Tony Dunkley

Yes, I have to agree. Four days ago I sent the following e-mail to Parry, hoping that a response may shed some light on from just where within C&RT's hierarchy all this malicious time and money wasting nonsense originates. He hasn't replied . . . I don't think he will, but a great many may draw their own conclusions from his silence. Tony Dunkley Oct 17 (4 days ago) to richard.parry Mr Parry, As I'm sure you are aware, your Legal team have made an Application to Nottingham County Court for Discontinuance of the action against me with an Order for no costs to be awarded against C&RT. In support of your Application, they have filed with the Court a written submission that by renewing my boat Licence when it was due I have caused C&RT's case against me to become "worthless and academic". Taking account of this in conjunction with the two e-mails from your Solicitors on 23 and 28 July 2014 encouraging me to 'cruise' as much as possible with my, then unlicensed, boat, it appears that C&RT's preference is, in fact, for boats not to be licensed, thereby enabling you at any time to begin your much favoured Section 8 process, of first resort, to remove them from your waters. Please confirm, or not, as the case may be, if all this is being done with the backing and approval of both you and the Trustees. Signed A.K.Dunkley.

Perhaps, being aware of their omission of the service address from the Application Notice they became concerned that non service of the Application papers may take on the appearance of an attempt to mislead the Court.

We had noticed.

No Nigel, you've got it spot on.

I think you you ought to wait until it's your turn with the TSSBC again.

Which they then failed to do, followed by an e-mail saying it would not be delivered to me by hand because it was too difficult for their intrepid Enforcement Orifice Stuart Garner to get access to my mooring.

Parry is simply dishing up another helping of his well practiced double talk. Shoosmiths left the service address box on the Application Notice blank, which lead the Court to use the address given by C&RT for me (Houseboat on the River Trent in NG12 2LU) on their original Court papers. The fact that I am not at that address is one of the reasons the case is being dropped, but Shoosmiths chose not to make that clear to the Court . . . clearly a perfectly innocent and genuine mistake on their part.

C&RT's difficulties with accurate recording of boat locations and movements have been extensively aired on this Forum, but the problem now seems to have progressed to afflict their solicitors in respect of supplying addresses to the Courts for service of papers. Shoosmiths have applied on behalf of C&RT for an Order, to be made without a hearing, that no costs be awarded against them following the Discontinuance of their case against me. One of the reasons for them not now wanting to proceed is that they have now had to recognize and agree that their claim that my boat was a houseboat permanently moored to their property in Holme Lock Cut without permission was, and is, completely untrue. They have now omitted in their 'no costs' Application to inform the Court of this and to admit that giving that location as my address never was correct, alleging that only the renewal of my Licence has made their Claim "worthless and academic", resulting in an Order made on 8 October 2014 being sent by the Court to an address that C&RT know will not find me. The Judge did not agree to their request for the matter to be disposed of without a hearing and made an Order for a hearing on 24 November 2014 and a statement setting out my position on the Application within 14 days. It was also ordered, as is usual, that no response within 14 days would result in an Order being made in the terms sought by the Applicant, which would have been a very welcome outcome for C&RT and Shoosmiths in return for their rather convenient oversight about my address in their Application paperwork. Fortunately, having been on the receiving end of some rather wayward and incomplete paperwork from Shoosmiths at the outset of this case, I had been in regular contact with the Court since C&RT reneged on their written assurances that they would file Notice of Discontinuance after renewing my boat Licence.

C&RT's difficulties with accurate recording of boat locations and movements have been extensively aired on this Forum, but the problem now seems to have progressed to afflict their solicitors in respect of supplying addresses to the Courts for service of papers. Shoosmiths have applied on behalf of C&RT for an Order, to be made without a hearing, that no costs be awarded against them following the Discontinuance of their case against me. One of the reasons for them not now wanting to proceed is that they have now had to recognize and agree that their claim that my boat was a houseboat permanently moored to their property in Holme Lock Cut without permission was, and is, completely untrue. They have now omitted in their 'no costs' Application to inform the Court of this and to admit that giving that location as my address never was correct, alleging that only the renewal of my Licence has made their Claim "worthless and academic", resulting in an Order made on 8 October 2014 being sent by the Court to an address that C&RT know will not find me. The Judge did not agree to their request for the matter to be disposed of without a hearing and made an Order for a hearing on 24 November 2014 and a statement setting out my position on the Application within 14 days. It was also ordered, as is usual, that no response within 14 days would result in an Order being made in the terms sought by the Applicant, which would have been a very welcome outcome for C&RT and Shoosmiths in return for their rather convenient oversight about my address in their Application paperwork. Fortunately, having been on the receiving end of some rather wayward and incomplete paperwork from Shoosmiths at the outset of this case, I had been in regular contact with the Court since C&RT reneged on their written assurances that they would file Notice of Discontinuance after renewing my boat Licence.

