BilgePump

What size boat? Looks as though moorings are in strong demand. The nearest CaRT mooring available seems to be nearly 20 miles from Marple. They've always been popular but previous years have seen at least some a bit closer. Basically Furness Vale, New Mills and Marple marina and the offside moorings at Victoria Pit, Poynton, then Lyme View marina at Adlington.

Another advocate for phone tethering here. Got rid of my home landline phone and broadband almost four years ago and just buy a £25 giffgaff phone topup each month (O2 network). This gives unlimited phone, SMS & data, although data speed can be throttled during daytime above 80Gb use (cheaper deals are available from other providers I'm sure). The phone is only a cheap Alcatel smartphone (about £50) which allows me to budget for a new one every year or so (whenever the screen gets too broken!) and it is my regular day to day phone too. It takes two seconds to turn the Hotspot on or off on the phone That setup has been fine for my needs including streaming YouTube and iplayer etc on the laptop, aswell as sites like this, uploading files to a server and photos to ebay. I got rid of my TVs years ago so watch everything on the laptop both at home and on the water. I've used it like this inside a steel narrowboat with the phone sitting on the dining table about three feet from the window, and nowadays use it inside a GRP boat, pretty rural locations. It's just worked so I've never seen any reason to 'improve' it. The only thing I do have is a spare phone and SIM from a different network in case either the phone breaks or the O2 network fails.

as much as a very, very big ball of string

I wasn't going to argue with them that continuously pootling around a stretch forty locks from a ghost mooring wasn't against T&Cs somehow and would certainly be outside the spirit. That was why my movements away and back towards it over four months were what I'd see as the bare minimum, two miles or so every fortnight, in a direction of travel. I just hope that the clarified T&Cs aren't used as a blunt instrument that penalises those weekend cruisers with a home mooring who by their very pattern of use don't put great strain on the infrastructure.

OP's situation sounds like the way I've mostly gone boating for the last fifteen years, and not had any problems. Up until a few years ago parents had a narrowboat in a marina. I'd often take it out on my own round the year, only a few miles along the canal and moor up for four or five days. Then take it back and go home for a bit. Always the same handful of favourite spots near a couple of the villages. One winter I had to stay with it for three weeks out on the towpath stranded on the end of a line of winter moorings with alternator/engine problem, only half a mile from home base. CaRT were fine about it. When that boat went and shortly afterwards I got a tupperware, I took what was effectively a ghost mooring (Nantwich) about forty locks away from where I launched the boat (upper Macclesfield) I didn't go to the mooring but spent two months heading away from it over twelve miles of a lock free section (5x fortnightly movements of 2+ miles), leaving the boat in my usual favourite towpath mooring spots up to Whaley Bridge, turned round heading back towards the home mooring, and spent another two months getting back to the launch spot, by which time I'd found a suitable short mooring on the Macc, which was what I'd been waiting for. If I hadn't managed to find a mooring on that stretch I would have had to continue on down Bosley locks towards the registered mooring, and only once I'd got to it and stayed there would I have been able to turn around and come back up to the stretch where I wanted to be. Same applies to that new mooring, I can go back to the same places I've always been but would need to be moving in a progressive line of travel away from or back towards the mooring if the boat is going to be out for more than two weeks but an overnight return to home mooring seems to be enough to reset the clock. Considering that the whole lock free section can be covered in a good morning or afternoon, that's no real issue. The boat stays on its home mooring almost all the time I'm not with it. I'm sure that if you had a home mooring in one place and basically spent 13 days out of 14 away from it with the boat hogging the same nearby towpath sweet-spot then I think that pattern would not only fail to satisfy the board but tick off fellow canal users, a lot. However, if you want to go away from your mooring, closer to the local pub on the towpath most Saturday afternoons, you shouldn't have any problems. It's what a lot of people I know do. As already noted, there is always the danger of getting logged repeatedly in the same spot in a way that makes it look to their systems that you haven't returned to base when you have, so maybe best just to keep a basic log of boat movements in case you need to state your case, but so far I've never been asked.

If anyone tells you that it's minus forty, you don't need to ask if that's celsius or fahrenheit. They're both the same, mad cold! I watch a lot of youtube wild camping, shelters etc in Canada and Alaska and a temperature of minus four degrees doesn't sound too bad until you convert it into celsius and realise how far below freezing it is (-20).

CO detectors will trigger in minutes with high concentrations but won't go off for hours with a very low and less dangerous level. If you left it near the exhaust long enough it should go off https://www.kidde.com/home-safety/en/us/support/help-center/browse-articles/articles/what_are_the_carbon_monoxide_levels_that_will_sound_the_alarm_.html

I'm guessing that the OP means leisure boat as opposed to residential. A Buckingham is plenty big enough in the cabin for one or two people to spend a week aboard. They are close to 20' but cavernous inside compared to a 20' Shetland or Norman, much more like a Dawncraft 22 space wise. If the OP can only get to go out for the day, it will be life restrictions at play, not boaty ones. Personally, I wouldn't want to be moored in a short pound between locks for exactly those reasons. Even with a good open stretch, time away from the home mooring can be very limited when you can only manage a few hours on the boat each visit for much of the year.

Very sad sight

Keep an eye on CaRT's mooring site if you don't want facilities. £835/yr for 23' on the nearby Ashby canal. You can set an alert for your chosen locations when moorings become vacant. You will always find the same problem I have though with a small GRP cruiser on CaRT moorings, you can end up paying for a lot of space you won't use. https://www.watersidemooring.com/314-sutton-cheney-wharf-l1/Vacancies

How much it can leak? The one at the turn into Bugsworth seems to have leaked onto the path beneath for as many years as can remember.

