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New boats launched Vs new moorings created?


MtB

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I often try to estimate the rate at which the canals are filling up Vs the rate at which new moorings are being created.

 

I reckon there are perhaps thee or four new narrow boats being launched onto CRT waters every week, and maybe ten wide beams, but this is total guesswork. Does anyone have any stats?

 

On the moorings side of things, people (including me) worry the canals are just being filled up indiscriminately with more and more boats. But if new off line moorings are being created to accommodate them, then maybe it doesn't matter that much. How many new moorings are being brought on line each year? Harder to estimate.

 

And old narrow boats are so rarely scrapped I don't think they need to be accounted for.

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

And old narrow boats are so rarely scrapped I don't think they need to be accounted for.

Just from reading this forum I get the impression that a lot of people are now less keen to buy a boat that has been over plated or might need over plating and people who want to buy boat but realising that the only boats they can afford will need over plating and is therefore not the bargain they initially though, so are we coming to a time where we might actually start to see narrowboats being scraped?

 

And with the growing demands of people looking for floating homes rather than caring about boats some boats might get less care and go down hill at an earlier age. 

 

 

Edited by Tumshie
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Three or four boats a week sounds like a lot, that would be around 175 a year. Braidbar manage an average of 6.5 and I guess most small builders don’t do as many as that. How many builders are there and how many do the volume producers like Collingwood turn out?

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20 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I often try to estimate the rate at which the canals are filling up Vs the rate at which new moorings are being created.

 

I reckon there are perhaps thee or four new narrow boats being launched onto CRT waters every week, and maybe ten wide beams, but this is total guesswork. Does anyone have any stats?

 

On the moorings side of things, people (including me) worry the canals are just being filled up indiscriminately with more and more boats. But if new off line moorings are being created to accommodate them, then maybe it doesn't matter that much. How many new moorings are being brought on line each year? Harder to estimate.

 

And old narrow boats are so rarely scrapped I don't think they need to be accounted for.

 

 

Quite a few years ago, NABO was getting concerned about this subject because the net boat licences in each year was going up, and so we asked BW a number of times if they had an upper limit of boats which would indicate when the waterways would be approaching maximum capacity. Needless to say we never got a straight answer from them, but somewhere hidden away there must be a "Canals Full" number and it would certainly be interesting to know if CRT would publish it.

 

Howard

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3 minutes ago, BruceinSanity said:

Three or four boats a week sounds like a lot, that would be around 175 a year. Braidbar manage an average of 6.5 and I guess most small builders don’t do as many as that. How many builders are there and how many do the volume producers like Collingwood turn out?

 

ISTR Matty saying Collingwood only build widebeams now and launch two a week. They are prolly the biggest builder of canal boats although I bet Aqualine are snapping at their heels. 

 

I'd guess Colecraft launch one every couple weeks and same for Jonathan Wilson. Plus probably twenty tiny builders who launch three of four a year. 

 

That adds up to about 300 new boats launched a year, most of them wide beams.

 

 

 

 

 

6 minutes ago, howardang said:

Quite a few years ago, NABO was getting concerned about this subject because the net boat licences in each year was going up, and so we asked BW a number of times if they had an upper limit of boats which would indicate when the waterways would be approaching maximum capacity. Needless to say we never got a straight answer from them

 

 

That would be because they have no powers to limit the number of licences. Dunno why they didn't just tell you this. 

 

Hubris probably.

 

And this is the reason for my concern. There is no cap on how many boats the public can put in the canal system. Eventually it will get overcrowded and only then with there be any political will to do anything about it, by which time the problem will take 50 years to fix.

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You're right in suggesting that canal boats are not often scrapped (though I have seen it happen); but what you may have missed out of your reasoning is the number of new off-line moorings: in recent years marinas have been opening at a rate of knots, and they tend to be big ones (Bosworth, Cropredy and Dunchurch spring to mind). Given that, as is often stated in these pages, many boats which take marina moorings don't often venture out on to the system, perhaps there are more boats than hitherto but not so many of them get in the way - whoops, I mean cruise frequently. So it's carriage sidings rather than the main lines which are filling up.

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8 minutes ago, Athy said:

what you may have missed out of your reasoning is the number of new off-line moorings:

 

Not really. Read my post again!

 

45 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

But if new off line moorings are being created to accommodate them, then maybe it doesn't matter that much.

 

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7 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Not really. Read my post again!

 

 

I did read it; but your opening suggestion that the canals were "filling up" made me think that you considered the number of new offline moorings to be insufficient. I have no statistics to hand, but it would take a heck of a lot of narrowboats to fill all the recently-opened marinas. Some of these would of course be existing craft, but a good proportion would surely be newly built - if only because if you've just bought something new, expensive and immaculate, you tend to put it somewhere safe rather than just parking it by a towpath.

 

Oh, and Collingwood's web site shows that, while they do build widebeams (largely for the European market, it appears), they also offer narrowboats from 30' to 70' in length.

Edited by Athy
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23 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

..........

That would be because they have no powers to limit the number of licences. Dunno why they didn't just tell you this. 

..........

.

We knew that, of course, but it was an attempt to get BW to acknowledge that there must be a finite limit beyond which the situation would become ridiculous. I have to say that even in private discussions they would't acknowledge that there could ever be an issue, which of course is patently false. This was at a time when building new marinas was the flavour of the month.

