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I didn't say they were right, I was just pointing out that there are two sides to every argument, CART think their proposal is valid, and I think that this isn't some huge anti-boater conspiracy. CART claim that the evidence is (at least partly) number of collisions and incidents. If you disagree then of course you can complain and look to fellow boaters for support, but you'll need evidence of your own to show why CART are wrong. Appealing to other boaters on the "First they came for..." argument is unlikely to work, especially given that many boaters do see the prolif

I don't believe the "narrow end of the wedge" idea that restricting widebeams will somehow lead to CART removing narrowbeams in the future, any more than the times the same argument has been made on many other subjects, often by AdE. CART are a sadly underfunded organisation which to try and get more government income and revenue have to try and balance out the interests of everyone who uses the canals, and this doesn't just mean boaters. They don't have enough money to properly maintain the system, but blaming them for this is like blaming the NHS for long waiting lists, when we a

I'm not stalking you, just that you're pretty much the only person on the forum protesting so strongly and repeatedly about this and using phrases like "discrimination", and this suggests you have an axe to grind. I don't, apart from perhaps not seeing CART as the devilish boater-persecuting organisation that some make them out to be, and that maybe they try and do their best under difficult circumstances -- hampered by poor management, as is unfortunately not uncommon, but not deliberately malicious. SInce this is a forum about the canal network that they run, this is a point of v

We practised for many years next to Corinthians rowing club on the Thames, and the amount of river space a rowing eight needs is huge, so I'm not surprised they don't want boats mooring opposite. Without knowing how wide the actual channel is (and how wide angle a lens was used) I wouldn't comment on whether restrictions in the other photo make sense or not -- CART think they do, you (and NBTA) think they don't. Since you didn't answer my "Have you got any skin in the game?" question about "discrimination against widebeams"... There is 1 record that matches your query

Are these photos of the stretches where CART plan to restrict mooring, or just random photos of nice wide bits of the Lee?

I'd have thought that if anyone in CART head office said "Hey, we've got some moaning rowers on the Lee, why don't we restrict mooring so our income goes down?" this would not be well recieved. If the problem is restricted channel width due to moored boats (as CART claim), then wideboats and double-moored narrowboats are likely to be the main target of restrictions, because they're wider. It's difficult to see how this amounts to "discrimination"... Do you by any chance have a widebeam boat? It's always helpful to know what might be influencing somebody's po

To point out the obvious, boats with sticky-out oars need a lot more channel width than narrowboats (or wideboats), and it's undoubtedly true that the rowing clubs were there long before the recent explosion of moored boats on the Lee. Whether this is genuinely seen as a safety issue or is an excuse by CART to persecute boaters and make them move on to somewhere else -- or at least, spread out -- is a matter of debate. But before invoking the CART "drive 'em off the canals!" conspiracy theory promoted by the NBTA, it's worth asking the obvious question -- why would CART

That wasn't what I was asking, I was just trying to find out who you thought were bending the rules. CART have partly got themselves into this mess by allowing the NBTA (and the press) to coerce them into the "family-near-school" exemption, which is clearly against the spirit of their own CC rules, as written down in their own documents. But if they try and win court cases by cheating -- assuming this is deliberate, not sheer incompetence -- this is wrong, if they can't win in a fair legal fight they deserve to lose. The NBTA keeps playing the "but think of

CART, the school-boating NBTA rule-benders. or both?

But the problem is that CART require "bona fide navigation". In the past some people have tried pushing the limits and moving by only a few miles most of the time, with the consequence of having their license renewal refused. So let's say I'm on a boat and I claim the "kids school special exemption", so am allowed to spend most of the year in a small stretch of canal, with occasional holiday trips outside this -- which is what a lot of childless people living on boats would also dearly like to do. Now I send said kids away to boarding school. Do I keep the exemption? Lo