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Checkers missing boats on home mooring


Tony Brooks

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I wonder if I will get an interesting email from CRT too, as my boat hasn't been on its home mooring for over 2 years; we own the land and we have (legally) let it out while we have been away, so of course our tenants have registered it as their own home mooring. While we have been away we have occasionally left the boat in a marina for a few weeks at a time, or even 3 months over winter, but could see no reason to change our records with CRT especially as our own mooring would still be "available" to us by simply asking our tenants to leave (not that we intend to do so, the arrangement suits us all).

 

I wonder if CRT have been having a general purge, looking through their records for anomalies, as I did get an email from them last week saying they've just realised that they hadn't reviewed the monthly fees of my Licence to Moor for several years and that with just one month's notice they will be more than doubled!

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1 hour ago, reg said:

Had similar with a transit van, received an aggressive letter demanding over £2700 for non payment of London charges. Turned out that someone was using false plates to avoid the central London charges. 

I’m registered for the DART charge for the odd occasions where I want to transit that side of London. On two occasions I’ve had to phone them to say “Nope, it wasn’t me” for two supposed crossings. Quickly sorted, but if I hadn’t noticed I’d have been paying for someone else. 

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10 minutes ago, Keeping Up said:

I wonder if I will get an interesting email from CRT too, as my boat hasn't been on its home mooring for over 2 years

It looked very safely tucked away last time I saw it

 

Richard

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Everyone makes mistakes, even CRT apparently(!), and this level of checking is only occurring because so many "boaters" are trying to beat the system.  Its sad but, as ever, the actions of a few almost inevitably impact many of those who do fully comply and wouldn't dream if not doing so.

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I had heard they were investigating bogus home moorings that were not 'available'...and quite rightly. But as has been said, as there is no requirement to use the home mooring provided it is available, this seems a bit odd and a waste of CRT time?

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I had this e-mail yesterday, from Patricia Fox at CaRT.

 

The boat has not been at my home mooring since October, it has been elsewhere having work done.

 

I replied (rather tersely) explaining this and received a reply saying, in terms, "ok, sorry to have bothered you".

 

It wasn't a big deal - the wind was more annoying.

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4 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I can't believe the checkers walk round every marina every few weeks noting who's moored up. Linear moorings I can understand, but the hundreds in offline? 

At some they do (a former mooring of ours they did).
At other dedicated mooring sites they don't seem to (where we are now).

It is all completely bonkers, frankly.

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2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Update.

 

According to CaRT the problem was that they had the boat recorded at mooing L5 at Calcutt where as it has been on L6 ever since we have been there apart from a very few moths when we first went there. Then it was online between the locks. I have never told CaRT anything other than the mooring is at Calcutt Marina so it still looks like deficiencies in their systems. It is even more concerning when you realise most marinas have a clause in their contract that obliges you to move moorings  upon request so a boater can never know what mooring they will definitely be on the next day, week, month or year.

 

The checker must have seen it on its moorings at some time in the last 10 plus years so why was the location error not picked up at that time?

No there is not appart from CaRT's location checking processes not being fit for purpose.

 

This affair and two previous incorrect locations adds to my decision to leave boating within the next year or so. I can do without the constant fear of legal action from CaRT hanging over my head.

I think its quite a new thing that CRT are working closer with marinas to ensure that people who claim to have a mooring actually have one

2 hours ago, dor said:

I once knew two brothers that both had very similar ex-US Army jeeps.  They "shared" the same number plate and as one lived in Kent and the other in South Wales it didn't cause them any problems (this was pre-ANPR).

They also had the same identity number painted on the wing:  I82QB4IP  (read it out loud...)

I know a chap who had two Ford Consuls like that but at the same address, he only ever drove one at a time though 

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43 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:


At other dedicated mooring sites they don't seem to (where we are now).

It is all completely bonkers, frankly.

They come round once every two months round here Alan, its not the usual boat checkers, its 3 guys in a CRT van.

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But what's the point? Surely CRT can just email marinas to get up to date lists of who has paid for what boat to be moored where...irrespective of how often said boat is actually in the marina. All that matters is the berth isn't being let to more than one boat etc and is available. Can't see the need for checkers to actually go into marinas....mad!

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3 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Update.

 

According to CaRT the problem was that they had the boat recorded at mooing L5 at Calcutt where as it has been on L6 ever since we have been there apart from a very few moths when we first went there. Then it was online between the locks. I have never told CaRT anything other than the mooring is at Calcutt Marina so it still looks like deficiencies in their systems. It is even more concerning when you realise most marinas have a clause in their contract that obliges you to move moorings  upon request so a boater can never know what mooring they will definitely be on the next day, week, month or year.

 

The checker must have seen it on its moorings at some time in the last 10 plus years so why was the location error not picked up at that time?

No there is not appart from CaRT's location checking processes not being fit for purpose.

 

This affair and two previous incorrect locations adds to my decision to leave boating within the next year or so. I can do without the constant fear of legal action from CaRT hanging over my head.

Tony, youve done nowt wrong/do nowt wrong. It would be a non starter and no action would be taken against you. Dont stop boating its like being dead.

