magnetman

Saves people getting them wrapped in the prop too.

Not much good for a narrow boat is it. The advert has the word facsimile so no it isn't an old one. "Facsimile alla stessa placca per il Titanic ai primi del 900"

Splined taper is interesting. The two I have had apart on my boats were a D section socket and a plain machined taper. The latter did come loose but the effect was that the tiller itself moved without the rudder. Tightened up and it is fine. I guess if the tiller still moves the rudder it is more likely to be splines or possibly a grub screw somewhere.

The fuel payment for cc licence holders might be an interesting tool. What the CRT could do is put the licence fee up by £600 for people who got paid the government grant... They have evidently self identified as residential users of cc licences. In all other walks of life apart from living in a van or being homeless there is an ongoing cost of accomodation if you don't have capital to buy to start with. Mortgage, rent or benefit payments. Why should canals be different ? The cc licence is clearly too cheap and has been for a long time. Of course the Ward problem on the K&A was related to an unlicensed boat but realistically the CRT should have a zero tolerance policy for that. 3 months and the boat is gone. Either moved by the CRT or the owner. Bye bye. Wishful thinking I know ! There is a link on the CRT page which is called equality impact assessment (EIA). Reading it is quite interesting as it includes this "Our relevant charitable objects in relation to this policy are as follows: To preserve, protect, operate and manage Inland Waterways for public benefit: i) For navigation; ii) For walking on towpaths; and iii) For recreation or other leisure-time pursuits of the public in the interest of their health and social welfare." ---- Nowhere is use of boats for housing mentioned in these charitable objects. It seems to me that the only valid way of interacting with people living on boats is for the CRT to get as much money as possible from them. Without this advantage it is just a load of 'liveaboard gits'.

Almost certainly. The problem is that if people get into living on boats with no idea how different it is to living on land purely because it is so cheap you get serious consequences over time. We all know that it costs the CRT good money to deal with one single obstinate problematic boat owner in the Ward case on the K&A. This was a very very expensive process and the CRT won't get anything back. Not a penny because the boats are worth less than the cost ot transport and storage. If the numbers of people pushing the system were to increase too dramatically it seems to me that dealing with what is a housing problem could bankrupt the navigation authority. This is seriously bad news for the canal network itself. People need to be paying in a reasonable amount of money as housing costs otherwise problems will occur. Big problems given that everyone is ageing.

Filter the water. Burn solid waste (I do this). Dispose of recyclables in council facilities. The plastic from food wrappers is a but nasty to burn but one can easily cut it into pieces and put small bags of it in public bins.

Trampoline springs.

Yes but from your user name I am assuming you have a reasonably large boat something like 65x13ft. If I remember right the Gold licence is cheaper for boats under 11ft. A lot of canal wide bean craft are under 11ft. I didn't realise for your size boat the Gold was cheaper than the Thames.

Water filtration and fire? Using council bins?

I wouldn't feel too sorry about someone with a hundred grand wide beam paying a bit more. I'm sure they can afford it.. For people who are on the breadline the state is there to help you and will do so it you need it. Apart from anything else the CRT should not be subsidising people who are renting the house out living on a boat. This is not an appropriate allocation of limited funds.

It has already been 'justified'. The CRT are in a bad place financially. Getting more money from boat owners who after all are the only group who need a canal to be more than 1ft deep with working locks is a sensible strategy. As mentioned some groups of boaters are paying more for less and some paying less for more. It makes sense and is entirely justified to try to level things out for financial reasons and as a way to reduce the chance of bias occurring over time which will inevitably lead to higher management costs for the CRT.

I remember a wide bean called something like 'No rush' going along the Thames with the hammers down as if trying to escape from an atom bomb blast. Its always the same story. There will be a boat called 'take it easy' who will be going round as if its a Formula 1 race with a couple of irate looking characters on the back of it scowling at everyone.

"...with our prior written consent." OK. I wonder if they will give this consent without notifying the resident of the mooring. Interesting potential for problems there. It seems odd that one could pay a low rate for an out in the sticks CRT mooring then use vacant CRT moorings in city areas with no extra payment. I feel it is not that simple.

where does it say that ? Most of the CRT moorings actually in London are residential sites. I don't think you would be able to stay on an empty residential mooring unless you have the permission of the contract holder because it is their residence even if the boat is temporarily absent. May apply to online towpath long term moorings. Intrigued now !

Of course the Gold Licence, which gives you Thames and CRT 24/7/365 is an elephant in this room as it may well end up being less costly than the upcoming cc er widebeam licence. Some work needed here to avoid evasive strategies. If the surcharges are significant then the Gold licence must either go up or be withdrawn. I would not be that surprised if the EA and the CRT got their heads together and decided to withdraw the Gold Licence quite soon..

It seems quite easy to sort out on the website. There could be the box the same as the insurance ie Provider and contract number. You put these in if you have a mooring and it would be subject to random checks. I would exclude people who have moorings which do not provide any income to the CRT and class them as having no mooring. It could be better to have a 'No CRT based home mooring' licence rather than a cc licence otherwise the admin goes up. There could easily be basic codes for every CRT or CRT-contributing mooring site. It probably exists already.

Only as a joke. I wonder if it might be a flat battery.

Hand starting is hard work if you try to do it with your hand It won't budge an inch but would turn nicely the other way.

If they are a cc er they do have to satisfy the board. It is in the '95 BW Act. If they are not a cc er at that time then the licence cost will be different under the proposals for tiered licence costs depending on boat type and declared usage. Its all written down in the 1995 British Waterways Act.

I'm still processing the idea that a cc er who takes a winter mooring is not a cc er. They are a cc er. In terms of licence banding but they have satisfied the bored in reasonable circumstances.

If, for the sake of argument, a cc licence was £2500 and a licence with a mooring was £1000 (small boat) people would look at ways to present as having a home mooring at renewal time. Similar to the 5 yar BS ticket thing. I've got a 5 yar BS ticket on one of the boats. Just counted it out on my fingers.

I was just idly wondering how this status would interact with licence renewals given that you can do things to change the renewal month on your licence.

If there has been a previous cilling incident I wonder if the bearing below the centre part was damaged. Is it possible the balls could have dropped out? This is assuming it is a ball race bearing and not a plain bearing. The greaser seems to imply it is a ball bearing. Have you tried pumping grease into it with a grease gun? It seems plausible that when the cilling event and subsequent sorting out took place some damage to the bearing might have been covered up be ramming the whole thing full of a lot of grease which has now come out revealing the problem. One of my boats was originally fitted with a ball bearing at the top which over time failed and the balls fell out. It now flaps around a bit at the top but is not a big problem as one can still steer the boat. When I get a round tuit I'll probably fix a piece of nylon with the right size hole to it as don't like ball bearings for this job.

I reckon they might do away with winter moorings.

I want a picture of the starting handle.