DaveP

You use the MP of the constituency you're registered to vote in through a 'delclaration of local connection'. Residency is not a criterion, although it should be a place where you do spend time. Personally, I'm locally connected to Paddington Basin....

When CRT sold off BWML to Aquavista, several did. The one that was closest to me at te time was Packet Boat at Cowley Peachey Junction. Limehouse Basin has also restricted non-moorers from their facilities in recent years using covid as an excuse, but not lifting the restrictions to date....

I have made those points on the survey. I made them here so others might comment/correct/further my thoughts. I've been a residential moorer, a leisure moorer and a cc'er in my time afloat ; never felt that IWA is an organisation that's campaigning to ensure that CRT is fit for purpose. So I've not joined - but have joined other more focussed groups...

The problem with using third parties such as Boatyards and the like to provide services is the lack of guarantee that they'll continue to provide the service, either by going out of business, selling the site onto someone else, or unilaterally repudiating the contract. At that point, what are CRT going to do? It'll take time to rebuild/reinstall a service point (if it's even possible). The same is true at the edges of the network where they're claiming they can rely on other navigation authorities - they can't and they shouldn't be expecting boaters to pay the other licence fees to travel on others' waters. It's clear from the wording that the IWA are still on their crusade against continuous cruisers as their criteria for closer positioning of services in heavily used areas only refers to boats on unserviced moorings - not those on the general length of the towpath. The criteria for heavily used areas should relate to boats sighted in that area over time not just those on long-term moorings. The 5 (or 2) hour distance potentially also works badly for those on unserviced moorings - imagine a mooring with a service area 2 hours away; but the next winding place is a further 1 hour beyond that - so to go from your mooring to the service point _and back again_ actually takes 6 hours cruising.... [Now - let's find those moorings!] But, there do need to be standards, and the services need to be protected from those who shouldn't be (ab)using them....

From CRT's website (https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/specialist-teams/maintaining-our-waterways/maintaining-our-facilities/water-points) "Water points Our canals and rivers are lined with thousands of water points. These supply a constant stream of clean and fresh water to boaters." From the press release "We maintain over 600 water points..." So, they've already ripped out/stopped maintaining at least 1,300 points...

Top of my head calculations; water use is 20-40litres/person/day depending on showers, washing machine, cooking, washing up etc. Liveaboard 360 days/yr, share/hire boats 180 days/yr, owners 15-90 days/yr. 5,000 liveaboards with 1.5pax, 2,000 share/hire boats with 6 pax, 30,000 owners with 2 pax. Water tap delivers 10litres/min. Day length for delivery is 6 hours day, so single tap can deliver 10*60*6*360 l/yr - 1.3Ml/yr. Demand - 30*360*1.5*5000+30*180*6*2000+30*50*2*30000 - 300Ml/yr. Thus we need about 200 taps across the network.... ie about one every 10miles. However, this needs to be seen in the light of local boat densities -eg London with 100 miles of cut and about 2,000 liveaboards needs 25 taps just for them. As ever, I suggest CRT are being weasel-worded. I bet most of the water-points they're claiming to maintain are for the exclusive use of the local permanant moorers and not available for passing trade.

'Like being in a house, except for a wider choice of neighbours, little men wot do your garden, no junk mail, and a sense of achievement every day'. Only afterwards might one explain the more physical efforts and sensory effects that go into making that achievememt occur....

Mine; Standedge - for the sheer scale of the canal's ambition, plus (the first time I transitted) the fog caused by the railway, and (another time) the fright on the CRT guys' faces when FSR refused to restart after stopping in the tunnel for the trip boat to come in and out. Froghall - because I've cadged a lift through it, and I'm never going to get FSR through it. Islington - when mooring either side, because of the steady traffic, all the different and lovely engine sounds echoing for many minutes before the boats emerge (the most fabulous being Indus & Pictor bearing coal in the winter)...

Too late; I left the village last week! May (should) be back in the Spring... Soz. [And the software is in no way ready for release into the wild; and the hardware assembly will probably give any engineer palpitations.]

Nope; batteries have no comms. MPPT (Epever) and shunt (pzem017) data polled over modbus, fed into a mysql database on a Pi over wifi. Grafana runs queries on that and displays on a webpage. Glued together with some Python - also does sms alerting/reporting.

14.4v (3.6v/cell), held for 10min by the mppt, then floated at 13.6v (3.4v). I also have a wh counter which shows about 2% inefficiency in charging. Screenshot of yesterday, look at behaviour just after 1pm when the batteries hit full...

