Unlicenced Boats

[Flyboy]

After many years of seeing an increasing number of unlicenced boats we decided to do a survey on our trip in September up the Macclesfield, Upper Peak Forest & Caldon canals. These are the findings :-

No. of boats checked not showing a valid licence was 298, running these through Cart's licence checker 90 were unlicenced. A lot were showing licences that were 3 to 5 years out of date.

90 unlicenced boats in 50 miles of canal seems an awful lot to me. 

As CaRT is short of funds they need to get out and about more and catch these licence evaders or all the legitimate licence holders will soon be paying a lot more in the future.

[Athy]

1 minute ago, Flyboy said:

After many years of seeing an increasing number of unlicenced boats we decided to do a survey on our trip in September up the Macclesfield, Upper Peak Forest & Caldon canals. These are the findings :-

No. of boats checked not showing a valid licence was 298, running these through Cart's licence checker 90 were unlicenced. A lot were showing licences that were 3 to 5 years out of date.

90 unlicenced boats in 50 miles of canal seems an awful lot to me. 

As CaRT is short of funds they need to get out and about more and catch these licence evaders or all the legitimate licence holders will soon be paying a lot more in the future.

CART stated some time ago that boats no longer needed to display their licence "discs". Them someone else at CART said oh yes they did. Arse, elbow.....

That's how I remember it anyway.

[matty40s]

After years of hearing about all these unlicensed boats.....on our trip North along the Leicester Line and River Soar, taking in the Market Harborough Arm as well, we just enjoyed our boating,  laughed at lots, said hello to lots, and had a jolly good time.

 

CRT have licence checkers, License Support Officers, Waterways Chaplains...and probably Free Licence Giver-Outer Managers to deal with the 4% nationally that dont have one for whatever reason. 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, Athy said:

CART stated some time ago that boats no longer needed to display their licence "discs". Them someone else at CART said oh yes they did. Arse, elbow.....

That's how I remember it anyway.

 

But he says he checked with the licence checker and it said that 90 were not licenced - nothing to do with not displaying a licence.

 

Where you are correct is "Arse and elbow" C&RT claim something like 97% licence compliance across most of the country and 95% compliance (or 5% evasion) in London but because they have no idea how many boats are unlicensed how can that state evasion / compliance numbers.

 

Almost 2 boats per mile shows the situation is a 'bit' worse than C&RT seem to think.

[Keeping Up]

Someone from CRT once told me that their figures for unlicensed boats don't include boats that don't have a licence because they aren't recorded on the same bit of their computer system. When I asked him how come the answer wasn't zero, he said they did have to include the ones that were reported directly to them.

[Hudds Lad]

imagine all the fun you could have had with that time you wasted pointlessly checking licenses?

 

if we guesstimate at 5mins per boat, to note number, fire up the webpage & check details = 1490 minutes

thats just shy of 25 hours.

 

you wasted an entire day of your trip  

[mrsmelly]

18 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

After many years of seeing an increasing number of unlicenced boats we decided to do a survey on our trip in September up the Macclesfield, Upper Peak Forest & Caldon canals. These are the findings :-

No. of boats checked not showing a valid licence was 298, running these through Cart's licence checker 90 were unlicenced. A lot were showing licences that were 3 to 5 years out of date.

90 unlicenced boats in 50 miles of canal seems an awful lot to me. 

As CaRT is short of funds they need to get out and about more and catch these licence evaders or all the legitimate licence holders will soon be paying a lot more in the future.

Shit happens. There is a boat directly opposite my mooring here that arrived in february long before lock down and its still here, no one has been near it since. CART are fully aware as they check this length almost daily and stuck  the usual enveloped notice on it months ago. Yes it cetainly pees me off as I have paid for a boat licence without fail for over 30 years and never overstayed on a mooring spot but hey ho there may be some story about it I dont know of? Enjoy yer boating ?

[Flyboy]

10 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But he says he checked with the licence checker and it said that 90 were not licenced - nothing to do with not displaying a licence.

 

Where you are correct is "Arse and elbow" C&RT claim something like 97% licence compliance across most of the country and 95% compliance (or 5% evasion) in London but because they have no idea how many boats are unlicensed how can that state evasion / compliance numbers.

