Arthur Marshall

Dear God. This is third form debating level. Judge to man in dock "Will you please answer yes or no. There is no question that cannot be answered with either a yes or no" Man in dock to Judge: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" I think CH is losing his grip on reality, must be the effect of too many noisy gennies on a Sunday afternoon. But. Question one is of course meaningless, because why the hell should they? They don't claim their T&Cs are law, they are terms and conditions they impose in order for them to let you jiggle about on their water. CRT think they are a good idea. Anybody can write any terms and conditions they like into anything they are trying to control. The only way to find out if they are reasonable or lawful (if you want to do something that is officially under their control) if you disagree is to go to court. If you don't have the guts to do that, then you have to either accept them or just behave as you think is right and face the consequences. But get it into your head, T&Cs are not laws and no-one has ever, ever said that they are. Of course, if you do challenge them, and end up in court, then they may well wind up as laws with heavier penalties. Again, one dickhead messing it up for everyone else. Question two is so stupid it hardly bears looking at, about a twelve year old's level of argument. If anyone has their wits about them, as most of us on here have, we behave in the way we do because we think it's a reasonable way to behave. We don't do anything because someone writes us a code of conduct, puts it into terms and conditions or even passes a law. This is because some of us accept responsibility for our actions and the way we behave, and we don't need to be fooled into behaving well, or blame other people - "them" - for forcing us to act in certain ways. A law existing doesn't make people obey them - try driving down the motorway at 70mph in the fast lane if you don't believe me, or count the drivers on mobile phones. All these things are just a way of trying to advise people how not to come over like a pratt. Inexperienced people find that useful. I really thought the schools had gone back. We used to get this all the time on the old newsgroups when the ten year olds started to play with their Amigas and be naughty on the internet. Of course, it happens on here when the weather's cold and people don't cruise much. It all calms down in summer. I shan't be respond any more as I've blocked CH, so I won't be seeing any more of his posts. I'm sure he's very nice, really.

Clown. Sort your ideas out. Aim at consistency. Watch out for the billy goats Gruff. Sound of a knackered Lister finally leaving a thread.

Now, that's what I call a rational argument. CH has now, on this thread, become the equivalent of the prat runnng a genny at 9pm and so I shall untie my ropes and go somewhere quieter - he's just trying to keep an argument stirred up with no interest in anyone else's point of view. Probably moored under a bridge waiting for the billy goats.

I do find this whole preoccupation some boaters have with the T&Cs completely ridiculous. Virtually every time you click on a website, or buy something online, from a sofa to a train ticket to a bit of software, you have to accept a raft of terms and conditions which no-one in their right mind ever bothers to read. Most of these are legally unenforceable and some are probably totally illegal, but it really doesn't matter. You accept them because otherwise you can't get what you want. If you break them, accidentally or deliberately, it's up to the seller to try and enforce them, which, most of the time they won't bother to do because it isn't worth their while. Most of the time neither the seller nor the buyer knows what they are anyway - remember that ferry firm without any ferries that had copied all theirs from, I think, something like the local chip shop? Generally, they are how the firm issuing them thinks you should act and use their product. And CRT's are exactly the same. They are how CRT reckons boaters should behave in order to, in their opinion, based on the fact that they are likely to know more about the general economics and overall make-up of the system than any single individual, make the canal system last longer and be a good place for people to play and live on. For most of us, they work fine and we never even get close to stretching the boundaries of them. On the margins, there are precious few penalties that can be imposed, so they can generally be broken with impunity, usually the only result is inconvenience and annoyance to everyone else around. They are just general rules of behaviour to be taken into account, just the same as when you buy your sofa. No-one gives a toss whether they are legal or not, just whether, in the main, they are sensible. Which, in the main, they are. And noisy and/or inconsiderate bastards aren't, and it really doesn't matter a fig whether they are being it legally or not. They're just a pain in the arse.

There was a local guy near one of my old moorings known to rob boats, lived on a cruiser. Shortly after all our gennies got nicked someone set fire to his boat one night while he was asleep. He got out but the boat, luckily, was a write-off.

I just leave the trombone extremely visible through the window. Seems to work.

