Arthur Marshall

There's a mention in the notes of the CRT meeting that nuisance practices could lead to licence withdrawal. And no doubt a bout of whinging, court action and more money wasted on laywers.

When I reported the knackered stop lock on the Macc (damaged by a boater, mind you, not a CRT employee) it was fixed within hours by a cheerful couple of guys, who also checked and improved various other bits of it. Last one I saw down there had just walked a mile down from the workboat (with tools) as someone had said the byewash was blocked. Generally I've always found them, and BW before, to be pretty dedicated. The problems are higher up, not with yer actual workers, and always have been. And, anyone doing hard physical work out of doors needs the odd break and a cup tea and a chat. I guess the OP has never done any (assuming that he was trying to denigrate CRT employees, which as has been pointed out, he actually failed to do).

I went last year. Underwhelmed was an understatement. Shame as I really enjoyed the run down it thirty years ago.

A well played accordion is fine. The trouble is , so few are, probably including mine these days, as I have now achieved gentlemanly status according to a post above.

Mine have been a godsend. Simple things can make a big difference as your age heads towards the speed limit (motorway rather than canal).

My dad reckoned when he went to college he had three socks and washed one a week.

PS what's changed over the last 30 years is that there are more people about. That's all, really. Nah, no more Mr Nice Guy. I'll bring the blasted banjo. That'll clear me a mooring space fast enough. And if that fails it's accordion time...

I used to be nice till I bought the boat. Now I drive it either like a maniac with a two foot wash or dawdle and won't let anyone pass. Then I hog the best moorings while I go off on holiday and at the same time have to stick around the middle of town so my kids can go to school and I can claim my benefits, while yelling at everyone else to slow down. Luckily, there's loads of room on the towpath for my old cooker and washing machine and my rottweiler has only bitten three kids and a fisherplonker so far. CRT don't know I haven't got a licence because I painted someone else's number on the boat and who cares anyway? The "rules" have no basis in law. I know my rights. And as for share boats, bloody hell, I could tell you a thing or two.

Tell that to the long term CRT towpath moorings all over the place. Tell that to the llangollen moorings. Then stop talking bollocks, if you'll pardon the phrase.

I can't even hear what someone standing next to me is saying half the time - I wouldn't have a chance of hearing someone on another boat asking me politely to hang on a bit.

I suppose I do too, though like most leisure boaters it doesn't really affect me much as generally I want to go and look at a different tree every day or so. Most of the rules, by-laws and guidelines get followed by default, the various restrictions really only impinge on those with a permanent boating lifestyle, or those who claim to have one but actually don't. To add a bit of pedantry to the debate, I empathise with both, but only sympathise with the former.

Arrive about 5pm,stay overnight and next day. Stay overnight and next day. Stay overnight and leave after breakfast . You've been there two days, if by that you mean full daylight, but four nights. It's all ambiguous, 2 days more so than 48 hours.

Shrug? It happens. As to how many locks away in a flight, generally if they are more than one lock away I'd turn the lock. Unless I'm tired, no-one behind me and I want a cup of tea...

I have often wondered if the shallowness of the canal means that the boat in front moves the water in some way to speed up a following boat - a sort of aquatic slipstreaming. As I've said, I can't really go faster than 3mph and don't often quite do that, but time and time again I find myself catching boats up, even when I've gone down to tickover. They can't all be doing 2mph. I used to get worked up about it, now I pull up as long as there's no-one catching ME up and have a brew. Then it takes another half hour to catch them up again.

I tend to time myself between Mile posts. So far I've not managed more than 3mph so I've stopped worrying about ever going too fast. Having a boat with three bottoms slows you down a bit. But I still seem to catch up with boats all the time.

Middlewich is one of the few bad tempered junctions, where it's very difficult to judge who's going where and who has priority at any lock. So everyone tends to be on edge a bit and it's easy to get it wrong in someone's eyes. In the OPs case I think I'd have waited, but I'm not sure as it's also important there to keep the queue moving. Either way, no excuse for attiitude from the boat mob, if they were upset because they thought you'd countered their instructions to their hirer they just should have used you as an example of bad boating practice!

I've just put a couple of small ones in with a rubber washer each side of the glass and up against the frame. Used a bit of sikaflex on the back of the brass. Be interesting to see how they get on.

Were they actually in convoy, or just the usual thing of a very slow boat at the front and everyone piling up behind them? Double or wide locks can cause a bit of bunching too. It's partly why I tend to cruise from 6am - by the time everyone else has had their bacon and eggs and got going I'm about ready to moor up and read a book for the rest of the day.

Not sure where South Cheshire starts or stops, but there's an excellent welder at Bollington Wharf on the Macc.

How did they know they were from the Travellers site if they didn't ever go in there? Sounds more like they knew they'd never find the culprits and fobbed you off with a story. These days we'd probably get a camera shot and a better chance of ID. Not that anything would get done, though.

That sort of what happened to mine. There was a hole in the original bottom plate in the engine bilge, so when it was replated any water in the bilge seeped down through the hole and then reappeared. Cured by blocking the hole, at least till another one happens. Can't see how I can stop it - cruiser stern, there's always water in the bilge.

Actually, the answer is that the NBTA set up their own schools - home schooling is perfectly legal and the Government is in favour of free schools anyway. But, of course, that would mean them doing something rather than expecting it to be done for them...

Can't they just take the boat back to within a couple of miles of the school, then back to their mooring? And back to collect them? No different timewise to walking (probably quicker with smallies) , though of course it would mean actually moving the boat....

I do think the point about change of use is valid. If government funding ceases in a few years, either the system falls to bits completely as a navigation or, possibly, CRT recognises the housing aspect, opens up a stack of residential moorings with basic facilities, charges a commercial but affordable rent for them and gets a bit of money in. The pretence that leisure moorings (which often have no facilities at all) aren't often treated as de facto residential should just go - if a boat has a mooring, what's the difference if someone lives on it? Mooring fees should be set by the facilities available and demand.

The use of the thread title worries me a little. It implies the OP is starting from a position of expecting to be a victim of some sort of coercion from an authority, rather than looking at the rules and practicalities and seeing how a life can be made from it. CRT doesn't have any agenda apart from trying to maintain a system for a variety of users, most of whom are somewhere on the anarchic spectrum (I include cyclists & fishermen as well as us) when it comes to the rules/traditions, with not enough money to do the job. The villagey nature of those who live on has changed a bit over the last thirty years as more people do it, but in general we all help each other out as far as possible, possibly due to a shared history of needing help. But do bear in mind the crucial, and expensive, need for occasional sudden large amounts of money - my boat needed 9 grand's worth of work overnight a year or so back, or all I would have owned would have been a pile of underwater rust. If that had been my only home... renting might not be secure, but at least houses don't often sink. The other thing you lose as a cruiser is all your local network, friends, acquaintances, regular and known habitats. That may be more important than you think as you're used to it so don't really notice it any more, but constantly moving mucks it up. PS those who post endlessly on various forums about hidden agendas or social cleansing by CRT are usually (though not always) those who have deliberately, for one reason or another, picked a fight with CRT and lost. Most of us just get on with our lives with no problems, putting up with the occasional glitch that is bound to occur in an inefficient management system.