IanD

The problem with tolls is they're expensive to collect and enforce; this works fine when you have millions of movements per day like on French motorways, it simply wouldn't make financial sense on the canals with maybe a thousand times fewer, the cost of collection would almost certainly be higher than the tolls collected.

Folding up is easy, that's what they're designed to do to prevent hanging up on a cill. Folding down is more difficult (springs etc) and they're not designed this way, presumably because it would cost more, and getting the stern caught under something is much rarer, especially for less experienced hire boaters who seem to account for most cillings...

Exactly -- all this is basically trying to turn the hull into an air conditioner. As anyone with AC in a car will know, condensate dribbles out onto the road underneath them. OK for AC with a water drain, not so good for the inside of a steel hull... 😞

They've been beaten to death many times because they're not the real reason for CARTs financial problems, they're scapegoats -- it allows people to blame CART instead of the government. Outsourcing and lack of skilled personnel -- absolutely, it's the same problem as in so many other infrastructure areas (rail, buses, water...), thinking that privatisation and "the markets" will magically solve everything... 😞

The term doesn't just refer to physical bits of design...

How do you think CRT could have spent (not enough) money more wisely? Please don't say fewer blue signs and lower executive pay, those have been beaten to death many times...

What you're talking about are skiamorphs... 🙂

You mean the bits of blue-and-white wet string that are being used for who knows what? 😉 I hope you're very happy together 🙂

Don't know how many customers they've got, but to make the business viable their prices have just increased -- £30 for a monthly collection, £25 for fortnightly, £75 for one-off.

IIRC the last time this was surveyed (before the CART ban) about a quarter of compost toilet users composted properly and three-quarters bag'n'binned. This may have changed since as the bag'n'binners ripped the toilets out and replaced them, or maybe some have just carried on in spite of the CART ban. Either way, if you want to claim that "loads compost it properly" maybe you should provide some numbers to back this up, not just guesswork or what you and your mates next door do? 😉

Sometimes size *does* matter -- I've got a small (but shapely) rudder too... 😉 Not sure what lines/ropes you're talking about, they're not even on the boat yet. If they were, I'd probably deliberately dangle the stern line over the tiller pin just to see who bites... 🙂

So now we've got ourselves a fender-waving contest... 😉

Does it make any difference? IIRC CART banned it because their waste contractors kicked up a fuss about it, but whatever the reason the effect on boaters is the same -- no more bag'n'binning... 😞

I don't have one but that's a bit unfair -- for a few boaters like @peterboat with the space to compost the waste properly (e.g. on the bank) and then use it (e.g. on a garden) they're an excellent solution. But not for most boaters on the canals who (expensively!) installed them on the assumption they could bag'n'bin the waste, now CART have banned this...

Probably true for a full length boat, especially in the hands of a crew who know what they're doing. Less true for a modern/hire boat 20' shorter than the lock with an inexperienced steerer, with plenty of distance to build up a good speed backwards in a filling lock before ramming the stern into the bottom gates. Beware of assuming that what applies in one circumstance (e.g. yours) applies in a different one... 😉

I'm not saying they shouldn't be that way on a trad/working boat, because fairly obviously the owners of such boats want them to look -- well, traditional... 😉 But on a modern boat which is never loaded, it doesn't seem sensible to have the fender so high above water level -- if only because it's much less good at protecting the rudder from cills, as mentioned above. It's a skiamorph... 😉

I looked at the ones I hired and that's not how they seemed to be constructed, the pivot pin just looked like a length of 1" steel bar. I thought it wasn't safe when going up, but wondered if the main concern was hanging up going down because that's a lot more common...

Plenty of photos of working boats show that fully loaded they're trimmed close to level with perhaps 8" of freeboard, here's one example. Can't see how unloaded the stern can be at the same level, the bows will come up a lot (up to 3' for a Big Woolwich?) but the stern will come up as well (maybe half that amount?). I understand why the fenders are where they are on a working boat (just below deck level), but don't see why they should be that way on a modern leisure boat.