Parking on the Gloucester Sharpness

[Captain Pegg]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Yes - they have made their views quite clear in this email (which a boater was pleased to share with the 'community' to help others)

 

 

“When we are looking at boat movements we are looking for characteristics of bona fide navigation, these fall roughly into four categories:


· Range: by range we mean the furthest points a boat has travelled on the network, not merely the total distance travelled. While the BW act does not stipulate what that distance is the Trust has previously said that anyone travelling a range of less than say 20 miles (32km) would struggle to satisfy the Trust that they are engaged in bona fide navigation and that normally we would expect a greater range.


. For the avoidance of doubt, a small number of long journeys over a short period of time, followed or preceded by cruising in a small are of the network would not generally satisfy the Trust that you are engaged in bona fide navigation.


· Overstaying: we look to see how often boats overstay, either the 14 day limit on the main length of the canal, or shorter periods where local signage dictates, for example short stay visitor moorings.


While we are flexible with the occasional overstay from most boaters due to breakdown, illness or other emergencies, we will look at the overall pattern balanced with range and movement pattern in order to form a view.


Overstay reminders are issued when a boat is seen in the same area for more than 14 days. While we are unable to say how far you need to travel each time you move, we would advise that you normally travel further than a few km each time.


This will prevent you from getting reminders and depending on the length of other trips you make and how many times you turn back on yourself, should increase your overall range over the course of your licence.


· Movement: Continuous Cruiser Licences are intended for bona fide (genuine) navigation around the network, rather than for a boat to remain in one mooring spot, place neighbourhood or area.


We would expect boats on these licences to move around the network such that they don’t gravitate back to favoured areas too often i.e. in a way that it’s clear to us that they’re living in a small area of the waterway.


The basic principle of this is that these licences are not intended for living in an area and if it looks like a boat is habitually returning to a particular part of the waterway then this would not generally satisfy the Trust.


Within an acceptable range we’d expect a genuine movement, so for example it would not satisfy the Trust if a boat went on a 60 mile trip during the course of say two weeks, then returned to cruise in an area of say 5 miles the remainder of the time (figures are examples only

Yes, and the schools example is a specific application of compliance with the principles of the above requirements. It doesn’t permit the licence holder to cruise less than the suggested 20 miles, it just gives guidance on how CRT will apply the ‘throughout the period of the licence’ legal requirement to undertake ‘bona fide navigation’ in that case.

 

JP

[The Bearwood Boster]

36 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

One thing to watch out for is returning to the same spot too often. Just reading a chap got an overstay notification from CRT for being in the same spot for 6 weeks. He wasn't. He was clocked on the outward journey and again on the return, but nowhere between, so in CRT's eyes he hadn't moved in all that time. 

That happened to us a few years ago.We were in more or less the same spot on the return journey...but facing in the opposite direction !

[Alan de Enfield]

37 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Yes, and the schools example is a specific application of compliance with the principles of the above requirements. It doesn’t permit the licence holder to cruise less than the suggested 20 miles, it just gives guidance on how CRT will apply the ‘throughout the period of the licence’ legal requirement to undertake ‘bona fide navigation’ in that case.

 

JP

 

That is exactly my point - the OP may have provided C&RT with 'mitigating circumstances' and they have agreed that they won't take enforcement action for failing to comply for 3 months of the year as long as he does 'sufficient' for the rest of the year.

 

It would be helpful if he was prepared to share the information (as per the boater above did with their email) and possibly help other boaters in similar circumstances.

[Lewisdb]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

That is exactly my point - the OP may have provided C&RT with 'mitigating circumstances' and they have agreed that they won't take enforcement action for failing to comply for 3 months of the year as long as he does 'sufficient' for the rest of the year.

 

It would be helpful if he was prepared to share the information (as per the boater above did with their email) and possibly help other boaters in similar circumstances.

There is no need for mitigating circumstances and I would not be failing to comply for 3 months.

[Alan de Enfield]

Just now, Lewisdb said:

There is no need for mitigating circumstances and I would not be failing to comply for 3 months.

In your opinion.

[Lewisdb]

11 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

In your opinion.

It's right there in the regs

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

In your opinion.

