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Continuous Cruising In London With Full Time Job. Can it be done?


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3 hours ago, nicknorman said:

What your mostly reasonable post fails to address is the real reason why people like me resent people like you, even though I’m  sure you are a nice person etc.

 

We are leisure boaters, although we live on the boat for several months a year. We like to use the system as a means of transport, which after all is what it was designed for. (It was not designed as provision of accommodation). We like travel around to new and interesting places. When arriving at these places we obviously need to moor for the night and we can always do this because boats on the system tend not to be too concentrated in any one area. The key point being that the available space is shared equitably by anyone wanting to use it. It is after all public space.

 

But this breaks down in London where we would really struggle to arrive of a late afternoon and find somewhere to moor. This being because a small proportion of boat owners have decided to effectively annex a large area in and around London for their exclusive use. They do not spread themselves around a large area of the system as we do. They never leave and thus visitors are excluded, something which doesn’t happen anywhere else in the country.

 

So I resent the fact that people such as yourself have taken possession of a public space and thereby exclude other people from having a fair share of using it. Not helped by a feeling that in the main, people are only doing this in order to have cheap accommodation near the city, as opposed to any love for boating. Boating being, by my definition, cruising in a boat, not just living statically in a floating house.

The answer to this is quite simple, bring in more 24 hour visitor moorings around London.  Along the Regent's pretty much all the designated visitor moorings are 14 days, which is utterly pointless since that the default maximum stay on any towpath mooring.  There's a 24 hour mooring in Limehouse and a 4 hour(????) mooring in Camden.  Apart from that everything is 14 days.

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11 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

The answer to this is quite simple, bring in more 24 hour visitor moorings around London.  Along the Regent's pretty much all the designated visitor moorings are 14 days, which is utterly pointless since that the default maximum stay on any towpath mooring.  There's a 24 hour mooring in Limehouse and a 4 hour(????) mooring in Camden.  Apart from that everything is 14 days.

 

To slightly amend the Sherlock Holmes saying :

 

"How often have I said to you that when you have considered & rejected all of the obvious alternatives, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the answer you are looking for"

 

Such a simple suggestion, problem solved at a 'stroke' and at no-cost.

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31 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

The answer to this is quite simple, bring in more 24 hour visitor moorings around London.  Along the Regent's pretty much all the designated visitor moorings are 14 days, which is utterly pointless since that the default maximum stay on any towpath mooring.  There's a 24 hour mooring in Limehouse and a 4 hour(????) mooring in Camden.  Apart from that everything is 14 days.

They are doing this, plus the new bookable moorings in Paddington. And actually there have been 7 day moorings at Camden, Paddington basin and Islington tunnel/angel for ages. And like I said...it's only a short central bit that is really crowded. If you don't want to be in Kings cross you will be ok!

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2 hours ago, Corkkeys said:

There is no point trying to change the mind of these people. You have made your mind up. We all live on stationary pontoons whiling away the hours eating avocados when we should be spending that money on copies of the Daily mail and Brasso so I will carry on living a life contributing to society and caring for the people around me.

 

Well done in keeping a sense of humour!  I reckond London is busy and recognise the problems raised on here, I just choose not to blame other boaters for the situation.  If I'm looking to apportion blame then it's towards those who have been instrumental in creating our broken society, with breathtaking inequality and and completely broken housing market.

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53 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

so the failure to manage money is hidden behind statistics about wages and house prices?

 

what a sheltered life you must have - never learned to economise on one thing so you can afford something else.

 

 

 

like MtB, when I was a lad my dad couldn't afford to buy a house, so we lived in a caravan on a building site for 7 years while he slaved away at work to afford the materials and when he was at home he spent every waking hour mixing concrete, laying bricks and doing most of the other building tasks.

To clarify...I am fortunate I get paid well enough that I do own a house/mortgage so I'm not talking about myself.

It doesn't matter how much you save if you don't get paid enough and houses are too expensive. It isn't hard to understand.

And this example isn't relevant as we can't all build our own house.

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19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

To slightly amend the Sherlock Holmes saying :

 

"How often have I said to you that when you have considered & rejected all of the obvious alternatives, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the answer you are looking for"

 

Such a simple suggestion, problem solved at a 'stroke' and at no-cost.

Ok then, here's another.

 

Look at this picture.

 

How much empty waterspace can you see with virtually no boats?  How many boats could be moored there?  Hundreds?  Thousands?

London1.PNG

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1 minute ago, Dave123 said:

 

And this example isn't relevant as we can't all build our own house.

 

Umm actually, I disagree. Nothing is stopping anyone learning the skills and building their own house. The skills are easily learned and there are many collaborative self-build schemes out there where you contribute what you can do and others do for you what you can't. 

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Ok then, here's another.

 

Look at this picture.

 

How much empty waterspace can you see with virtually no boats?  How many boats could be moored there?  Hundreds?  Thousands?

London1.PNG

I used to live near the docklands and always thought it a shame they don't allow boats to use more of them. Even if it was only expensive shiny boats! Most are empty and sterile.

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6 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

They are doing this, plus the new bookable moorings in Paddington. And actually there have been 7 day moorings at Camden, Paddington basin and Islington tunnel/angel for ages. And like I said...it's only a short central bit that is really crowded. If you don't want to be in Kings cross you will be ok!

