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Does anybody know what rules the Avon Navigation Trust is entitled to create, and what abilities it has to enforce them, apart of course from their Bye-Laws? If the application of one of their new rules conflicts with their own bye-laws, what can they do to ensure that someone complies with it, and what sanctions are they entitled to apply when someone refuses to comply for reasons of safety? In this case I am thinking of their new rule which dictates that all boats, including narrowboats, must use both bow and stern lines when locking DOWN. I can understand why they have recently banned the use of centre lines (although I would take issue with it when locking down on a short boat) and I can understand why it may be necessary when locking UP (those gate-paddles can be fierce) but if I were to refuse to use two ropes when locking down on the grounds that doing so would reduce my ability to control my boat safely when locking down, what can happen then? I say that it would reduce my ability to lock down safely, because with a 67 ft boat I know with absolute certainty that I need to watch my stern like a hawk to avoid the cill, but that if I do so and keep the stern within a foot of the cill then my bow will NOT under any circumstances touch the bottom gate or the arrangement of chains and pulleys that they use for the bottom paddles. I could not apply these standards while holding a bow rope - and my crew could not hold a bow rope while winding a paddle. If they were to refuse to allow me to continue my journey, eventually my short-term licence would expire. How could that impasse ever be resolved? The Trust person with whom I "discussed" this last month, said I had to comply "because he said so". When I challenged this as a valid reason, he said that I had to comply "because it was in the rules". When I challenged this as a valid reason, he said that it was a rule because they get a lot of inexperienced people from the canals who don't know what they are doing. When I pointed out that I am an experienced boater, who knows exactly what he is doing because I have navigated the Avon several times in my boating career which has seen me passing through some 15,000 locks, he said that the Trust had cameras at every lock so I would be receiving a summons through the post. I don't believe him, although I would love to see some pictures of him (1) boarding my boat without permission, (2) taking my bow rope against my explicit instructions (3) attempting with all his strength to pull my boat backwards as I descended despite my being within 6" of the cill at the time and (4) repeatedly banging the bow of my boat with the gate which he was attempting to open once the lock was empty, thus risking damage to both the boat and the Trust's property (ie its gate and the paddle mechanism) whilst screaming at me "get further back" while even his wife also protested to him that I couldn't move back because I was already against the cill. For anyone who wonders, the only way to open the bottom gate on some Avon locks is to open the gate on the opposite side and then to pole the bow across. I would love to visit the Avon again but if the ANT have the means of forcing me to use bow and stern ropes, and thus risking the safety of my boat, then I'm afraid I will have to give it a miss in future.