Everything posted on here is an opinion, unless its a proven fact.

 

Its usually not necessary to qualify each and every post with 'IMO' because to most people that is exactly what it is.

 

(Though I concede I sometimes do simply because it avoids the need for someone  to point out to me that it is my opinion when I already knew it was anyway).

[ditchcrawler]

47 minutes ago, The Bearwood Boster said:

That happened to us a few years ago.We were in more or less the same spot on the return journey...but facing in the opposite direction !

Same thing

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Lewisdb said:

It's right there in the regs

You do know he is now going to request you quote 'chapter and verse' dont you?

[Lewisdb]

1 minute ago, The Happy Nomad said:

You do know he is now going to request you quote 'chapter and verse' dont you?

I think it's really quite laughable to be honest. It's incredibly easy to plot a journey down the G&S and back stopping at 6 places for no more than 14 nights. 

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, Lewisdb said:

It's right there in the regs

Indeed it is :

 

..the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.

 

Consent = Licence

The Period = 12 months

 

So, you need to use the boat for bona fide navigation for 12 months, NOT 3 months non compliant followed by 9 months when you do use the boat for bona fide navigation.

 

I have quoted C&RTs interpretation a number of times now, and as the legislation says 

 

the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board

 

That is what you need to do.

[ditchcrawler]

5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.

 

 

That is what you need to do.

Are, but what is a "place"

9 minutes ago, Lewisdb said:

I think it's really quite laughable to be honest. It's incredibly easy to plot a journey down the G&S and back stopping at 6 places for no more than 14 nights. 

I am going to have to be very careful how I word this. Not something that comes easy to me.

 

On some canals, some of the boaters make sure they know when the CRT checker is a certain locations and sometimes they don't move until he has been. This is to ensure that they are recorded at different locations to prove they have moved to a new place every 14 days and not stayed at the old one for 32 days.

[Lewisdb]

9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Indeed it is :

 

..the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.

 

Consent = Licence

The Period = 12 months

 

So, you need to use the boat for bona fide navigation for 12 months, NOT 3 months non compliant followed by 9 months when you do use the boat for bona fide navigation.

 

I have quoted C&RTs interpretation a number of times now, and as the legislation says 

 

the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board

 

That is what you need to do.

It would not be 3 months of non compliance. 

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Lewisdb said:

It would not be 3 months of non compliance. 

In your opinion.

 

Here we go again ..................................

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

In your opinion.

 

Here we go again ..................................

So if next summer I decide to go the the G&S and move 4 times to get to the end, turn round and move 3 times to get back to Gloucester before heading back up the Severn you think I would be breaking the rules.

[Lewisdb]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

So if next summer I decide to go the the G&S and move 4 times to get to the end, turn round and move 3 times to get back to Gloucester before heading back up the Severn you think I would be breaking the rules.

That's the crux of it and no (imho obviously ?)

[Richard10002]

2 hours ago, Captain Pegg said:

Stop looking for an argument and read the posts in the thread objectively.

 

You’ve responded completely out of context to the post you’ve quoted, and most definitely picked the wrong person to take issue with as far as this thread goes.

 

 

I don't think he was taking issue with you.... I think he just hung his further explanation onto your post. You supported him, and he clarified and expanded.

 

That's how I saw it, anyway  

[David Mack]

3 hours ago, Lewisdb said:

Just to be clear. If I spend no more than 2 weeks in any "place" and visit 6 or more "places" then I can spend 3 months on the G&S, no problem at all. And if I then spent the rest of the year navigating hundreds of miles on the rest of the network I would easily satisfy the CC regs. And that's my intention.

 

If any of you think that goes against the CC regs then you're barking mad. 

 

Yes, you will almost certainly be OK with that (although CRT are the final arbiters, and I am not sure of the extent to which those at CRT who decide whether you have been compliant are bound by anything CRT may have told you beforehand). But in your original post you referred to a large part of the year on the G&S, which most of us interpreted as being significantly more than 3 months, and that would be very unlikely to 'satisfy the Board'.

