Thomas C King

As long as we could still travel, I wouldn't mind paying for a mooring, which we'd hardly ever use. Especially if it put to bed this whole issue. But it's the same as increasing the license fee, which I am fine with as well.

Ooh, any chance of naming names? We're on the eastern K&A, leaving to go down to Brentford this weekend. Curious if it's the same ones we regularly saw continuously mooring. If you're on the K&A Facebook group, you get to know that there are some known difficult boaters.

Agreed the will isn't there. But that's what grassroots campaigning is for.

Which is why the solution must be political, without CaRT's involvement. To paraphrase a jurist, the law is not there to optimize society. Rather the law's purpose is to provide a predictable system within which members of society can optimize their behavior. Hence, precedent matters. If you want to make the legal system more predictable, test the law; but, change the law to get guide society in the direction you want.

Some boaters on the K&A share the schedules of the CaRT enforcement officers. I get that CaRT probably doesn't have resources to do daily inspections. However, perhaps a random schedule would work, depending.

I should have said "free up space in a more equitable way". Shufflers, particularly the ones that coordinate their shuffling, take space in a non-equitable way. The same people get to the moor in the same spots, those traveling further (genuine cruisers and holidaymakers) consistently struggle to find space.

Yes I agree with the first bit. But the courts' job though is non-political. They will not interpret it in a useful way for the canals, but will instead focus on semantics. Not even necessarily UK semantics, either. So, although it can't come from CaRT, I think a political solution is required. On compromise I don't think you and I, for example, are far off on the objective. It's just that you favor longer daily-movement, I favor longer annual with slightly longer weekly movement. The point of contention is likely to be with NABO and similar.

Who said it was unfair? I do, however, recall arguing that limiting continuous cruising to retirees and holidaymakers would make the system a bit dead. What do you want to achieve, a large system that is used, or a small system that isn't? On remote work - I am a remote worker. It requires two things to continuously cruise at the same time - a good internet connection for conference calls, and time to hop between good connections. Hence, for the vast majority of remote workers you would have to accept that they would not be able to continuously cruise. Again, leaving a system used by retirees and holiday makers. I am sure that suits many on this forum, but it's not what I want the canal system to become.

You can't say with much certainty that it is or isn't non-compliant then. Particularly in this country, where we do not have the Napoleonic system built on lawmaker's intentions (rather, ours is based on interpretation).

Travel isn't instantaneous. Currently, if boats are moving very little and infrequently, those making a longer cruise get to the end of the day without spaces left. Do you have case law to support that?

I think you might misunderstand my objective (which we probably agree on). It is to have a set of rules that makes it harder to be a continuous-moorer, but are not so strict that you only end up with marina-bound boaters that go out every now and then and a few retired continuous cruisers. Bear in mind that some fuel boats do not have a home base, so it's even in the interests of the genuine continuous cruisers to not have a very strict rule. That's why I would suggest increasing the annual range a lot, and the per-week a moderate amount. A wider annual range makes shuffling back and forth insufficient to comply with the rule. A moderate increase to the per-week requirement (yes, I know it's 14-days at the moment), means that continuous cruisers do not have to be retired or unemployed to make it work, but you still get weekly movement that frees up spaces.

No, but the wants and needs of most boaters who are not retired or just holidaying are. Unless you want a system where people are in marinas and occasionally cruise out of it when they are not working. That's a dead system in my mind.

Somewhere in-between yours and the current one. I'm not interested in "navigation" as such, but whether it: 1) Creates a happy environment for most users 2) Most users are not continuous moorers. In numbers. I'd say, range over a year over 70 miles, maybe 100 (not the current twenty). Miles + locks per week, at a minimum, 10. Incidentally, I think your per-day requirement would be unfeasible to enforce.

No, everyone complying with the law as it is written includes the vast majority in this country. What kind of person would actually cruise every single day? The canals will become mostly a geriotocracy, or a holiday destination.

Who has a reason to navigate every day, other than retired people, holidaymakers, and possibly fuel boats (which I have noticed definitely do not move every day)? That's not the canal world I'd want to live in.

Average of a mile a day over a week? We would probably be outside of that pattern, although could adapt with some after-work cruising. For most weekends our miles + locks is about 10, with the occasional being above 30. I'm not fussed by people even slower than us, moving every two weeks, it really is the ones staying for longer that seem to be causing problems where we are.

What I'd say to NBTA, then, is that a boat is not the best place for ill people. If they are campaigning for ill and poor boaters to be given proper accommodation, then fine, but otherwise they're legitimizing something that's harmful. The alcoholic boater that I'm thinking of was in a boat with serious damp and rot issues, somewhat mitigated by some other helpful boaters; the person in question wouldn't have the psychological or physical ability to fix it. You're right, they are two separate issues though.