Arthur Marshall

Before I was aware of any of the rules about renting a private boat out, I did it fairly regularly, until I realised that it always, but always, came back damaged - massive dent in the hull, deck planks broken, engine out of oil or stern tube not greased, toilet unemptied, batteries flat, internal fittings damaged and more - and these were friends or close acquaintances I was lending it to. None ever admitted doing the damage, they never mentioned it or offered to pay to remedy it. You'd spend the next six months of your occupancy putting it right, and possibly replacing the gearbox.

And if BW had had the sense just to increase licence fees all round to take into account that everyone, even Higgs, has to moor somewhere, rather than penalising home moorers alone, they could have cut collection costs in half, scrapped half the bureaucracy, and CRT would have a lot more money and we'd all be paying the same.

I'm just back from three weeks on the T&M, very quiet there. Most days saw one or two boats moving.

And continuous cruisers don't moor? I suppose that's what continuous means. Higgs, the Flying Dutchman of the canal system. I pay a farmer a rent to moor against his land, nothing to do with CRT. I also pay a surcharge to CRT in order to be a home moorer, just like you (now) pay a much lower surcharge to be a cruiser, even though you cause more damage to CRT land with your moorings than I do, and, assuming you actually do move legally, use more facilities . And, what's more, I've not spent the last ten years whinging. Or, for that matter, moaning about people who use the system different to what I do and blaming them fir everything. However, no point in confusing you with facts. It is odd, though, that you spent years complaining about the rules that affected you when you lived permanently in a marina (your choice), and now you're complaining about the rules that affect you as a cruiser (also your choice). Epicurus can be your friend. Read him and learn.

Got to give the NBTA their due, they got their side of the story splashed all over the media . CRT just sound like the usual corporate nonspeak.

Stoke Boats are about an hour's cruise from the bottom of the Caldon. They've got a slipway. The Stoke Boat Club are on the Caldon, they may be able to help.

But as they are there already, everyone else would be in exactly the same position they are now, the only difference being CRT would have more money. And saying people can't break the law just because they think they have good reason, is nonsense, because they do. You can say they shouldn't (your moral judgement), but not that they can't.

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 saw him briefly last week on the way down through Stoke. If I can't find a number I'll try him on Facebook but I'm not sure he uses it any more. With a bit of luck I'll manage without.

Rob is the non CRT chap who helps, largely as a hobby, on the Stoke flight. If anyone has his number, could you PM it to me? He gave me a card about fifteen years ago but unsurprisingly I can't find it. He's an old friend and I do often run into him on a random basis, but this trip I've hurt my back and it would be handy if I can contact him to ask for a bit of help if it turns out I can't manage. Thanks.

The guy I met had his son with him, helping. Can't remember the name.

It won't. I think CRT just realised that the vast majority of those registered as CC were taking the mick and decided to penalise them, and that those that were being unfairly treated were so few they couldn't raise much of a fuss. All other justifications were just made up to make it look better and avoid the accusations that CRT wasn't really addressing the root problem.

Not if you don't have a licence or any ID on the boat there isn't. And once legit boats had trackers, CRT would stop any spotting, so you'd just get more and more unlicenced boats. I didn't spot him, and I'm currently an anonymous boat until I get the name back on!

They've got some excellent people there at the moment, mostly transferred from Marple. Knowledgeable and helpful.

It can't be done. How do you force fit a tracker to a boat? Chuck it out the window or hit it with a hammer and you're back to the unlicenced, unnamed and unnumbered boat problem, to which the only solution would be to tow them away and scrap them without warning - which could just as easily be done now to any unlicenced or unidentifiable boat.

You'd just get the same arguments. Like, you've done just over 50 miles. Is that to be taken seriously as being on a continuous cruise for an entire year? The obvious example of a genuine continuous cruise is a bloke on a hire boat for a fortnight. That's the average mileage CRT should expect... except it's self evidently nonsense. The main flaw in your argument appears to be the acceptance that most CCers don't travel. You're possibly right, but that's the problem. They've tried that. Too many people still extracting the urine.

I suppose if someone wants to pay for a stand, they can do what they like with it. Part of being a vaguely free country.

Mine snapped, rather disconcertingly. Probably was as old as the boat. I reused the remnant, which meant drilling a new hole for the pin and fitted a custom longer wooden bit to bring it back to the original length. Does the wood bit have a name of its own?

I've not had any problems this trip, apart from my all time favourite bit of piling being sat on by someone who got there first, which I'm not sure I can legitimately whinge about. Stone was empty, which is certainly unusual, so was Tixall though that's probably because the towpath is lovely and the piling terrible, and they seem to have dumped all the crud dug out of the towpath in the cut so you can't get in to moor half the time. I do start and finish early, which helps.

What boating community? There's no such thing. You can't suddenly decide a bunch of people with entirely different, and often opposing, ideas as to what their boats are for, are a homogeneous community. The vast majority of boat owners sit, like you did for years, in marinas and probably don't even know CCers exist, nor care. Most know nothing about EOG moorings, or the CC surcharge. If the survey showed anything at all, it was that there is no "community". Active boaters are about the last remnant of a bunch of anarchistic individualists still at large in this country. Gods save us from "communities" and their self appointed leaders.

No, it's very simple. Anyone without a home mooring obviously moors on the towpath 365 days a year, and is billed accordingly. Anyone with a home mooring pays the equivalent of the local EOG fee, which covers mooring to CRT land for the same period. Sorted.

Tixall Wide this evening.

Probably waiting for investment from China.