David Mack

At present the CRT staff follow the boat using one of the parallel disused railway tunnels. I have heard that as part of the Transpennine Upgrade rail services might be reinstated in one or both tunnels, which could prevent the current arrangement. So having an alternative means of communication and monitoring in place might be a necessity. Every canal tunnel I have been through in the last few years has had luminous arrows pointing towards the nearest portal, along with distance markers. I would be surprised if Standedge didn't have them fitted as part of the restoration.

The document you quoted starts off with the words "The requirements..." and goes on to quote British Standards. The average reader could be forgiven for thinking that there is a legal obligation to comply with these 'requirements'.

I had already noted that Anker is stated to be suitable for the Welsh canal - some trip for a hireboat from Shackerstone!

'Continuous Cruising' as a concept only exists on the CRT waterways. Other navigation authorities do not give you the specific choice of either having a mooring, or of continually moving within specified criteria. That said some other authorities do not require you to have a designated home mooring, and on rivers, mooring against private land (out of the main navigable channel) is just a matter between the boater and the landowner. But public mooring places are far fewer and most have significant time restrictions. The OP should start looking at marina moorings in the Oxford area.

Apart from the section between Braunston and Napton and, in limited circumstances, up to Barby Marina on the northern section.

This is Large Woolwich narrow boat Fulbourne approaching Weston Lock on the eastern Trent and Mersey Canal on 23 September 1996. The steerer is the then part owner of the boat, Stuart Anderson, accompanied by Jan.

Hiring out your boat is business use and comes under a whole different set of rules. See https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/business-and-trade/business-boating/starting-or-expanding-a-boating-business The only practical way to do this is a sponsored boat in a hire fleet. The hire company runs the boat, but you own it. But they usually source a new boat that meets their requirements, and it is very unlikely they will be interested in your current boat.

0.254mm = 1/100 inch or 10 thou?

Local authorities already have too few resources (and available homes) to deal with the current (land based) homeless population. Boat dwellers are mostly well enough off/ insufficiently vulnerable that they wouldn't get rehoused by councils anyway. So I doubt it would make much difference to councils. Van dwellers who park on local streets and annoy residents are probably more of an issue for councillors.

Could you fit some sort of adapter between the manifold and the filter housing?

I suspect the main issue is that the number of such craft coming onto the market is small, and by the nature of being exempt from some RCD requirements at the time, these craft do not have full documentation. So the BMF and the brokers are erring on the side of caution by declining to deal with such boats. Selling them (as a broker) would not be illegal, but why take the risk?

But in the case of a broker who never owns the boat, but merely advertises it on behalf of the owner, which party is actually making it available on the market?

I think Pershore is navigable if travelling upstream, Evesham and Nafford are closed. Worth phoning them Monday morning for the latest position, but in any event if you arrive at Tewksbury, the lock keeper would probably advise you not to proceed onto the Avon since you wouldn't be able to get through, and so no need to pay the Avon licence fee.

So were the cans perhaps a wedding present?

You don't need anything more substantial - quite the opposite. You want the fender chains to fail if the fender gets caught in/under/over a beam as you are rising or falling in locks. But use black ones which are less susceptible to UV degradation in sunlight than white. Fit weak links to two of the three chains with a complete chain/shackle connection to one side. That way you won't lose the fender completely if it does get caught up.

But making the product available on the market is defined as being in the course of a commercial activity. So a private individual selling his own boat is not (in RCD terms) making it available on the market, and is thus not subject to the distributor's obligations (although a broker handling the sale may well be).

Well HMRC made the suggestion at the time the propulsion duty was introduced, so no individual boater has ever had to prove this was an appropriate split for their use. The background is that the EU (of which we were then a member) decided that boat propulsion use should have the same duty as road fuel, and most other EU countries were already doing this. The UK Government resisted the change as long as they were able to, but eventually had to comply. To avoid leisure boaters either having to pay propulsion duty on all fuel, or install separate tanks for propulsion and non-propulsion fuel, the Government came up with the split duty scheme. The details were developed with the boating industry, and it was agreed that the 60/40 split was a fair representation of the actual split in use across a range of different leisure boat types and activities (not just canal and river craft). In deriving the calculation, the contribution of an engine used for propulsion to also provide electricity and space/water heating was taken into account, reducing the propulsion element, notwithstanding that the electricity and heat was incidental to the main engine use for propulsion. The use of separate tanks would not have allowed this to be non propulsion use, so the split declaration worked in boaters' favour. The EU however regarded the split declaration basis as non compliant with EU law. In their view any fuel tank supplying a propulsion engine should only have duty paid (white) diesel in it, as is the case for road vehicles. Matters rumbled on for a while until the EU declared they were going to take the UK Government to the European Court over the issue, an eventuality that only didn't happen because we left the EU.