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

Everyone makes mistakes, even CRT apparently(!), and this level of checking is only occurring because so many "boaters" are trying to beat the system.  Its sad but, as ever, the actions of a few almost inevitably impact many of those who do fully comply and wouldn't dream if not doing so.

Yep. Brought on by the pee takers in life.

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48 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

But what's the point? Surely CRT can just email marinas to get up to date lists of who has paid for what boat to be moored where...irrespective of how often said boat is actually in the marina. All that matters is the berth isn't being let to more than one boat etc and is available. Can't see the need for checkers to actually go into marinas....mad!

That assumes that all marinas are honest. I know of one that used to have about 3 times as many nominated boats as they had berths, for a small fee they would add anybody's name to the list and then happily confirm it to BW (as it was then).

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4 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Update.

 

According to CaRT the problem was that they had the boat recorded at mooing L5 at Calcutt where as it has been on L6 ever since we have been there apart from a very few moths when we first went there. Then it was online between the locks. I have never told CaRT anything other than the mooring is at Calcutt Marina so it still looks like deficiencies in their systems. It is even more concerning when you realise most marinas have a clause in their contract that obliges you to move moorings  upon request so a boater can never know what mooring they will definitely be on the next day, week, month or year.

 

The checker must have seen it on its moorings at some time in the last 10 plus years so why was the location error not picked up at that time?

No there is not appart from CaRT's location checking processes not being fit for purpose.

 

This affair and two previous incorrect locations adds to my decision to leave boating within the next year or so. I can do without the constant fear of legal action from CaRT hanging over my head.

I think its quite a new thing that CRT are working closer with marinas to ensure that people who claim to have a mooring actually have one

Just now, ditchcrawler said:

I think its quite a new thing that CRT are working closer with marinas to ensure that people who claim to have a mooring actually have one

This is what I was thinking of https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/original/34749-canal-and-river-trust-rolls-out-mooring-validation-scheme.pdf?v=35131e

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3 hours ago, Dave123 said:

I had heard they were investigating bogus home moorings that were not 'available'...and quite rightly. But as has been said, as there is no requirement to use the home mooring provided it is available, this seems a bit odd and a waste of CRT time?

But it has to be available on demand and it would not be OK for a marina to have more boats registered as having their home mooring at that plae than there are moorings.

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1 hour ago, Dave123 said:

But what's the point? Surely CRT can just email marinas to get up to date lists of who has paid for what boat to be moored where...irrespective of how often said boat is actually in the marina. All that matters is the berth isn't being let to more than one boat etc and is available. Can't see the need for checkers to actually go into marinas....mad!

No doubt CaRT have found that some mooring owners have not played it straight and allowed more boats than they should have - especially now that the proper marinas will be paying NAA based on the number of moorings. At least one marina, allegedly, reduced its official moorings count in order to reduce its NAA payments.

 

If CaRT follow what most other regulatory bodies are doing which is to use a risk-based approach to decide who to inspect most frequently. OTOH, going to a marina and checking all the boats there is a quick way to up the checked-boats-count.

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21 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I can't believe the checkers walk round every marina every few weeks noting who's moored up. Linear moorings I can understand, but the hundreds in offline? 

Ours is also in Calcutt marina, and they certainly do go round and walk down each pontoon and check the index number on every boat and log it.  I have been there I think 3 times when they have been doing this. Given I am not often at the boat in the marina, if we are using the boat we go out of the marina, they presumably do come round regularly or I have been very lucky to spot them 3 times.

 

What I don’t understand though is that I thought there was no requirement to actually use your home mooring, so why is not being logged there an issue.  It suggests to be that the boat is not on the list of index numbers that the marina presumably reports to CRT, so if it were me I would also be speaking to Calcutt.

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19 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

They do - they have posted a list of inspection dates in our marina (its surprising how many boats go out for that day - one wonders why)

Are these boats without licences?

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23 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

Just had an email from CaRT saying my boat ha snot be sited on its home mooring and if I did not put it right within 28 days they would be altering its registration to "no home mooring".

A couple of months ago I had an email stating 'It looks like your boat may have been moored in the same general area for more than 14 days'. My boat hasn't moved from its offside home mooring for three years (refitting).

 

I ignored it. Their system is intrusive and useless.

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1 hour ago, rupertbear said:

A couple of months ago I had an email stating 'It looks like your boat may have been moored in the same general area for more than 14 days'. My boat hasn't moved from its offside home mooring for three years (refitting).

 

I ignored it. Their system is intrusive and useless.

Remember its only human input, the chap on the towpath in the rain looking at a numbers that some people try to cover only has to put a digit in wrong and they you get a spurious report. How often do you hit a wrong key while typing sitting on a chair in the warm.

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17 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

But it has to be available on demand and it would not be OK for a marina to have more boats registered as having their home mooring at that plae than there are moorings.

Agreed...but this still doesn't require logging what boats are in the marina when. You'd think all CRT need to do to get round dodgy marina operators is measure/count the available mooring space/berths against the number/length of boats claiming it as their home mooring? It shouldn't matter whether said boats are there or not at any given time?

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