Arthur Marshall

They appear to be funding the yacht club move too, which always seemed a bit unnecessary to me. Fix the reservoir, yes, but let the boys pay for their own damn club. But this is what you get for skimping on maintenance, same as the T&M breach that flooded Northwich , which could have been avoided if most of the weir paddle gear hadn't been rusted solid. But we know there's no money for maintenance and hasn't been for years. Most of us have got called pessimists for mentioning it. The canals came back into life through volunteer labour, corporate stuff was never going to keep it going just because a few well off people love the life style, and the young who might once have got stuck in have got their own struggles to contend with.

I don't think you can rely on Boris pledges... and why should anyone bail CRT out when "Following the partial collapse in 2019, a government-ordered investigation into the incident concluded that poor design, maintenance failings and inspection oversights all contributed to the partial collapse of the Toddbrook reservoir dam." You can't blame CRT for the poor design, but you can for the rest of it.

I don't think Red Bull yard was set up for shot blasting, and if he had I'd have expected to be charged for it, or at least it to be mentioned. As I said , it's anecdotal. If I'd been asked, I'd have had it shot blasted first - I was expecting it to be done with bitumen, so the epoxy came as a pleasant surprise, as did it lasting.

As they've been failing to cover the costs for years without anyone in authority appearing to care very much (and that includes BW and CRT, let alone DEFRA or anyone in any shade of politics), there is very little future for the system as a whole, let alone in part. Every chunk that gets remaindered means less interest in the rest of it. Why some of the renovation societies are still getting excited about attempts to actually expand the system beats me.

I don't think licences have been undercharged. Certainly a lot of people who have enjoyed years of boating wouldn't have done so if they had been more expensive - me, for one. The problem, as the introduction of surcharges indicates, has been the proliferation of pseudo-continuous cruisers, dumped boats, unlicensed liveaboards and boats used as luxury housing. Whacking licences for bog standard leisure boats up to astronomical levels would not only reduce overall income but hugely cut the number of boats on the system, giving every excuse for further support and maintenace cuts. Either the system is a national park and resource or it isn't. If it is and is for the benefit largely of the non-licenced users, then it should be supported by taxation. It won't be, of course, because nobody wants to pay for something that looks free, but isn't. You can tell by the state of the roads, schools, hospitals, flytipping and litter that nobody really gives a toss about anything except their apparent income tax rate and can always find someone to blame that isn't themselves and the choices they make when occasionally given the chance.

You won't need to, they'll just become unusable, like the north end of the T&M did two years ago. That had to be fixed because it's busy, but the ones that are almost unusable already just won't get done.

As I've said elsewhere, after overplating, mine was bitumined even though I'd requested epoxy. Next time it came out it was done with epoxy and I am pretty sure it wasn't blasted right back to the metal first (I certainly didn't pay for it) but it stayed on happily for six years, and it's now been epoxied again with no problems. That's anecdotal evidence, I wouldn't want anyone to rely on it, but there it is. I did wonder if that had happened to mine - the bitumen being on mill scale and it mostly got knocked off with the power jet when epoxing.

Fishing... If CRT charge 15 grand for a licence moorings will go up to about 12... I don't think there would be many boats left. Certainly no hire boats. You forget most boaters are already paying their 15 grand in rent. Paying that for a few weeks holiday a year, which is what the bulk of boats are for, is simply daft. Or do you mean only the continuous cruisers licence should be that much?

I think. That was actually the figure for a licence, as they seemed to be talking to a continuous cruiser.

Obviously not. Oh well. Probably best if he/she/it signs out, rejoins under a new name and starts another thread...

You haven't got your boat yet, and looking for somewhere to put it first is an excellent idea. But you need to do some research yourself before posting general questions. For example, a bit of reading would have told you that genuine residential moorings are virtually nonexistent but "under the radar" ones can be found if you can live with the insecurity. And you would have learnt that most of these are on CRT water, which the Bridgewater isn't. There are a fair few farm moorings which allow residents, but as far as I know there's no central database of these and the only way to find them is to go and look. I presume you've hired boats, so you know the limitations - maybe hire one in the area you want to live and go and see what's available. Call in and talk to people on likely moorings, most boaters like to chat. That's the only way to learn if a marina will let you live on, too, as they can't advertise it without getting into planning permission trouble. It's also rare that a mooring is sold with the boat, the mooring owner will usually take the opportunity to whack the rent up. It's two separate deals. And, finally, don't get snotty on here, we don't like it. You'll just get told to use the search engine as every question you can think of has been answered many times, so you may get answers phrased humourously (or what we think of as such) and some of us are less patient repeating advice than others. Posting the same question twice is regarded as rude, and complaining about jokes made because you haven't even checked the title says what you mean is just silly.