 

Howard

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If the online moorings I've been on over the past few decades are any guide, maybe one boat in ten actually ever leaves its mooring, and most only for a couple of weeks in a year.  A bit like my neighbour who bought herself a caravan because she'd always wanted one, doesn't drive a big enough car to tow it so had to wait for her kids to do it for her, only got one weekend on it in three years (the kids used it twice) and, thank god, has finally got rid of it.  I think most boats are like that - someone always wanted one, can afford the money to keep it, but can't afford the time and effort to actually use it.

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1 minute ago, howardang said:

We knew that, of course, but it was an attempt to get BW to acknowledge that there must be a finite limit beyond which the situation would become ridiculous. 

 

Howard

The people responsible for running our roads (Highways Agency?) seen slow to make a similar acknowledgement.

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18 minutes ago, Athy said:

I did read it; but your opening suggestion that the canals were "filling up" made me think that you considered the number of new offline moorings to be insufficient. I have no statistics to hand, but it would take a heck of a lot of narrowboats to fill all the recently-opened marinas.

 

Well same here, which was the whole point of my thread. To ask for statistics!

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4 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Well same here, which was the whole point of my thread. To ask for statistics!

Would anyone have them? I thought first of CART, but then realised that many new boats go in EA or other waters.

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Just now, Athy said:

Would anyone have them? I thought first of CART, but then realised that many new boats go in EA or other waters.

 

You really haven't read and inwardly digested my OP at all have you? I was asking if anyone had them

 

And it asks about canals and CRT waters specifically, not EA and other waters.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You really haven't read and inwardly digested my OP at all have you? I was asking if anyone had them

 

And it asks about canals and CRT waters specifically, not EA and other waters.

 

 

Indeed I have, and I wonder too.

Boats launched on to CART waters may go to moorings elsewhere, hence CART would not necessarily have records of them all.

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36 minutes ago, Athy said:

The people responsible for running our roads (Highways Agency?) seen slow to make a similar acknowledgement.

But they widen the roads (add extra lanes) and build new roads and by-passes to accommodate growing vehicle numbers.

C&RT don't seem to do much in the way of either.

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26 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

But they widen the roads (add extra lanes) and build new roads and by-passes to accommodate growing vehicle numbers.

C&RT don't seem to do much in the way of either.

They don't, no - though new marinas which can swallow up 300 or so boats each do help to accommodate growing boat numbers, the majority are built by private companies as far as I'm aware.

Edited by Athy
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17 minutes ago, Athy said:

May we have that in English, please?

She is suggesting that you are not the sort of chap who would skim read a question and would always offer a reasoned answer.

 

 

Obviously has some insider knowledge we have missed :)

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17 minutes ago, Athy said:

They don't, no - though new marinas which can swallow up 300 or so boats each do help to accommodate growing boat numbers, the majority are built be private companies as far as I'm aware.

?SPELLING?

 

:giggles: 

Edited by Tumshie
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I'm not criticising the altruistic long term nature of anyone's concern or interest in this issue.

Waterways, just like any budget driven organisation are only going to concentrate on one issue.

 

Survival between beginning and ending of every financial year.

This will lead them to prioritise maximum income over minimum expenditure during that 12 month period.

Short sighted I know but in business you are only as good as the last financial report.

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15 minutes ago, Athy said:

They don't, no - though new marinas which can swallow up 300 or so boats each do help to accommodate growing boat numbers, the majority are built by private companies as far as I'm aware.

As are car-parks, housing developments (with car parking space) etc.

 

BUT the Roads authority build more roads to accommodate the increases in numbers - C&RT do not.

Edited by Athy
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1 minute ago, zenataomm said:

This will lead them to prioritise maximum income over minimum expenditure during that 12 month period.

Short sighted I know but in business you are only as good as the last financial report.

But in order for C&RT to achieve their income - the largest income provider has tasked them with meeting certain KPI's - such things as a reduction in days lost by closures.

C&RT very adroitly manage to achieve this KPI by changing the measurement methods so it now looks at 'towpath' closures, and closures by events out side of C&RTs control, and now only closures outside their control and resulting in instances involving over 48 hours stoppages.

 

The main KPI's affecting the waterways :

 

Principal assets grade C or better (requirement to be above 77% threshold)

Towpath condition graded C or better (requirement to be above 60% threshold)

Number of individual visitors to our waterways in typical two-week period (over last 12 months)
Public safety – number of reported incidents
Combined employee, volunteer and contractor RIDDOR accident frequency rating (accidents per 100,000 hours)
Customer satisfaction rating of visitors and towpath users
% of prompted people (living in close proximity of a waterway) that are aware of/recognise the value of their local waterway
Propensity to support the waterways
Customer satisfaction rating of boaters
№ of days of unplanned closures to navigation within our control (individual instances over 48 hours)

 

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6 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

I'm not criticising the altruistic long term nature of anyone's concern or interest in this issue.

Waterways, just like any budget driven organisation are only going to concentrate on one issue.

 

Survival between beginning and ending of every financial year.

This will lead them to prioritise maximum income over minimum expenditure during that 12 month period.

Short sighted I know but in business you are only as good as the last financial report.

 

Totally agree. And there is no answer to this problem. I was wondering about just how quickly the situation is deteriorating. It suits CRT suits just fine to have ever more boats (and therefore income) plopped into the cut. 

 

The one thing that surprised me is how they did not rush headlong into charging by deck area as opposed to length long ago. Even now they are only pussy-footing about with it.  Currently and for the forseeable it is cheaper to live in a short wide boat than in a long thin one with the same space. This seems wrong to me. Should be the other way around given two narrow boats fit side by side in a lock so use less resource. 

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