This link sets out the requirements for domestic heating oil tanks. Not sure if your mooring garden counts as domestic property, but it gives you an idea of what may be involved. https://www.oftec.org/consumers/off-gas-grid-guides/home-guide-to-domestic-liquid-fuel-storage-up-to-3500-litres These are the rules for businesses: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/storing-oil-at-a-home-or-business

And that is such a generic and vague description that could prompt arguments for years about what is or is not a Major Craft Conversion! To be licenced the boat needs a BSC. To be sold by a broker the boat now apparently needs paperwork to demonstrate RCR compliance. Two completely different sets of standards. And scope for much confusion amongst boat owners and prospective boat owners who are not immersed in the minutiae of such matters!

Did you buy it from them directly? Did it come with an Annex III(a) declaration that it complied with the RCD up to the then stage of completion (and if so do you still have that declaration)?

No. Anybody wishing to sell a boat in Europe (EU country) has to comply with the EU RCD. Whether or not there are equivalent regulations in UK law has no bearing on that. At present the UK RCR is the same as the EU RCD, the EU rules having been transferred into UK law en-masse at the point of Brexit. But one of the purposes of Brexit was to enable UK law to differ from EU law. So far the idea of just dumping all the EU rules has been pushed into the long grass, but presumably over time both UK and EU rules will get modified, and the two sets will diverge. But I can't see the RCR being high on any UK politicians priorities, so we are probably stuck with the current rules for the foreseeable future.

Enforcement of the RCR is the responsibility of local authority trading standards departments, and most are so under-resourced that this comes such a long way down their list of priorities that only the most serious cases are likely to be followed up. More likely is a dispute between a customer and a boatbuilder or supplier about RCR compliance, which could eventually end up in court. But most people's experience of RCR issues will be when trying to sell a boat, as it seems that brokers are increasingly requiring complete and up to date RCR paperwork before taking on the sale. For a boat which has been owner fitted out or significantly modified, demonstrating compliance can be as much of an issue as actually doing the work in a compliant manner. So who are the 'bureaucrats' in your case? That says: "As in the previous Directive, there are still some boats which are exempt from the RCD, these are: Home built: where the boat has been substantially built by the owner for their own use and is not sold for a period of 5 years. However the boat owner may employ specialist services for elements of the build and still be considered a self build. However, you may find it challenging to sell the boat after 5 years without the relevant RCD documentation, builders plate and CE marking." That is reasonably clear for an entirely home built craft, but it doesn't say whether a sailaway built by a professional builder, and sold with full RCR documentation for a craft completed to the relevant stage, can then be regarded as 'owner built' in relation to the subsequent fitting out, and therefore exempt from a PCA and updated documentation if kept for at least 5 years.

I think the only Cruiseway sections of the BCN are the Main Line/ New Main Line from Aldersley to Gas Street and Farmers Bridge, Netherton Tunnel Branch, Dudley Canal west of Windmill End and the Birmingham and Fazeley (including the Digbeth Branch as far as Warwick Bar). Everything else is remainder. At the time of the 68 Act, none of the BCN was regarded as being of any use for pleasure cruising, and the sections listed above were the minimum necessary to connect other cruising waterways.

A meaningful start can either be the actual commencement of the proposed work, that then proceeds in earnest. Or it can be a token activity undertaken with the sole purpose of keeping planning permission alive, without actually intending to do anything more in the near future.

Can you imagine the hoohah NBTA would make if they were 'banned' from having a stall at Cavalcade? Better to have them inside the tent p*ssing out, than outside p*ssing in.