You'll occasionally see someone post to award a 'virtual greenie' to a mod, where the mod's comment is liked but mods can't be bribed with real greenies, smiles etc! Reactions can be for anything from an amusing play on words to comprehensive technical advice.

I know of at least one leisure moorings marina (coastal) that had a similar thing. They called it 'intensive usage' or something similar. Essentially it was for anyone staying at the marina more than 150 nights/yr iirc. Was per person rather than boat size and quite reasonable cost at the time (five or six years ago). Similar thing for post forwarding, not a reg'd address and a recognition that although you may live on the boat you did not have a residential mooring so should take the boat out of the marina or stay away for a number of nights/yr. Rather a grey area, certainly not residential but all above board and the right side of marina management.

And both the Welsh and Derbyshire ones are nowhere near Denby Dale, near Huddersfield. My UK geography is so naff I once nearly bought a boat on ebay hundreds of miles away in Penryn, getting it confused with Penrith, just up the M6.

fully agree, blue or red, they've all been at it back to forever.

Did you need to square the donation/bills with Boris for the redecoration at #11 . Sorry, couldn't resist

Got an old tent if you want it for free, pal ?

It does seem that prices are strong and in some cases bonkers across all the types of boats I've seen online. As the Shetland on the canal's only 19' long, and basic is an understatement, I'd really want a bigger boat on my mooring, but it's not going to happen any time this season by the looks of things. Things like the old Dawncraft 22, 25, Norman 22, 23 etc have been priced high, even tired or empty shells like I would be looking for. Turnkey small GRP cruisers are getting strong money, bilge keel and trailer sailer yachts are selling like hot cakes and prices I've seen on narrowboats are a lot higher than the market only a few years ago. My little sailing boat was deposit paid and collection arranged within an hour of the ad going live. Felt very lucky to be on the ball and first to message him and him being a decent guy and not being lured into accepting a higher offer. I wasn't buying to resell and profit but to use it. In previous years I would have thought the price fair for a private sale but still would have expected to be able to find a bigger, better boat, without the mad scramble, for somewhere around the thousand quid mark. This year it seems to have been a bargain deal. Brokers who had boats priced much higher for similar had seemed to have sold virtually all of them when enquiring previously. Seeing that prices on the kind of canal going boats I'd be hoping to find are very steep this year, it's tempting to put a second 18' tupperware, currently on a trailer, into the canal for this season for some extra space. Maybe use it for half the season with the other boat then flog it if the market is still healthy, hoping for a bigger boat to come up over the winter. I certainly wouldn't want to be selling the only boat in the canal on the hope/gamble that the market will calm down. This would be especially true if it was an asset of significant value like a narrowboat and my home to boot. The fear of losing a healthy foothold on boat ownership and getting priced out would be too great. What's the phrase, only gamble what you can afford to lose?

no limit on tidal Ribble or Wyre, hence why it went a bit crazy when the lake district restrictions came in 15? years ago. Room for everyone ?

Was a bit wary of towing a small boat up the M6 to Blackpool/Fleetwood way at 9am on Monday because I thought there would be quite a lot of traffic heading up to the Lakes. As it transpired, didn't see many heavily packed cars or caravans on the way. Maybe they hit the road at sparrowfart or it just got busier north of Lancaster. This morning going back up seemed the same and towing again coming back down this evening was clear, except for some poor folks on the M61 whose car was on fire, not accident or injuries just dramatic and causing a bit of congestion behind it. The river has been really active on each tide around midday. Seen a healthy few speedboats and small sailboats each dinnertime and some from the club have already gone out for a few days, having spent much of the preceding two weeks getting their boats ready after the winter lockdown. The weather has helped as it's been clear and dry albeit cold by dusk, but because it's nowt like this time last year, sitting outside a pub in the evening probably isn't the warmest place to be. There's a really nice pub round the corner from the club which is pretty big, normally mixed food, drinking and large games / pool / TV room and a large beer garden but for the expense of starting up five weeks before indoor service and to be at the mercy of the Lancashire weather, just not worth it to them. A favourite pub, The Navigation at Bugsworth has been doing food takeaway, deliveries and BBQs via the same through the lockdown period and as far as I know were opening this week.. When I can get a night on the canal, you can guess where I'm heading for a couple of scoops. My local at home has a few tables outside but is shutting as it gets dark, one similar is waiting for indoors. Each landlord and their type of business (manager/tenant/freehold etc) will make the call based on lots of factors. By the time I got home yesterday evening there were only four people outside my local and it was getting a bit cold. I did go for a couple by closing with them but it's not the same fun as years gone by, having to spend all your time outside. I've really enjoyed the last few weeks doing boaty stuff and a lot of it is to do with the social aspect of it. You catch up with old friends, people with similar interests, it's outside and on the water. I always did love those things but I think I value time on the water more now, because, in words we all know, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats

Rather sloppy reporting, no surprise! An old safety launch from a sailing club it may be, but by no means is it a sailing boat. Is that just the hub, lost a wheel perhaps? A bit of a Dell Quay dory traffic story

Our sailing club has been steadily getting going since the 29th March, as an outdoor sports venue. Just a single toilet open with clubhouse and shower closed. People turning up more and more to do jobs on boats but everyone is really waiting for Monday when you can stay over on the boats and sail over a few tides. I imagine hire fleets, caravan/camp sites and cottages are all the same. Massive pent up demand. What are everyone's bets on the traffic in the Lake District/Devon/Norfolk etc tourist hotspots?