Lock No.1(Entrance Lock from the Trent) Grantham Canal.

That sounds like the sort of thing someone who doesn't know how to tie up properly would say.

Yes, I think encouraging people to tie up badly is bloody silly.

Probably not , but I wouldn't have slowed down that much anyway. If boats you're passing are tied up as they should be then isn't any need to slow down all that much . . . if they're not tied up in a decent fashion, then they won't be moored boats after you've gone by, and you know what, it might just make them think about doing a better job of tying up next time.

Ten and a half hours with a pair of empty boats, and the Atherstone pound was full up with slurry from quarry washing screens in those days (1960's) . . . as for your lock miles . . . how do take an hour down Hilmorton with a single boat?

You can take one whole day off there . . . Braunston to Atherstone is only a day, and an easy one at that.

I think that is what they are now admitting, although certainly not intentionally but more as a result of acting before thinking. Clause 8.5 of the Licence T&C's has no basis in any statute.

By going about this in such a hamfisted and ill considered manner they are, in fact, giving a further public demonstration of just how flawed is their preferred method of taking to task boaters perceived not to be obeying the rules. Their written evidence to the Court as to why no costs should be awarded to me is nothing less than an admission that their tactics of revoking the boat's Licence and then serving Section 8 and 13 Notices can be effectively countered by the boat owner proving compliance with the requirements of Section 17(3) of the 1995 BW Act and reapplying for the boat Licence. Very obliging of them, although I'm sure more as a result of acting in haste rather than from any good intentions.

No you're not being too simplistic, or having to make up anything either, that describes the whole thing very well . . .so theoretical, certainly not, beyond belief very definitely, as is an ever increasing proportion of Parry's and C&RT's administration of our waterways.

No, but at least C&RT's Application has not been accepted or granted at face value, in the sense that the Judge (unfortunately now the third one named on the Court paperwork) has refused to make a 'no costs' Order without a hearing, as applied for by C&RT. It seems to be a good indicator of the general character and arrogance of those within C&RT first instigating, and now apparently wishing to continue this legal action, that the grounds upon which they believe that they should not have costs awarded against them are that I have made their Claim against me "worthless and academic" by not keeping an unlicenced boat on their waters and being sighted using my home mooring.

The so called statement from C&RT amounts to nothing more than a few lines of dishonest and misleading tripe with even the name of the offending employee spelled incorrectly . . . it's Garner not Gardner, the latter being trustworthy, efficient and good at it's job, whilst the former is anything but. It is hardly surprising that whoever was responsible for this has considered it wise to remain anonymous. The phrasing and words used are more than a little reminiscent of some of Parry's evasive answers given on this subject during one of his rather inappropriately named 'open' meetings.

When you've done that, tell us what you've found and then we can think about the next thing to do or check.

Take the oil filler cap off and turn the engine over on the starter while looking at the valve rockers you can see through the filler to see if they're moving. If they are not, then the timing chain has broken. If they are moving the chain may have jumped one or two teeth on the timing wheels, and you can check whether this has happened by checking if the valve timing is still correct or not.

With a good portion of the blades near to the root doing nothing, the effective blade area will be reduced, and as you say, some of the incoming water stream may even be slowed down, wasting power. It looks to me as though the suppliers are selling bow thruster props for other than the purpose they were designed for. Even the profile of the tips looks to be designed to run with a very small clearance in a tube.

Looking at one of these on a boat, the blades were flat with no twist from root to tip. Surely this increase in pitch towards the blade tips is not going to be very efficient. The only, and questionable, advantage I could see over a conventional constant pitch design of blade would be the identical performance both ahead and astern. Can you estimate the efficiency drop for the pitch increase at the blade tips?

I actually meant my preceeding Posts, which didn't specifically refer to defining CC'ing . . . but never mind.