Horace42

That's nothing. I've got a chandelier in the cupboard under the stairs in my house. ------------------------------------- PS: One day I'll get round to unpacking it and hanging it in the lounge.!

Is that a fact. Is there an actual law. I am vaguely aware of flying flags on private property requiring planning permission. But not discreet ones on canal boats. Any flag? - or is it limited to Union Jack and Red/White Ensigns. I've seen many boats on my canal cruises flying 'foreign' flags - if there is a law - does it apply to them as well.? Either way, there is no excuse for a dirty one - so good luck to Mark99.

Sorry didn't finish comment - clicked Post instead of Options. Is it a valuable flag? Soak it in bleach and use a light scrubbing brush.

Elbow grease

My cynical view is that CRT is looking to generate maximum income and will be looking for ways to do it that doesn't require them to do much in return. Charging a fee to moor is one easy way - as long as they can get away with it - so tackling the known problem of overcrowding will be the reason to introduce charges but sugared by the promise of providing many more long term low cost moorings with facilities. That of course will be a costly exercise for CRT, that will be used as a means to calculate the basic charge for using public mooring. This charge can be implemented immediately (to catch as many long term 'free' moorings as possible) by what might seem a reasonable charge per day for 24hr, 48hr, a week, a fortnight, or longer - but backed by a hefty fine for overstaying these and free moorings. Charging for moorings and fines is the on-going money maker, especially in areas of overcrowding, because provision of new moorings could be a long time coming - if ever. Long before chat rooms I predicted mandatory Insurance, BSS and home mooring as a condition of obtaining a cruising license. --------------------------------------------- PS: Cruising license is a misnomer, it is a license to put your boat in the water. CRT are under no obligation to provide somewhere for you to cruise.

Me too! Only I read it as 'chandeliers on my roof ' PS I have a feeling I will regret asking, but what is the flat fire rope ?

Does the enforcement team really care? Does it really matter to them if you overstay your time limit. The only people bothered are incoming boaters looking for a place to moor - and maybe the local suppliers who might lose business because passing boats have nowhere to stop. The problem won't be solved until CRT provide more places for temporary moorings with an additional mooring permit that CC's buy in advance for the 'free' use of long stay temporary moorings provided by CRT throughout the network - a season ticket you could say. This can't happen without CRT revising the whole pricing structure. .

It's like fear of flying. We worry each time we go through Bordesley Green, but apart from grafitti everywhere, nothing bad has ever happened. In early years we ventured on the BCN Main line and the Netherton tunnel, but nothing bad happened. We were put off by the general 'mess' everwhere - and worryingly 'druggies' laying around in bridge holes. But they never bothered us. Boatwise we only saw one other boat on the move in two wholes days of cruising - and considering BCN is in a conurbation area of 5 million people - we only saw a couple of people out walking along the towpath - where was everbody! I doubt if it will happen in my lifetime, but completion of the Hatherton canal will make the BCN accessible from the north east and get it back into full use. But I would still follow the advice of others to keep doors, windows, covers etc closed - but that applies anywhere - so don't worry about the BCN.. But like flying......what can anybody say to put your mind at rest if you are afraid.....

It is basically a logistics exercise of collecting the fees.They would have done it years ago but the cost of collecting payment to ensue no boater escaped payment, coupled to a duty to ensure boats 'moved on', was not cost effective even by civil service standards. Compare it to cars and parking wardens - it will come no doubt to canals - where they don't make money from mooring fees per se, but from enormous penalties for overstaying. Nowadays the scheme could be introduced by coming up with reasonably priced mooring fees by exploiting 'free' volunteer labour to collect fees - that once accepted as 'standard' (along with fees for using locks and 'busy' canals) - to replace volunteers by an army of box-ticking jobsworths.- payed for by bumping the price up. You have been warned.

When I bought my boat 'privately' in 1987 all I got with it was an invoice. And an unpleasant surprise because VAT was added. The sale was by a 'private' broker on behalf of a boat hire company where it transpired he was the 'owner' of the company doing a bit of quiet selling on the side trying to earn a bit of pocket money off the books, but mainly as a way to avoid VAT with a cash sale (pound notes). A cheque as a traceable payment through the bank, and an invoice as proof of purchase, on my insistence, to fully protect my interests, created an audit trail that the VATman could easily follow. So to avoid his company breaking the law, I had to pay VAT extra. I changed the name, filled in the BW license forms, paid the fee - and have not stopped fighting rust ever since.

A popular spot at Gt.Haywood above the lock and can get busy. Usual facilities at the S&W junction. Plenty of room usually below the approach to the lock and a nice spot with open views across the fields to Shugborough Hall which can get busy if some national interest event is being held. At the worst it means a longer walk. On leaving Colwich lock and if you see lots of boats that appear to be moored nose to tail in the last 1/2 mile as you approach Gt.Haywood lock, it tells you it will be busy at the lock, and probably full up above the lock. We usually pull at the first opportunity to bag a space, and then walk to Gt.Haywood to see what room there is. Usually plenty of gaps to squeeze in, but is hard to tell from a distance.