14 days / 7 days amount to much the same thing.  The lack of moorings for cruising boats / holiday boats passing through is the issue.  24/48hour moorings are what they need.

The bookable moorings are all very well, but the justification for charging is pretty poor and worries me that other popular spots will go the same way, with no equivalent drop in licence fee.  Also, have you actually tried to book a mooring at Rembrant Gardens?  Have you seen how far ahead they get booked up?  I would expect they're pretty much fully booked until 2020 now.

 

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Just now, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Umm actually, I disagree. Nothing is stopping anyone learning the skills and building their own house. The skills are easily learned and there are many collaborative self-build schemes out there where you contribute what you can do and others do for you what you can't. 

 

 

 

I didn't fancy it, so I employed a construction firm to do ours - made a better job that I would have.

 

 

2-3-06a.JPG

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3 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Umm actually, I disagree. Nothing is stopping anyone learning the skills and building their own house. The skills are easily learned and there are many collaborative self-build schemes out there where you contribute what you can do and others do for you what you can't. 

 

 

 

what if I have nothing of use at all to contribute except making decent tea and giving encouraging smiles?

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2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Umm actually, I disagree. Nothing is stopping anyone learning the skills and building their own house. The skills are easily learned and there are many collaborative self-build schemes out there where you contribute what you can do and others do for you what you can't. 

 

 

 

True actually...was something like this on TV about a cooperative in Somerset I think, where people learnt traditionall wattle/daub building skills as therapy I think? I would love to have the time to learn this kind of thing. But instead I qualified/studied different skills to earn enough to buy a house someone else had built

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I didn't fancy it, so I employed a construction firm to do ours - made a better job that I would have.

 

 

2-3-06a.JPG

 

All those poles look a right mess. And they haven't even fitted any windows. 

 

Those cowboys have had you over a treat, I reckon!!

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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5 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

I used to live near the docklands and always thought it a shame they don't allow boats to use more of them. Even if it was only expensive shiny boats! Most are empty and sterile.

Look at this!  It's nearly a mile long and has about 6 boats in it.

 

 

London1.PNG

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3 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

14 days / 7 days amount to much the same thing.  The lack of moorings for cruising boats / holiday boats passing through is the issue.  24/48hour moorings are what they need.

The bookable moorings are all very well, but the justification for charging is pretty poor and worries me that other popular spots will go the same way, with no equivalent drop in licence fee.  Also, have you actually tried to book a mooring at Rembrant Gardens?  Have you seen how far ahead they get booked up?  I would expect they're pretty much fully booked until 2020 now.

 

Yeah I am not in favour of too many more bookable moorings out of principle. If you look at the london mooring strategy CRT made recently I think there are going to be more 24h spots. But a transit through central really needn't be as scary as some would like to pretend. You can guarantee space as far up as Kensal. Then it's a short hop to somewhere central for as long as you want (from blogs/internet etc I get the impression many visiting boats would like more than 24 hours in London to sight see etc any way...) and then carry on to Victoria park/Hackney where again space is gauranteed. Simples?

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4 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Yeah I am not in favour of too many more bookable moorings out of principle. If you look at the london mooring strategy CRT made recently I think there are going to be more 24h spots. But a transit through central really needn't be as scary as some would like to pretend. You can guarantee space as far up as Kensal. Then it's a short hop to somewhere central for as long as you want (from blogs/internet etc I get the impression many visiting boats would like more than 24 hours in London to sight see etc any way...) and then carry on to Victoria park/Hackney where again space is gauranteed. Simples?

I certainly wouldn't say space is guaranteed around Victoria Park.  When I've been there recently it's been completely full.  Maybe around the Olympic Park and up on the Lee it's better though.  Certainly things have eased a little since CRT started cracking down a few years back.

 

Also, not sure what you mean by staying in central for as long as you want?  Where?

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The Hertford union side tends to be much quieter...mostly due to all the break ins. It isn't like a single google maps image proves anything...

 

And a space in central obviously depends more on luck. My point is by going in early you are more likely to find somewhere, just like any popular part of the system. But if you are just transiting to the Lee/Stort etc then you can easily get through the short central bit without stopping.

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2 hours ago, nbfiresprite said:

, The 20-30 somethings of today don't known how to save, It's spend spend spend. 

 

 

 

Perhaps you could remove the words "of today" and it would still be true. In my 20s and early 30s I earned a fair salary as a schoolmaster and I thoroughly enjoyed spending most of it. It was only when I got married, and my wife told me that I wanted to buy a house, that I started saving really seriously

 

It's nothing new.

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I understood the disagreement between Aickman and Rolt was over this issue.

Aickman wanted the waterways preserved as a rich mans playground, preserved and prettified.

Rolt wanted them preserved as living waterways, evolving naturally.

As I said previously I don't know the answers, but to just dismiss people living aboard seems grossly unfair.

Rog

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1 hour ago, nbfiresprite said:

They aready are,

I remember 'rafting-up' against the harbour wall at Port St. Mary (Isle of Man).

We were 5-deep and we were on the inside - it was an "interesting" experience during a storm thru the night that burst fenders with banging and crashing about, we broke free and all 5 of us were 'floating about' most of us dressed in nothing but underpants trying to get untied and engines started.

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