 

Almost 2 boats per mile shows the situation is a 'bit' worse than C&RT seem to think.

Yes that's correct, Some boats were displaying out of date licences and some not displaying anything.

[roland elsdon]

As I understand it crt use photo recognition to check licences. ( though I may be wrong)

we have our modern bwb licence registration number on display, but we don’t have a paper licence. This has never bothered the checkers. I always engage with them and reading out our number is normally met with , it’s ok we have already looked.
3 years ago I queried the need to display a paper licence and was told I didn’t need to.

[noone]

Its not just narrow boats and cruisers,these are just the "visible" ones...N.A.B.O. have called for action due to the increase in unlicensed canoes/paddle boards etc.

Source:TowpathTalk page77.

[Midnight]

1 hour ago, Hudds Lad said:

imagine all the fun you could have had with that time you wasted pointlessly checking licenses?

 

if we guesstimate at 5mins per boat, to note number, fire up the webpage & check details = 1490 minutes

thats just shy of 25 hours.

 

you wasted an entire day of your trip  

Gave the forum users some entertainment though 
BTW is your boat licensed - just asking for a friend ??

[Flyboy]

1 hour ago, Hudds Lad said:

imagine all the fun you could have had with that time you wasted pointlessly checking licenses?

 

if we guesstimate at 5mins per boat, to note number, fire up the webpage & check details = 1490 minutes

thats just shy of 25 hours.

 

you wasted an entire day of your trip  

Your way off the beam there. The details were obtained over a 3 week period and only put into CaRT checker on a  wet day, It doesn't take long.  Anyway imagine all the fun I can have with the money saved by a lower licence fee if all the non payers cough up.

[Bobbybass]

I'm in a licence free marina. If I'm going out I buy a three month license and then extend it if I need more. I declare the boat off water when I'm back. 

 

I told CART if I'm out and extend ..I have no way of printing it and they've said that's fine as display isn't essential. They've ' walkers,' don't look for a licence..they just enter your boat number.

 

[tehmarks]

As you've done your survey in my neck of the woods, I'd like to quickly jump in to acknowledge that I'm not showing a valid licence. I do, however, actually have a valid licence. What I don't have is a printer or a postal address!

 

But, of course, if you've used the online checker then you've already worked past this small hiccup of data collection.

 

?

[Guest]

One can scoff and say something along the lines of 'hasn't the OP got anything better to do' but that number of unliscenced boats in a relatively short stretch is quite a conerning, particularly when one considers the lost revenue involved when extrapolated across the system.

 

Its not an excercise I personally would engage in but it has exposed a potentially serious mis match between what CRT believe is the position and what the actual position is regarding boats with no licence and of course potentially with no BS cert. aswell. And if they are lax about those issues what about (third party) insurance?

[mark99]

I know someone who is on that canal as we speak. His licence, just renewed is in Hastings, Sussex ie his home address. Important to validate by other means.

 

 

Edited October 4, 2020 by mark99

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, mark99 said:

I know someone who is on that canal as we speak. His licence, just renewed is in Hastings, Sussex ie his home address. Important to validate by other means.

 

 

He did. He used crt's licence checker and noted 90 unlicensed boats.

[Arthur Marshall]

That does seem rather a lot.  Considering that the Macc, Peak Forest and Caldon aren't exactly a rampaging mass of boats, and assuming the sizeable majority of boats do show licences, you must have gone past a couple of thousand boats in that area in September. I do find that hard to believe, as only three or four boats go past my mooring on the Macc most days I'm down there. And the Caldon is even quieter. I suspect you may have counted a lot of them twice as you went up and back.

 

[Flyboy]

14 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That does seem rather a lot.  Considering that the Macc, Peak Forest and Caldon aren't exactly a rampaging mass of boats, and assuming the sizeable majority of boats do show licences, you must have gone past a couple of thousand boats in that area in September. I do find that hard to believe, as only three or four boats go past my mooring on the Macc most days I'm down there. And the Caldon is even quieter. I suspect you may have counted a lot of them twice as you went up and back.