Aint that the truth. I didn't manage to get down while the boat was blacked last time, but I do trust the lads at that yard, especially as they've just taken it over and want to get a good rep. I did go down every week when they were doing the steel.

Interestingly, I'm very unconvinced that all the bitumen was removed before my old tub was epoxied six years ago, but the epoxy certainly stayed on and so has the new stuff. I do wonder how many of these essential preparation jobs are really that crucial.

To be honest, if a 40ft narrowboat costs a grand for epoxy blacking, less than double that for a boat almost four times as big when it would need the bitumen taken off as well seems like a cheap job. I'll be interested in reading more comments. As I've said before, I've given up expecting any job done on a boat, by an engineer or a yard, ever to be done properly. Almost everything has to be done twice and then checked carefully and finished off by yourself (I exclude from that the bloke at Heritage who has done me two perfect jobs, but he's unique). As far as I can tell, my boat's resteeling at Stoke is ok (I've not sunk yet) and the epoxy has stayed on, not that I care that much about the latter.

When I got my boat it hadn't even got a separate domestic battery, just the one that did everything. Or rather, didn't, as we found out on the first trip...

Maybe you are subconsciously sensing the visual changes caused by the heat rising off the hot one? It can't be telepathy unless the radiator is alive, which even with AI getting evetywhere, would be a slightly worrying thought. Although, with St Pat's night coming up, of course, it's worth noting that the writer of Danny Boy was quite aware of plumbing's powers of communication.

There was an episide of Grand Designs a few years ago with a bloke turning a fairly sizeable boat into a giant monstrosity. Only time I've seen Kevin Thing sneer at a build, and it's never been repeated, but I remember it got evicted from its mooring, found nowhere would take it and wound up as a pile of scrap.

Me too. I like working locks, and I like sitting on the boat while someone else works them. I like going along, too, which is something fewer and fewer boaters seem to enjoy.

With, obviously, the utmost respect, you aren't adding much to the discussion, are you? Just being an unhelpful prat trying to start a row. I think the OP has enough on his plate without such foolishness. Please feel free to post further irrelevances on the understanding that they'll be treated as they deserve and ignored. Cheers.

So what? If you're going to comment, please try and make sense.

The OP says he's been there 14 years. His boat was towed there and he's refurbushed it there, so it can't have been that posh at the time. The new owners took over four or five years ago and they are the ones turning it into a "boutique". I presume before that it was just your bog standard marina. It's the new owners taking it upmarket.

It looks like a serious case of gentrification to me. The whole area has gone upmarket over the last few years and they probably only want millionaire type residents, especially as they're advertising as a "boutique" marina, whatever that means. If they've got planning permission for thirty residential boats, they're going to charge a small fortune, and simply don't want a self-renovated historic boat on the site in case it puts posh people off. There were lots of folk complaining about the gentrification of the canals on here a while ago and its effect on the less rich fraternity. The OP has said they've already got rid of two other long standing residents, so that's what it looks like to me. It aint fair, but it's legal. Happens on land, too.

Me too. But if you want to live in the middle of Manchester on a boat, there probably aren't many options, and after so many years it can be a wrench to move elsewhere (so they tell me, anyway, personally I've always liked moving towns as often as possible - I do like variety and the sense of a new start). Are there any other options in Manchester for a residential (official or unofficial) mooring?

It was towed there donkey's years ago - I imagine it's sorted now.

True, the post on here looks like a last resort if, as he says, he's had legal advice already. Be interesting to know what that advice was, presumably not what he would have wanted to hear. I wouldn't be too sure that his mooring chains can't be cut by the marina, either, if he has no legal right to be there. And, presumably, if he stays there without permission, he's liable to penalties for trespass. I'm sure there's someone on here who has run a marina who would know?