IanD

The whingers are basically people who don't give a sh*t about anyone else, they want to be able to burn anything they can get their hands on dirt cheap -- house coal, wet wood, camel dung, guano -- regardless of how much pollution/smoke/stink it makes or whether it chokes the people in the next boat/house. Any stove in a boat or house is perfectly capable of burning widely available and cheap fuels which don't suffocate the neighbours, which most responsible boaters have been doing anyway for years. All this is doing is making it illegal to to choke others instead of relying on people's conscience -- to take from another thread, it's just like the difference between saying "Please don't dump your chopped-up sh*t in the canal/river, it's disgusting" which people with a thick enough skin can ignore, and making doing so illegal and punishable by a fine which they can't.

Is there a Smelly's Law similar to Godwin's Law? (he'll turn any topic round to Brexit and abuse of Remoaners, Johny Foreigners and the EU within a few posts, regardless of what the subject started out as)

So no untreated sewage discharge into canals then, which is what I said...

Neither can I, unless they're legally forced to do it -- which is why there's resistance to the Wharfe being declared as a river suitable for wild swimming. But unless this is fixed, worrying about sea toilets in boats on rivers is pretty much a pointless exercise, take the log out of your own eye... 😉 Canals are a different kettle of fish entirely, there is no overflow sewage discharge into them and water flow is negligible compared to any river, so the impact of a boat toilet is much worse and not hidden by other sources of crap -- discharge of black water should certainly be illegal in this case.

Without in any way condoning pumping untreated crap from a boat out into a river, before getting too excited about this people should remember that in flood conditions this is exactly what is still done by various sewage works across the UK, hence the current debate about wild swimming on rivers like the Wharfe -- and the amount of river pollution from this is far higher than that from a few boats. Of course the right solution is for the sewage works to stop doing this, but until this happens discharge from a few boats will be tiny in comparison.

Could be worse... https://photos.app.goo.gl/zKRKXmCKXzHnp4hb7

Before you get inundated with sarcastic replies, I suggest you use the search tool on the forum and read the various threads about exactly this subject... 😉

Or if it fits your timing/plans better and assuming there's space, between King's lock and the 3 locks, just past where Middlewich Narrowboats used to be and a new venture is opening up shortly...

I think people are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin here -- given the way the data is collected there are bound to be errors which are easily spotted by looking for inconsistencies. Isn't the main purpose of these figures to monitor traffic levels overall to help CART make decisions about what maintenance/improvement works should be done where? A few mistakes in individual figures shouldn't affect this, assuming whoever makes the decisions isn't dumb enough to take every one as exact... 😉

We thought it was a busy day if we saw another boat, and that was at the beginning of September each time. I don't think we ever had to wait for another boat at a lock either in front of us or coming the other way, which was great 😉 Except for one time when we got stuck in the middle of a low pound on the way up to Marsden, and had to come up with an engineering solution to a difficult problem while we waited for the boat in front to clear the lock and run some water down... https://photos.app.goo.gl/RY5XR56UTfGS8Xer5

Can suggest some good stopping places if you need any advice -- what are your plans, just a nice slow bimble across the area or a particular schedule?