Arthur Marshall

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.

Ah, but it wouldn't, would it?

Mine suffered that when the earth connection got seriously filthy. Seemed too simple a cause to be true.

Expecting 100% accuracy in any kind of report from any kind of company shows either a total naivety or a deliberate bit of hypocritical stirring. A bit like expecting someone's tax return to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Which is why this is a fuss about nothing, especially bearing in mind agg221's post above. What is interesting though is why CRT have got so far under the skin of some people, even the ones who have had no actual dealings with it for years. Though it's nice they care so much about our creaking canals, of course.

I've got a Pioneer car radio with a USB socket for music listening. l did have a DAB car radio but it ate the battery, so for radio stuff I now have a Pure Dab radio, USB rechargeable battery. No Bluetooth.

Been a long time since I've had anything slung at me. Last thing was a barley sugar in Chester. I thanked the lad nicely and ate it.

Careful, Higgs will call you meanspirited... Pot, kettle.

Whinging about a survey that was pointless from the start seems rather a waste of everybody's time. And no, I haven't waded through another chunk of rubbish that someone's dug up to boost their ego while playing at journalism. I'm still as surprised as I was back then that the surcharge is so low, and while it's certainly unfair that the few liveaboards who genuinely cruise have got caught up in the grief caused by both the majority who don't and those who just dump their boats round the system while moving a dozen times a year, CRT had to do something. I've just stopped at a couple of 2 day moorings where I would lay money the same boats will be clogging up the bank, some dumped and some occupied, when I get back next week. One hasn't moved since November. Now, maybe some of the whingers could complain to CRT about that - isn't it odd that they don't? Anyone would think they had a motive.

I don't remember that one, I've been there about fifteen years.

Just noticed there's a leisure mooring available at my farm mooring at Astbury, Congleton on the Macc. Looks about 50 or 60 foot. No facilities bar short term parking, strictly non residential. PM me for details if interested.

I think you have found the solution.

The EOG is part of your mooring cost, the bit that lets you stay in one place for more than 14 days. Just because I pay mine separately rather than the farm whacking up their fee to include it makes no real odds. How it'll work I dunno, if CRT don't spot you on the mooring they'll rely on you telling them and you'd probably forget... There's no reason such as usage or mooring or anything for the CC surcharge, it just is, same as there's no logical reason for EOG (or sense to the calculation of its cost). Would have been much simpler for BW and CRT just to work out what they wanted to get from licences and mooring fees combined, divided it by estimated boat numbers and charged a flat rate licence, cutting the bureaucracy in half. Both Higgs and me would be happy.

How can you tell? Do tell, I generally find it so hard to discriminate between one boater and another. Not that there's owt wrong with running a genny at 7pm, apart from it being annoying to anyone nearby.

I just let mine turn over a few times on the starter. It gets left over winter until spring and starts ok, sometimes with a bit of a cough. Let it run slow a minute or two before revving up to get the charging light out.

I have no complaints. That's the only argument that's valid. All the rest is self-interested tosh. Fun though.

Probably, unless you pay EOG, which is about 80% of licence fee and sometimes more. But as you say, it's nothing to do with an argument for a surcharge, just a fact to be taken into account. Who pays what and whether it's "fair" is a bit daft, if Higgsish. CRT needs more money and they have to milk the beasts they think can afford to stump up a bit more, rather than driving ones who can't off the pond and losing their contributions entirely. It's just pragmatism. If they lose a few NBTA boats who they have to endlessly spend money on, chasing them for fees and compliance, they won't worry much.

Here's another case. I have a friend who (genuinely) cruises virtually all year, but has retained his EOG farm mooring for when he needs medical treatment. So as long as he's not there for more than a couple of weeks at a time, which he isn't, although he has a contract for a permanent home mooring, my assumption is that he can declare as CC, saving himself about a grand, as it's no business of CRTs what the farmer does with the mooring, which, obviously, is usually vacant. Its a sort of reversal of the ghost mooring theory... the advantage now goes the other way.