I'd also add that the 20-80% regime is also based on long-term cycling, ie the battery is held below or above these limits for many weeks to kill it. Liveaboards will be cycling on a daily basis, so a wider range can be used. I've been using a pair on 200ah TN Power drop-ins for 2.5years now with my solar banging them to 100% most days over 9 months of the year and in winter getting down to 30% SoC. I haven't found _any_ dimunition in capacity yet....

I've been sent an email regarding this census. It claims; "What’s different between the boater census survey and the Trust’s annual boater survey? Our annual survey asks a sample of boaters questions about their views of our waterways, but it doesn’t ask about who’s on your boat or what you use it for. The annual boater survey is only sent to around 10% of licence holders, whereas over the coming months we will be inviting all boaters to complete the boater census survey." However, the survey results document from last year says; ”The survey was distributed to random sample of approximately a third of all licence holders". (https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/refresh/media/original/43706-2021-boater-perception-survey.pdf) I've asked for an explanation of the different statements. It really doesn't induce confidence in their processes or competence. Dave P

Sending out a call for 'Narrowboat Stories'. Couple of clips regarding Lime Juice runs to Hemel and almost buying your father's ex-boat....

Here's my electricity consumption on a 60ft cc'ing narrowboat. Raspberry Pi/Battery Monitor/Router/4g modem - continuous 7w (14Ah) 1800w inverter - idle 8w (16Ah) Fridgefreezer - 80w 25% time (40Ah) TV/hifi etc - 40w 4hr/day (15Ah) Laptop/Tablet/phone charging - 8Ah Water pump - 50w 30min/day (2Ah) Lighting - 10w 5hr/day (4Ah) Total approx 95-100Ah/day I've got 200Ah of lithium batteries and 600w of solar, so at the moment I'm using an electric kettle (4Ah/brew) and toaster (6Ah/2slices) which total another 20Ah/day. And the heater in the washing machine will pull another 30Ah/wash (plus the 10Ah for the motor) once or twice a week. In a month or so with the decreasing daylight, I'll pull the other 600w of panels out from underneath the decking of the roof veg garden. This will support 100Ah/day until the end of November with properly chosen mooring spots. Then the fridge goes off (and the inverter) pulling the consumption down to 40-50Ah/day. The stove is lit for food, brews and heat. Then at the end of January the electric consumption can be ramped back up, and panels stowed for the veg to bloom again....

Apart from no sun in winter, and no usable wind in usual mooring locations; how do you intend to keep warm on the boat once the summer finishes? If you're intending to use solid fuel then there's a whole new world of pain in balancing co2, particulates and convenience....

Not any more.... https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/london-and-south-east/national-grid-cable-decommissioning-project [Looking forward to the new stretch of mooring rings in Regent's Park once the work has been done]

It's not - see https://www.watersidemooring.com/Home/FAQ - Q. Are you still part of the Canal & River Trust? Yes. Waterside Mooring is a new name for long term moorings managed directly by the Canal & River Trust. It's just a facade - helps in deflecting FOI requests; they'll claim that everything is commercially confidential and not part of the statutory business. This is why they don't publish winning bids or price lists any more....

'fraid I don't know about the details of the part-year costs as I'm not eligible. I suggest you log into te crt licensing site and have a play around.

Yeas, it's a one-off first licence only offer that you dont have to buy a full 12month licence. Im not even sure that it willhappen again next year....

No, you'd be buying a sep-dec gold licence this year, then be on a january renewal in following years. If you switched back to a standard licence in a subsequent years, then if you wanted a gold licence again, you'd have it backdated (if necessary) to january.

This is only available for your first gold licence.after that it's jan-dec as before. I had enormous problems with the online system and phone assistance as i was trying to upgrade from a standard licence to gold (backdated to jan as i've had one before) and the online system was ignoring my online/full payment discounts. Took intervention from licensing support people to convince the issuing people that they'd got yet another example of their 'special and unique' software in public service.

Given his history of working with street homelessness and then social housing, this is going to be an assault on liveaboards. Or, on non-liveaboards - after all if a boat is empty even for a couple of days it could provide a valuable shelter for those without a roof over their head. Or, given his recent role representing housebuilders, the paving and building on every scrap of land CRT can sell to his chums. Whatever, he's a fat cat, and all or some of us, are looking like dinner...

Came up through Dashwood at 11am. All fine; top gate a bit leaky but overall in better condition than I've usually seen this lock over the last decade. Levels above Bakers lock and the Cherwell are all fine up to Lower Heyford (where we are now). Kidlington Geen to Roundham pound was low on Friday.

I've just acquired a B535. The wifi security is tighter than my old router so I had to change the password for the network from the previous one. Meaning that every device needed updating. My HP laserjet (p1102w) was a real pain, but got there in the end by downgrading the 'wifi security' setting to 'wpa/wpa2' from 'wpa2'.