Arthur Marshall

The next tune in the book was Lady Windermere's Dump, and I nearly called the boat that.

Well... what's done is done... https://youtu.be/FW7AxkxdW3U?si=Ta3CrHy18-J3CU0I

I reckon so. I've only got a few more years anyway, as age and infirmity creep up and I've given up expecting to go where I'd like to (the L&L again) as there's too much risk of not getting home, so it's back to pottering round old haunts. That's what I meant... That's messed up an entire song lyric...

That's as may be, but I suspect the government will get in anyway. And it won't be much bothered about a failing canal system, being, as usual, more concerned with sorting out well paid employment for when it gets kicked out again.

That was your second post on this forum. Needlessly agressive, no attempt to take on board any of the suggestions or take any part in the discussion that arose, just a bit of snark. They do say them as hands it out can't take it. Maybe it's fat boat syndrome. Park it on a corner in everyone's way and make it everyone else's problem. Nothing to do with bullying a newbie - someone new with a new problem to think about and discuss is always welcome, but it's a two way thing. A forum isn't like FB, where you post something and it gets "liked", a comment or two, and is then forgotten and dumped by the algorithm - it's a more robust place where opinions get thrashed out. I guess I, and one or two others, just lose patience with the attitude. It does seem to be getting more common. A first post, detailing a problem, a few replies and comments, a snarl of victimhood from an OP of "they've all got it in for me" because not all the replies were sympathetic "there there" noises but attempts to get to the root of the problem via discussion, and finally the OP delivers another broadside of general abuse and vanishes in a cloud of huff. Anyway, now I've got that off me chest, I'm going to go practice the fiddle. Paddy's night coming up. I hope the next chunk of blacking stays on, and everything we've suggested might be the reason the first lot didn't was wrong. Good luck. Composting toilets are the coming thing, you know.

It's supposed to work off line, same as the old eCanal maps did. Being of luddite tendencies, I had no internet on the boat until two years ago. It also should link seamlessly to RCR so they can find you, and post stoppage info as soon as CRT announce it. The eCanal ones had a built in log which was useful. As in all progress, WaterNav is a step for the worse.

The WaterNav map on Android has now been updated. The very large and blocky icons still disappear as soon as you zoom instead of reducing, which is annoying, but there's a switch to turn off all the stoppage notices and it retains your choices of POIs, so you don't have the whole thing obscured by billiard halls, cinemas and other nonsense. Unfortunately, it no longer shows locks. At all. Which is, it must be said, a bit of a programming lapse. I can't understand why, with the excellent example of the old now unsupported eCanal maps to look at, this is being such a mess. Nor how this can be bunged out with so little checking. Maybe the Apple version works properly and they just don't care about Android users. ETA it doesn't show tunnels, either. I've sent feedback.

If they didn't launch in with a stack of insults when they get comments intended to help and occasionally amuse, they wouldn't get that response. They wouldn't have lasted thirty seconds in the bad old Dunkley days. Dunno what it is. You'd have thought people would know, how forums work by now , or perhaps they don't and think it's just like Facebook where nobody is really very interested, it's not a discussion, and the attention span is about that of a day's end mayfly.

I think it was me that mentioned the words " stupid" and "idiot", not you - I'd hate the wrong person to get battered!

Terribly sorry to hurt your tender feelings. I was responding to the sheer unnecessary rudeness in your original reply to a couple of members' attempts to provide helpful advice. You appear to have little interest in making friends or being influenced by well meant suggestions so unfortunately the only way you are going to learn is by experience. Good luck with that, it certainly doesn't seem to have worked so far.

At least it's not asking daft questions like "How much do you enjoy boating, 1 - 5, where 5 is Deliriously and 1is Very Much. Did anyone do much boating last year without running into problems? I'm giving myself six weeks for a two week trip this year.

Which presumably it can. CRT, however, as lower in the contractual pecking order, has no say in the matter. I'm sure the guys who run CRT are doing well out of it, as all heads of charitable organisations do. When the money runs out, they move on to another sinecure about which they know (and care) nothing, usually for a higher pay rate. As I once pointed out, Parry knows an awful lot about trains.

Oh gods , another one. When you come on a forum and ask for opinions, that's what you get. That's sort if how it works. The fact you may not agree with them doesn't entitle you to start slinging insults about , it just makes you look a prat. It cost me £1000 to black a forty foot thin boat. Less than twice that to do something more than twice as big does look relatively cheap, in my opinion. I may be wrong, but there again, I may not. The fact that half of it has fallen off tends to make me think I'm right and you got what you paid for, instead of stumping up for a proper job. It's the experience of almost every long term boater that unless you keep an eye on what's being done, it gets bodged. Again, you didn't, and it was. If you're fool enough not to listen to advice, and idiotic enough to insult those who suggest ways you could avoid repeating your mistakes, , you're heading for another crap job for exactly the same reasons and, tbh, serve you damn well right.

If it was informal, and not part of the written contract, then it should be ignored. You won't find the government sticking to "informal" promises, like manifestos, for example. Bit daft one side being 'honourable' when the other very definitely isn't. So I suspect it wasn't informal at all, and it's written into the gubbins setting up CRT, or it wouldn't be happening. The inescapable fact is that without government support the system will collapse and reurn to being a muddy ditch full of stagnant water and old mattresses. Was good fun while it lasted, though.

Very true. And as almost everyone on here appears to support the Party that has made the cuts, I can't actually work out why they're complaining so much. They really ought to be pleased - at least MtB is honest enough to say he will be happy to pay his 15 grand licence, though due to maintenance cuts there may not be any water to float his boat on!

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...