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Boating acronyms


RichM

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7 minutes ago, SandyD said:

Not sure whether this is the best place to ask,  I think a CCer is a continuous cruser, but what is a CMer?

 

"Continuous Moorer"

 

Someone who lies on their licence application form and claims they are a 'continuous cruiser' but have no intention in complying with the rules - find a nice mooring (free of charge) and sit there laughing as C&RT take months to start enforcement action, and then the day before their boat is due to be siezed, they move 500 yards up the canal to a new-location and it all starts again.

 

You don't have to be an NBTA ** member to be a Cmer but it is the norm that NBTA** members are Cmers.

 

** NBTA = No Boats Travel Anywhere

 

Or

 

An adjective to describe  many posters of this forum :

 

"Continuous Moaners"

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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35 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

"Continuous Moorer"

 

Someone who lies on their licence application form and claims they are a 'continuous cruiser' but have no intention in complying with the rules

Can also be applied to one who complies with the letter, but not the spirit, of the 'continuous cruiser' option.

 

Under the 1995 Act a boat without a home mooring should 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."

 

The drafters of that clause envisaged boats that would cruise extensively, stopping only for a few days in each place they visited. But (legal) CMers adopt the opposite approach - staying 14 days in every 'place' they visit, and then moving only the minimum distance to the next 'place', and with all of the 'places' they visit over the course of the licence period being in fairly close proximity.

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Can also be wrongly applied to one who complies with the letter, but not the spirit, of the 'continuous cruiser' option.

 

Under the 1995 Act a boat without a home mooring should 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."

 

The drafters of that clause envisaged boats that would cruise extensively, stopping only for a few days in each place they visited. But (legal) CMers adopt the opposite approach - staying 14 days in every 'place' they visit, and then moving only the minimum distance to the next 'place', and with all of the 'places' they visit over the course of the licence period being in fairly close proximity.

FIFY

 

(Fixed it for you)

 

There's no such thing as "the spirit" of the continuous cruiser option.  There are just different opinions and different ways of cruising/living.  The only thing which actually matters is whether or not a boater is complying with the law, and the arbiters of that are CRT and the courts.  Not you.

 

It's so destructive to have boaters turning on other law abiding boaters and making conflict when a bit of unity would see better outcomes for everyone.

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2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

"Continuous Moorer"

 

Someone who lies on their licence application form and claims they are a 'continuous cruiser' but have no intention in complying with the rules - find a nice mooring (free of charge) and sit there laughing as C&RT take months to start enforcement action, and then the day before their boat is due to be siezed, they move 500 yards up the canal to a new-location and it all starts again.


...or one who high jacks a lovely private mooring in a most picturesque spot and then claims the water levels have dropped sufficiently that the boat cannot be moved.

 

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2 minutes ago, Goliath said:


...or one who high jacks a lovely private mooring in a most picturesque spot and then claims the water levels have dropped sufficiently that the boat cannot be moved.

 

 

And when a passing boater tries offers a tow (pull-off) they close the curtains and lock the doors and pretend the boat is unoccupied.

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14 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

FIFY

 

(Fixed it for you)

 

There's no such thing as "the spirit" of the continuous cruiser option.  There are just different opinions and different ways of cruising/living.  The only thing which actually matters is whether or not a boater is complying with the law, and the arbiters of that are CRT and the courts.  Not you.

 

It's so destructive to have boaters turning on other law abiding boaters and making conflict when a bit of unity would see better outcomes for everyone.

 

I agree that if CART deem that CCers (or CMers, or whatever) are following the rules to the satisfaction of the Board then that's fine, and other law-abiding boaters shouldn't turn on them just because they choose to live/cruise differently to them.

 

However boating unity with the CM "scoff-laws" that Alan referred to -- NBTA members or not -- is *not* going to lead to "better outcomes for everyone", because the likely result is CRT cracking down on enforcement or even changing the rules in ways that are likely to have a negative effect on all the boaters who *do* follow the rules -- or at least mostly do, rather than deliberately flouting them.