Can you blame him if the other guy starts their engine/genny at 8.10pm? See noise pollution thread... But that's why I always moor as far away from other boats as I possibly can. Too many inconsiderate buggers about these days. PS if it's a VM and it gets busy, I ALWAYS move up...

The council do if there's enough long term grief, which is why householders can get boats banned from mooring near them if they run engines etc a lot. But I can't see how a boater could get council action, because we move about (most of us, anyway), and even if we don't, the noisy buggers do. And I agree wholeheartedly with point two. Section 8 removals can be contentious, but I can't see why much else CRT do is.

My original point applies. You just try getting the council to do it, what with the resources they haven't got any more. Whether they "must" do it is irrelevant - there are loads of things they must do these days and don't, because they can't. Yes, it CAN be done, but you usually have to submit a diary that shows the nuisance has been of longstanding duration. This is unlikely to apply for a boater, as the annoyance comes and goes as we do. The only thing that ever works, in any society, is peer pressure. If everyone agrees not to do something, like run a genny after 8pm, then there is pressure on the few antisocial buggers not to do it. If everyone thinks "I'll do it, just this once" then the whole thing falls apart, unless you're in Germany - where, if I recall correctly, there's a law against mowing your lawn outside certain hours, and everyone obeys it. But if everyone decided it was silly, and they'd just ignore it, there would be nothing the state could do about it. So, yes, if you can define what noise nuisance actually is (decibels, type, frequency, duration) it would be possible to legislate against it. But it isn't ridiculous to ask who would then enforce it, and if you can't answer that question, the law is pointless. However, reverting to the absolutely original question, someone mooring up and disturbing your peace on a pleasant sunday afternoon in the middle of the countryside is a pillock, and I'm afraid there is no legislation against them.

If you got up at six, ran the engine to get hot water and practised the drums for half an hour before going to work, then yes. As it is, you're just living a life, which, while it can't be done silently, it would appear that you're being as careful of your neighbours as you can. I hope they are as considerate to you .

It doesn't matter much whether a stated rule is legally binding or not. Most laws are unenforceable - for example, it's actually against the law to stab people, but you can't stop people doing it. You can punish them afterwards if you can find them, but that doesn't actually stop the nuisance in the first place. A law which is neither going to be obeyed or possible to enforce is pointless. That's why the t&c's are worth having as a guideline. They're simple to understand and cheap,and largely enforced by peer pressure. If you want noise nuisance to be controlled and policed, you have first to define it, then hire a million noise coppers to crack down on it. I think the licence fee might have to go up.

Whether it's a "rule" or not, whether you have to obey the T&Cs or not, if you actually use them as guidelines for decent behaviour you're probably on a winner and likely to make friends. Barrack room lawyers tend to be unpopular, especially if they argue passionately that anti-social behaviour is perfectly legitimate. It aint. Running generators and engines for long periods and especially late in the evening, polluting both one's ears and the atmosphere, where sound travels so well and so far over water, basically screws it up for everyone else because it causes perfectly justifiable complaints from residents and other users. All that happens is that tougher rules start to be made legally enforceable, like some of the new mooring restrictions run by car park companies. The increase in that attitude explains a lot.

It would be if they worked. I've only needed the pumps to work automatically twice, and both times they've failed. Not to be relied on. I still have them installed, but make sure I check the thing on a regular basis. Cruiser stern, always water in the bilge.

For anyone who lives on their boat, I imagine it's a nobrainer. For those like me, it's too expensive. I spend a couple of months in the summer on it, a month in the spring, and a few more weeks here and there. I don't watch TV unless the cricket's on, I don't use the internet much, I read a lot and play music. Solid fuel stove, gas cooker and water heater. A single domestic battery runs everything else. Never needed anything more, even when I was living on. Half a day's cruising keeps it charged.

It may well be. It's also too expensive for a fair few on the canal, and, in my case anyway, unnecessary. Although, as Sherlock Holmes more or less said, the countryside is anything but quiet anyway. Most farm machinery now bleeps when reversing, which can be heard for miles, traffic noise is almost impossible to escape, everyone one and his brother has a permanently barking dog and as for those damn sheep... What CRT advertises and what is true have very little correlation.