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Mooring status currently has no impact on the licence fee. Hence my logic was that since licence fees for boats without home moorings are increasing by more than those for boats with a home mooring, as opposed to the licence fees for the latter being reduced, then the ‘rebate’ has been with the boat without the home mooring. Not that it matters since it’s really the relativity not the absolute numbers that matter and it’s a latent thing anyway.

I was merely pointing out how I think the system is intended to work from what I’ve read. It’s entirely implicit in the proposals that boats without a home mooring have had a de facto rebate until now. I had a home mooring for most of the time I’ve been paying under the current rules and have no particular beef with the future proposals and I certainly don’t think i’m due a rebate for the past. On the other hand you seem to have something of a bee in your bonnet on this subject.

I don’t think it’s a weird way of thinking at all. I believe it’s the way the system will work for folk like me that do not have a home mooring as such but make regular use of paid moorings that are either CRT controlled (such as a winter mooring) or in non-CRT controlled marinas. The logic being that your ‘rebate’ for being tied up in a marina has already been applied at source.

I’m sure they had boats in a numbered series with an MV prefix. I think the wooden boat slowly breaking it’s back below Radford Semele bottom lock is one.

Granted it is a full on week but two would be very leisurely if it didn’t involve something extra like some visits to local attractions and/or the odd detour. First - and only time I actually did the full ring in one go - was a weeks hire from Macckesfield. The plan had been to do the Cheshire Ring but a stoppage put paid to that. 1990s that, not 2020s.

I’m puzzled by your concept of illiteracy. Boat people could talk.

I thought they used the terminology MV for motor vessel?

I’d have thought there’s plenty of time for detours. I reckon you could go round the Four Counties twice in two weeks without resorting to 10 to 12 hour days.

No. But there are folks here more knowledgable than me that might…

It’s not configured like a normal carrying boat so perhaps it’s a maintenance craft.

Yes it could be, it would have been owned by the MoT rather than BWB. Also the M45 designation may not have been determined and it is a spur of the M1.

I think the fact Ferrous and it’s regular crew are presumably known to the DCTT may help.

Well it’s not totally wrong. It’s bridge 77A and it’s the M45.

How long ago did you last try? I had to present the boat at the northern gauge the day before transit even though we went south to north. That was for the 2017 Challenge. Supposedly that’s the only correct reference gauge. I also enquired about a trip through on the Friday before last year’s Challenge but the DCTT said that had insufficient volunteers to be able to escort a passage on a Bank Holiday weekend. I think I’ll enquire as to whether the DCTT really can support any passages and if necessary amend the route planner.

Finishers tend to roll in over about 6 hours. There will be a bit of a rush just before 1400 but given it takes between 10 and 15 minutes for most boats to traverse Gosty Hill it’s not that different to there being a lock close to the finish line. Any pairs won’t be particularly slower than other boats. On the other hand if there was a flight of locks leading to the finish they would be far more disruptive. As for any visitors the best advice would be to stay a while and join the social in the clubhouse.

I improved the scoring for pairs last year based upon my experience of having crewed a pair pre-Covid versus my normal experience of a crew of two on a single boat. Since the only competing pair last year quickly developed a reluctance to working locks it didn’t really have an impact. I’d love to see four pairs out and about for the weekend and any that has a competent and motivated crew will be competitive. I’m also hoping for at least one other privately owned historic entrant. Plus Oates too possibly.

If that’s Hanwell locks then I think the photo is probably printed in reverse. The lock doesn’t quite look right though, although that’s not to say they haven’t been modified since.

The Narrow Boat Trust may also return with Nuneaton and Brighton. In terms of crew there are some former regular competitors on the forum who may well be interested in helping out and I also get queries from boaters and other interested parties asking if they can get involved. Those get passed on to competitors but I suspect most have their crews sorted before they apply.

Resistance is futile. It is Tyrley.

I thought Tyrley because I think it’s a narrow lock but the current Tyrley top lock has brick chamber walls so I wasn’t convinced.

If you draw much over 2’ just getting yourself down the middle of the Engine arm channel is enough of a challenge. What hinders progress on the BCN is usually what you can’t see. My memory of the Engine arm on the other side of that bridge is that you worry about being too close to both sides similtaneously.

Nobody is moored in a daft place and nobody speeds down the Engine arm. If two or more boats happen to be down there at the same time then one will have to hover mid-channel waiting for the winding hole. That’s likely to be how boats get hit but it’s unlikely to be anything other than marginal contact.

I’ve never been left with the impression that the folks down the Engine Arm collectively have a problem with visiting boats. That’s from trips down there both during the Challenge and otherwise. It can get a bit hectic down there during the Challenge and if you get hit I guess it can lead to some grumpiness. But it is a navigable arm open for general cruising so it will remain in the Challenge. Because of its use predominantly as a residential mooring location points are not awarded for transits outside of daytime.

I have now found Richard Turton who married Sarah Allcott in 1913 and he is a member of the family I referred to above. On balance of probability it seems that Richard's parents were William and Harriet (nee Webberley). William was born in Wolbverhampton in 1846 and is the son of Thomas Turton b.1812 in Tettenhall, (Wolverhampton), Staffordshire. Information about his mother is not easy to find. All of the Turton boating folk I have identified descend from Thomas's father Joseph Turton (b.1763 in Staffordshire) and his wife, probably Martha Granger (I haven't checked that as she's no direct relation of mine). William Turton's sister Mary Ann married John Griffiths, a well known canal carrier from Bedworth. My own link is that one of William's cousins, Martha, married my great grandfather's cousin Richard Neal. She came from a part of the Turton family that once - briefly - ran a pub in Tipton close to Tipton Green Junction. The pub is long gone (it's not the Fountain which is close by). Boating and publicaning seemed to be interchangable occupations.

That has been addressed in the thread. The sinking happened at Cholmondeston lock to which Nantwich is just about the nearest town.