Taking what you say literally, isn't that because they are all moored up somewhere - for more than 48 hours maybe - and if so were those on the move denied somewhere to moor because there was no free space at the popular spots.

As a general comment from someone hardly affected by long stay moorings - 48 hours at most (two nights) on a round trip leisure cruise - I can only guess it boils down to a problem of how busy the place is. Why have a 48 hour limit. What is it for? It could hardly be classed as busy if you vacated it and 6 hours later found it still empty on return. My view is that time limits are set to give everyone a chance to moor at popular spots - but who counts the time of a visit - I think it is a matter of common sense.- and purely a local issue that only you can judge. If it was a serious problem, I guess there would be clear CRT guidance on the matter. I would count the hours to my best advantage and start again from when you moored the second time. If that is 'wrong' then sooner or later an 'expert' will come along and put you wise - and then gracefully move on - but until they do - stay put.

Like others, I did not know your father, but I send my condolences. But it must be very satisfying to know that the Droitwich canal is up and running and a tribute to his efforts.

Interesting that you scrape the sides. We found we did in the early days and no matter how careful we tried to steer our boat as straight as possible we still drifted to the tunnel walls. Until we realised our boat actually traveled slightly crabwise when going dead ahead. With a bit of practice we found just the angle to point our boat and now we hardly ever scrape the walls - but it does need constant vigilance. .

For admin reasons, if the various documents are valid at the time of application, the license will be issued. It is your responsibility to ensure that they remain valid for the period of the license.

We got held up at Harecastle one year behind a 'smelly' and slow boat. We were last in, so we dropped right back. It took nearly an hour to go through. In fact on emerging the keeper said they were getting the rescue boat ready to come and find us.

Don't you mean 3 hoots ?

Thanks for that. But being cautious I assumed the lighting aspect was a requirement to allow for tunnels - but yes, it makes sense to be able to cruise at night. However, I recall a long time ago when we hired boats, the boatyard told us we must not cruise at night - I guess this was an in-house rule - these things linger in the memory - and taken as gospel. But not cruising at night has never been a problem for us though. As mentioned in a reply I made elsewhere, this means CC's can keep going non-stop. Sorry CC's it's not a dig at you. It's a criticism of CRT pricing policy.

Dave-P #112. My insurance policies do not cover cruising at nights. But having said that, it was something I was told years ago, but in view of comments made, on checking my actual policy I cannot find any clause that says so. I will ask them tomorrow when they are back in the office. I still think CRT say you should not cruise at night. Perhaps I am wrong here as well. I would appreciate a pointer to where I can read this up on the CRT website. My own search drew a blank. I many respects I hope I am wrong about night time cruising. This means CC's need not stop at all and thus will not be a burden on the system for free moorings - there will be no need for rules or policing to move them on. However, I have not picked this aspect of the 'rules' to have a go at CC's. They provide an essential contribution the waterways system and should be encouraged. It is more an example to highlight big flaws in the CRT cruising/mooring pricing rules. Anyone who has read the 'old' BW document on pricing decision logic will realise it is a massive volume of obfuscating gobbledegook which basically says CRT can charge what they like and there is no way an individual can mount a challenge to any pricing decision. The fact is, there is a shortage of mooring places and CRT should provide more. And CC's should pay a fair price to reflect their 365 day use of them. It would then not be necessary to hound them to move on.

Sorry to be a pain, and to the OP for pinchin' the question. Where do these hotspot WiFi access codes come from ? Apart from the one dedicated to my BT hub that only works here at home for private use. I do not have any.

It might seem a flippant response but won't you need to point the yagi in order to load Google to find where to point the yagi. I am 'new' to wi-fi narrowboating so it is a serious question.

Aren't we trying to preserve the 18th century on the canals

Why don't we all learn the Morse Code - then we can use our horns to chat away to our heart's content - and how about a few headlight signals thrown in for good measure. Who said semaphore flags? I am more than happy with unambiguous horn signals if they were mandatory and it makes sense for large commercial shipping where they are going too fast to avoid collision if signals are not given or mistaken - but not so on canals where we should be going slow enough at all times to manoeuvre safely - and what a noisy place the canals would become if horns were the norm. No thanks. An approved code of simple easy-to-learn hand signals (or even fit flashing indicators) would suffice for the canals and rivers.

..... ISTR there is one part way up the Atherstone flight but can't recall the name.... It's Barry Hawkins I think. Halfway up the Atherstone 11. Holly Lane by road. .....but I guess the OP knows this!