MtB

My own limited experience of targets in the corporate world is if you achieve one (to everybody's surprise), next year it get adjusted upwards quite a lot. As you achieving it simply illustrates it was too set too low in the first place.

Only a light breeze here in Wiltshire at 10.00am... so far...

Ah that makes perfect sense, thanks. I like to try to understand the reasoning behind things that seem to make no sense initially.

That's curious. I wonder why not. I'd hve thought that was a large part of the survey market. But maybe they generate a LOT of questions that take ages to discuss and answer afterwards, and he has plenty of work doing less troublesome owner surveys.

Not at all. What we are both saying is once you've shelled out a thousand pounds for a survey and watched the bod do it, you realise how little is done and how you could have done it for yourself for half the cost. This is not to say a newbie shouldn't have one done, but equally lots of posters are utterly dogmatic that a survey absolutely MUST be commissioned and a bit of push-back in those cases never hurts.

You might find this link useful for finding out stuff. I'm surprised you don't know about it yet! google.com Transport and Works Act 1992 P.S. I didn't know what a TWAO was either, sounds a bit rude I thought...

You obviously missed my smiley! Its amazing how one can say the most obviously ludicrous things on here and guarantee at least one person will take you straight!!

Mebbe your boat is too heavy and it bends the bridge a bit more each time..... . . . . . . . . . (Kidding, honestly!! 😂 )

This was funny the first 126 times....

You should see your GP about that....

That was wishful thinking rather than fact, Shirley. When the government are funding the thing to the tune of multiple hundreds of £m, there is no way CRT are independent.

Indeed. 12 years was long enough to either do something to make a difference and have an impact, or demonstrate you are never going to.

My thoughts too. His tenure has seen him come across as a nice bloke interested enough in the waterways to routinely turn up at waterways events in his own time when he is under no contractual obligation to do so. On the other hand he has presided over a decade of failure to get a grip on either the finances or the piss takers. I suspect the guvvermint has had enough and once the commission has come up with some proposals to deal firmly with the latter (something Parry would have done well to done) then a hard man will be appointed to implement them and run the organisation on a basis more similar to how the Highways Authority is run i.e. giving no quarter or second chances so the place actually looks like a top quality public leisure amenity not cluttered up with over-stayers and licence-evaders. Once thats starts happening (or something along those lines) then we might have a chance of getting more funding.

An oxymoron if ever I read one! Do you know any really small giants?

I'm shocked that anyone here would ever think it likely I would consider having a boat with "windows" ! 😂

Yes! A three-bed semi with 8 rads usually holds about 100 litres....

There is however a photo in the ad of it being lifted by a hiab, for what that's worth...

West veering north....

Is there a photo of the engine in the advert? If so copy and post it on here and you'll get chapter-and-verse on exactly what it is and how likely it is to sound like a proper vintage motor.

Of course 20 (or 10, even) years ago the weather forecast just forecast "gales' and nobody bothered much about it.

If you do decide to shell out £600-ish on a survey (plus a few hundred for docking it), when you get the survey report you'll almost certainly find yourself thinking "I could have spotted that!" on almost every line in the report. But of course, you didn't. I have the feeling that most people having shelled out £1k+ for a survey on their first boat, rarely do the same on subsequent boats they might buy.

Says its been motorised in the past in the write-up. Cracking boat though. Wooden bottom that needs replacing though. £3k is looking expensive!

I agree, centre line only, whatever could they have been thinking of!