 

You should be aware that CRT's boat logging is pretty haphazard. So many of your stops, particularly in out of the way places, may go unlogged, whereas honey pot sites may be checked 2 or 3 times a week, and overstaying by just a day may get you a 'move on' message from CRT. One of the consequences, as noted above, is that two loggings in the same location may be assumed to be a continuous stay, because you have not been logged elsewhere in between. And the logs don't record which direction the boat is pointing.

A good scatter of loggings across the network in the 9 months you are on the move will help establish your bona fides as a CCer.

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Lewisdb said:

It's right there in the regs

 

No. That's the problem. There are no 'regs' (as in Regulations, which specify exactly what is/is not required). There are simply the rather vague words in the 1995 Act, which refer to 'place', which is undefined, 'bona fide for navigation', which is undefined, and '14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances', also undefined.

CRT, and before them BW,  have tried to codify these into more specific requirements, but have been challenged on the legality of doing so more than once, and the guidelines have been rewritten more than once as a result.

CRT have indicated some patterns of use which, in their view, are definitely unacceptable, but it doesn't necessarily follow that anything which exceeds those patterns is de facto acceptable. Hence any boater who decides to only just exceed the published minimum requirements is taking a risk that his pattern of movement may be deemed non-compliant. 

[Lewisdb]

59 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

Yes, you will almost certainly be OK with that (although CRT are the final arbiters, and I am not sure of the extent to which those at CRT who decide whether you have been compliant are bound by anything CRT may have told you beforehand). But in your original post you referred to a large part of the year on the G&S, which most of us interpreted as being significantly more than 3 months, and that would be very unlikely to 'satisfy the Board'.

 

 

I'll concede my original post could have been interpreted that way but I have cleared that up a number of times.

 

My frustration is that having done so some are still suggesting that I'm a piss taker and trying to game the system. Something I have no intention of doing.

 

Thanks for the really useful info in your last two posts. 

[Murflynn]

Earwig oh again.

 

It is utterly laughable that anyone would want/need to analyse their movements with respect to CRT's "minimum requirements" and plan their movements accordingly.

 

where is the concept of CONTINUOUSLY CRUISING ?

 

where is the cruising concept if a boater shuffles up and down a short piece of canal for a few months instead of getting a mooring like rational folk would do?

 

there are many lovely seasoned boaters who move around most or all of the network who really are continuous cruising - the others are just trying to take advantage of some loosely defined regulations that were put in place to stop the piss-takers.

 

perhaps we should coin a new (?) phrase - "water gypsies" ...............................    although, come to think of it, that may be unfair to genuine Romany gypsies.

 

[Athy]

3 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

 

 

perhaps we should coin a new (?) phrase - "water gypsies" ...............................    

 

I think a Mr. Herbert got there first =and from memory (it's some years since I read the book) he wasn't being derogatory.

[TheBiscuits]

12 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

where is the concept of CONTINUOUSLY CRUISING ?

 

 

I don't know.  Do you know where you get it from?

 

The 1995 act defines a boat with no home mooring, but doesn't use the "continuous cruising" phrase anywhere.

 

 

 

[frangar]

19 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

Earwig oh again.

 

It is utterly laughable that anyone would want/need to analyse their movements with respect to CRT's "minimum requirements" and plan their movements accordingly.

 

where is the concept of CONTINUOUSLY CRUISING ?

 

where is the cruising concept if a boater shuffles up and down a short piece of canal for a few months instead of getting a mooring like rational folk would do?

 

there are many lovely seasoned boaters who move around most or all of the network who really are continuous cruising - the others are just trying to take advantage of some loosely defined regulations that were put in place to stop the piss-takers.

 

perhaps we should coin a new (?) phrase - "water gypsies" ...............................    although, come to think of it, that may be unfair to genuine Romany gypsies.

 

Quite. How you can legitimately CC on a stretch of canal you can easily transit in less than a day is beyond me...there might not be a letter of law regarding it but there is certainly a spirt and the piss takers always make it harder for those who try to comply. 

[Murflynn]

5 hours ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

I don't know.  Do you know where you get it from?

 

The 1995 act defines a boat with no home mooring, but doesn't use the "continuous cruising" phrase anywhere.

 

 

 

convention.