 

Well as all the boats I logged were moored up so you wouldn't have seen them go past your mooring would you. I didn't count any boat twice as I did one side going & the other side coming back. As for the Caldon, it's quiet because there is a hell of a lot of boats moored up and a lot of them are unlicenced.  I think it's where you take an unlicenced boat so it won't get noticed. I only went up to Leek & not the Froghall arm, so probably would have bagged few more. As you are finding it hard to believe,  I could post all the boat numbers if you want.  Note that 70% of boats checked did have licence, 30% did not.

[Tracy D'arth]

I am passed day after day by boats with no name, no number, no licence.  I have raised this point with BW  and now with C&RT. They maintain that they account for these unlicensed boats but how do they without any identity to the craft?  I strongly believe that there are large numbers of cheating owners, far more than the 4% claimed.

 

There are boats passing in the night, after midnight and before dawn, one has to wonder why, who cruises at that time especially in bad weather, like yesterday when it was lashing down at 4:30 and a boat went past?

Edited October 4, 2020 by Tracy D'arth

[Baldy1976]

1 hour ago, Bobbybass said:

I'm in a licence free marina. If I'm going out I buy a three month license and then extend it if I need more. I declare the boat off water when I'm back. 

 

I told CART if I'm out and extend ..I have no way of printing it and they've said that's fine as display isn't essential. They've ' walkers,' don't look for a licence..they just enter your boat number.

 

You can buy an Explorer licence for £170 that gives you 30 days to use per year on the CRT waters at your own leisure.

Might be cheaper than the 3 month licence you mention......I learned this from a CRT phone conversation earlier this year.

[Arthur Marshall]

6 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

Well as all the boats I logged were moored up so you wouldn't have seen them go past your mooring would you. I didn't count any boat twice as I did one side going & the other side coming back. As for the Caldon, it's quiet because there is a hell of a lot of boats moored up and a lot of them are unlicenced.  I think it's where you take an unlicenced boat so it won't get noticed. I only went up to Leek & not the Froghall arm, so probably would have bagged few more. As you are finding it hard to believe,  I could post all the boat numbers if you want.  Note that 70% of boats checked did have licence, 30% did not.

I accept your figures, I just find it remarkably high. I do wonder about the accuracy of CRT's checker website, though it should be linked to the licensing section. And your numbers wouldn't have included the boats without any number showing, either. 

If yiu recall, were they mostly on offside moorings? I know there was a boatyard on the t&m at Stoke that always seemed to have nothing but apparently abandoned and unlicensed boats, though last time I went by I saw some there with licenses. I always wondered how they got away with it.

[Tracy D'arth]

Heritage?  Not steel?  

 

Falkirk Wheel? Anderton Lift?  Oh, I am so glad that the conservation fairies didn't build these out of poor quality French Oak.

  I was told that this "no veneer " oak furniture is from the wind blown French timber from the severe weather a few years ago, exported to ? China ?  and imported as furniture. I have noticed that the pieces are getting smaller or painted, perhaps they are running out.

7 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I accept your figures, I just find it remarkably high. I do wonder about the accuracy of CRT's checker website, though it should be linked to the licensing section. And your numbers wouldn't have included the boats without any number showing, either. 

If yiu recall, were they mostly on offside moorings? I know there was a boatyard on the t&m at Stoke that always seemed to have nothing but apparently abandoned and unlicensed boats, though last time I went by I saw some there with licenses. I always wondered how they got away with it.

Ah, the shooting gallery?  Would you be brave enough to go in and ask?

Edited October 4, 2020 by Tracy D'arth

[Bobbybass]

8 minutes ago, Baldy1976 said:

You can buy an Explorer licence for £170 that gives you 30 days to use per year on the CRT waters at your own leisure.

Might be cheaper than the 3 month licence you mention......I learned this from a CRT phone conversation earlier this year.

I go out....for 3 months ...or more...

That's over 90 days...

 

My narrowboat is only 42 feet so pretty cheap anyway. I just did 3 months up to Coventry then back to Newbury.

[big d]

Except for boats that don’t require licence, do you think it would be a similar correlation as with cars I.e no tax more often than not means no insurance. While I resent paying when others don’t I would be more concerned with being hit by an uninsured boat. Just musings