and oversight, boaters holidays are ruined year after year, long term cruises are hopeless, hire boats end up scattered all over the system and most of the nicest moorings are taken up by long term dumpers. So the attractiveness of the whole lifestyle, be it cruising or holidaying, is going down the tubes, and that's not the fault of those ancillary costs, but of CRT. I'd happily pay them another grand if it meant I got my four long cruises a year in. Another grand when I don't manage to complete a single one isn't good value. For the majority of hobby owners, who maybe get one chance a year at a cruise, it's a sheer waste of money.

DAB car radios are very heavy on battery use, as well as needing a dedicated aeriel. I've still got an FM one wired in, though I mainly use it to play cds or off a memory stick. I didn't know about isolating the aeriel earth off the hull, so that's been doing whatever it does for thirty years ! After the post above I may change that. That being said, reception is pretty poor and I now have a Roberts Dab radio which works fine without an external aeriel.

Same reason electric cars get the same treatment. Or hadn't you noticed diesels are dirty and there's this thing called climate crisis or summat? And I'm not sure boaters happiness pays for lock repairs.

Cheaper than the admin costs of doing it any other way, same as universal pensions and benefits.

First bit, yes, because the payment just gets deducted from the bill. Second, I doubt as CRT would presumably only supply the address once, but who knows? No one's admitting anything or answering the question. I think there are people on here with two CC registered boats, they'd know. The trouble is answering anything like that on social media can get you a torrent of irrational abuse, so most prefer not to.

As someone has said, it got paid to whoever paid the electricy supply. So second homeowners with holiday homes got it twice. If you didn't pay the electric bill, then you wouldn't have, but presumably someone did, which is nice. I don't know why people who make shoes got discriminated against.

It would be interesting to know if it turned up for those registered as a CC but also with a home address that had already had the benefit of the fuel subsidy, or whether it was crosschecked and stopped. As second home owners got it twice, there's no reason it shouldn't have been paid.

Not sure what your question is. I suspect that a large proportion of continuous cruisers live in houses and moor on the towpath to avoid paying mooring fees. What they're not is on a cruise. Nor is someone, like Peterboat's bloke, who potters down to the boat on a Saturday, trundles a few hours, moors it up on Sunday afternoon and goes home to their house . It's legal under the current legislation, but that doesn't make it a continuous cruise by any sensible definition - it's a day out for your hobby with a free six day mooring. And odds on, that's not done either if the weather's bad or in the depths of winter. I imagine CRT's view is that the only way to CC is by being on the boat throughout the cruise, which was surely the original intention of the law - it was actually drafted because those on a long term cruise didn't see why they should be forced to have a mooring when they were permanently on the move. The fact that so many have bent the intention has brought us to where we are - though CRT's imposition of higher and higher mooring fees has also considerably contributed to it. The latter has increased the disparity of income from the two kinds of boaters, as well as the number of semi abandoned boats, until it has become glaringly obvious something would be done. I've said before that I thought the whole mooring fee concept was an error and BW should just have whacked up the licence cost - which is what it was about while pretending it wasn't. That's just a pigeon come home to roost.

You ought know by now if the drain is blocked? Pour some water into it and see if it comes out the hole. And shove a rod or a rope through it to check. It really isn't rocket science. If its a cruiser deck with planks, rain will get through, as well as through the hole the control cables go through. That's what water does. There'sa join in my planks right above the drip tray, so that gets rainwater in too. My drain channels are rubbish - only one side actually drains so over winter I trim the boat so it tilts that way. It used to be said (before we all got green) that oily water in the bilge was fine as the oil stopped the rust. The inside of the bilge should be painted. It'll take a while to rust through from the inside... I still don't know if mine rusted through from inside or outside, but it still took fifty years to do it. Can't tell much from that photo - send us one of the back end of the boat, and one looking down into the whole engine space. Might need to stand on the roof to get it all in!

I suspect one of CRT's intentions longterm is to ensure only those living on a boat can register as a continuous cruiser, as, of course, was the original intention. The surcharge is essentially to make those using the towpath as a permanent, if slightly variable, mooring pay the same as those who have a registered mooring. The idea that you can have a permanent home (and life) in a house on land and at the same time be on a continuous cruise is self evident nonsense. Just because it could be technically legal, doesn't make it anything else.

Luckily, being on boats , they will be able to move to somewhere they can use their stoves.

I think it's interesting that there is a friend who wishes to sell "his" house and live on the water, but "they" are panicking about stuff. It does look like one wants to do it more than the other, and that's a recipe for disaster. Two people cooped up on a tin can, one of whom doesn't want to be there, misses the garden or friends and family...