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magpie patrick

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Everything posted by magpie patrick

  1. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  2. It's not just "young and poor" as boating is optional, your term "starter" (otherwise known as entry level) is key, buy a cheap boat that cheap to run. if you like it in a few years trade up, if you don't you haven't ventured too much capital. If there is no entry level by the time you come to by the bigger, shinier boat your actually into camper vans and instead treat yourself to a bigger one of those
  3. In many cases, but not all, length is a proxy for ability to pay rather than value. People with less money tend to buy shorter boats. Not a perfect fit by any means hence what I'll call the Sea Otter Paradox
  4. I'd start with spend less: it is bonkers that, when BW don't have enough money to keep the system in a steady state they try and make improvements (I'm talking bollards here, among other things). I expect a steady procession of things like shower blocks closing as a charitable trust decides that perhaps keeping the canal open is more important. this certainly won't bridge the gap, but it may help. Rely to a greater extent on private enterprise for some provision. You can empty your elsan at Saul marina, and have a shower there, but if you're a day visitor the Elsan costs £3. I've also seen pubs offering shower and laundrette to boating customers on payment (or spending enough in the bar) BW have scored an own goal with mooring tenders, as it means they can't put mooring prices up the way they do licence fees, so it'll be licence fees up I'm afraid, probably on an agreed escalator of say, 3% above inflation for 5 years I guess there is going to be a funding contract with central government all new canalside developments could be subject to a levy in the form of an annual payment from every property that benefits from the canal. The Hereford and Gloucester pioneered this approach at Over, but other societies do this and BW were going to do it on the Cotswolds before they pulled out. This will take time to achieve results, one of the paradox's of large scale cost cutting is that it has set up costs that outweigh the initial savings. I think we will find more long term stoppages until the new system can deliver
  5. at a quick sum, if all the £30 million pa shortfall is to come from boaters, then the licence fee on average needs to increase by £1200... We'll have to pay something extra, but boaters funding the lot isn't going to happen
  6. True, but it's not a bad proxy, although Sea Otters buck the trend a bit
  7. Cotswoldman, I expected better of you than that. One, it does make a difference, or it would if more people would have small boats. Why do you think BW mooted a higher charge for wide beams? because they can't share wide locks. Small boats need less room to moor, can often share narrow locks (one lock operation less and one lockful less of water to be provided) and their lesser displacement often means less damage. Your proposal would simply force them off the system, which in turn means less revenue. You been drinking with Adrian Stott?
  8. no, you'd lose a lot, because smaller boats are often lower in value, and are often bought because people want lower costs all round. your £1000k may well be 20% of the value of the boat, and no one who's only got £5000 to spend on a boat will be in a position to pay £1000 pa as a licence. With a 62 foot narrow boat my only realistic option is to moor on the Stratford Avon and the higher mooring fees offset the lower licence there. However, with a 23 foot trailable I could more on the Lydney Canal, or the Grand Western, or the Neath Canal, or in the Tudor Arms Caravan Park (yes, I have researched this), my guess is Phylis would be off to a coastal harbour taking half of Burton Waters with her
  9. Which means that far from increasing revenue, BW would lose it.
  10. I'd be surprised if charges all round don't go up, although the licence isn't my biggest problem, it's the mooring fees which are now £568 a quarter for Ripple. There is a danger in BW, and our marina, thinking that demand is so inelastic they can just whack up the prices. In a way they've got a point because even if I sell the boat it doesn't cease to exist and whoever buys it has to buy a licence At which point every trailable boat on the system moves to a caravan park or storage site, and they either buy visitor licences or cruise none bw waters shoot self and foot spring to mind!
  11. Well, Pepsi got it's name apparently as it helped in cases of dyspepsia, however I can't see that either would kill off weil's disease. If, however, you have stomach trouble, such as dysentry, what both coke and pepsi do is give you enough sugar and minerals to keep going for a while, without making the condition worse. Russian's swear by vodka with peppercorns in it
  12. I hope that lock is not too deep, the bridge is wider than the ship!
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  14. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  15. Phylis, you don't get it, we're not clobbering things, but touching is almost inevitable. As you say, your boat is too beamy for a narrow lock, meaning i guess you never go through locks less than 6 feet wider than your boat, whereas Ripple, in the bottom lock at Hurleston, actually touches BOTH sides! One lock on the Ashtead flight has an alignment so awkward that the only way Ripple could leave was to catch the masony bridge, her left hand (port) side was in contact with the canal wall while the right hand (starboard) side hand rail scraped the bridge, judging by the paint marks she wasn't the first boat to do this. And I agree with Sara, accepting that boats will touch the bank and each other is no excuse for playing bumper cars as you down the canal, but that's not what most of us are doing
  16. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  17. Phylis, on your first one, unless you have a force field round your boat, how do you avoid contact? Does it conveniently hover six inches off the bank when tied up? I guess you actually have fenders down and it is they that are in contact with the bank and the boat. Unless we are going to sleep on board, I don't bother as 8mm of steel can cope with touching a concrete bank. and you don't take your boat through locks only a couple of inches wider (and only a few inches longer) than your boat On the second one, I think you got it the wrong way round. Hirers can manage without bow thrusters as they are not gererally trusted with them. Some companies fit them, but after the first few are burnt out because the hirer thought they were for steering the boat, the company tends to ditch them
  18. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  19. Thanks Martin, someone else knew the story as well!
  20. I wouldn't either, but it shows a different attitude to safety. I remember discussing trying to restore the Ulster Canal and being amazed by how lax the rules were in the republic compared to the north. This made a difference in scheme design as we could build (for example) a lift bridge at a road junction in the republic but not in the north, even though the two junctions might be 100 yards apart. Safety culture is a funny things, some societies seem to say " do what you want, but don't come to us when it ends in tears". When I spent a lot of time in Thailand it was routine to cool trains by leaving the doors open between stations...
  21. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  22. As a kid when on boat holidays we swam (with parental approval) in many canals and I remember seeing a toddler being taught to swim in the canal near Bingley (toddler will now be late 30's!). I don't know whetherv Weil's disease has got more prevalent or whether we have just got more aware of it, but I wouldn't now, despite the fact that many canals are cleaner than they were in the 70's! In Ireland though I've seen the lock keeper refilling a two rise staircase to give the kids their swimming pool back, but then you could see the bottom of the lock when full. The only thing I would say is, no matter how impatient you are, never operate a lock if kids are swimming in or near it, even if they refuse to budge, call the navigation authority or the police, but death is too high a price for a pig-headed kid to pay for not listening. On that note, I recall reading (when I was about ten) of some teenagers in Dublin who'd been swimming in the canal (probably the ringsend branch) and had swum through an open paddle for a laugh (the water level was the same on both sides). It was only when one kid asked where his mate was so he could borrow a towel that they realised one of them had had the paddle drop on him, and was stuck. They got him out, but guardian angels shouldn't be pushed to hard!
  23. And the two magpies (or one of them at least) would welcome Caen Hill... Come on Allan, you know you want to
  24. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  25. That's good, for Lough Erne, read G and S, and we saw the same.. \How can I get Ripple to Lough Erne...?
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