 

The perceived problem with the NBTA is that they seem to always back the CM "scoff-laws" when it comes to disputes with CART such as moving boaters on -- they may well do other good work for all boaters (as posters on here have claimed), but most times they appear in the news/press/online it's defending CMers, to the annoyance of boaters who do follow the rules even if it's inconvenient, because they see the CMers as "taking the p*ss". For these boaters, unity with the CMers and NBTA is never going to happen.

7 minutes ago, Goliath said:


...or one who high jacks a lovely private mooring in a most picturesque spot and then claims the water levels have dropped sufficiently that the boat cannot be moved.

 

Which makes zero sense, since why would he then come onto the forum and ask for help to get his boat off when he could probably have just sat there for months before anyone even noticed?

 

Your repeated sh*t-stirring on this does you no credit... 😞

7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

And when a passing boater tries offers a tow (pull-off) they close the curtains and lock the doors and pretend the boat is unoccupied.

...and neither does yours.

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14 minutes ago, IanD said:

Your repeated sh*t-stirring on this does you no credit... 😞

You really have no sense of humour at all.

Perhaps take your head from where the sun don’t shine and relax.

 

And by the way your mate is a continuous moorer, 

Thankfully this time he’s not blocking any facilities. 

 

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14 minutes ago, Goliath said:

You really have no sense of humour at all.

Perhaps take your head from where the sun don’t shine and relax.

 

And by the way your mate is a continuous moorer, 

Thankfully this time he’s not blocking any facilities. 

 

I do have a sense of humour, but unlike you I just don't think that what you posted was in any way funny. I'm not the only one, the "sh*t-stirrer" label wasn't originally mine, it was applied to you by somebody else along with some other adjectives... 😉

 

He's not my mate, I've never met him, but I have had some PMs with him so it's just possible I know rather more than you do about his current situation, including why he's there in the first place and why he's not on the boat -- but he didn't want to discuss this in public, so I'm not going to either.

 

Whether he's a CMer or not doesn't seem relevant to how he got stuck where he did, he posted on CWDF to try and see if another boat could help him get off after getting stuck. He did tell me he now wished he'd never bothered -- partly thanks to the comments from people like you and Alan -- which is why he deleted his posts and isn't answering any more.

 

And now, neither am I, at least not to you. Toodle-pip... 🙂

Edited by IanD
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11 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Well - your 'not going to respond' didn't last long did it. You just cannot resist it.

 

Go on, you want the last word so over to you ..............

I wrote that I wasn't going to respond to Goliath, but as so often you seem to be unable to comprehend written English -- as well as seemingly being unable to find the most common meaning of an acronym, in spite of the wonders of Google.

 

I'm happy to extend the same privilege to you though... 😉

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27 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Well - your 'not going to respond' didn't last long did it. You just cannot resist it.

 

Go on, you want the last word so over to you ..............

Yes, it’s me he’s not going to respond to.

I didn’t realise he was so touchy. 
 

..maybe I get the last word.

 

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3 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

FIFY

 

(Fixed it for you)

 

There's no such thing as "the spirit" of the continuous cruiser option.  There are just different opinions and different ways of cruising/living.  The only thing which actually matters is whether or not a boater is complying with the law, and the arbiters of that are CRT and the courts.  Not you.

 

It's so destructive to have boaters turning on other law abiding boaters and making conflict when a bit of unity would see better outcomes for everyone.

 

I disagree. The intention behind the continuous crusing provisions of the 1995 Act was to accommodate those few boaters who had no need of a home mooring because they were cruising most of the time, and the 14 day longstop on staying in one place was there specifically to prevent those without a home mooring abusing that status and hanging around in one spot for long periods. But as is often the case in dealing with objections to a proposed change in the rules, the relevant wording was added to the Parliamentary Bill rather hastily at the last minute, and the consequences of the way it was worded were not appreciated at the time. Hence there is no definition of 'place' or how far apart two locations have to be to be considered different 'places', nor is there any restriction on how soon you can return to a 'place' where you have moored previously, nor is a distinction made between having stops of varying length, of which only one a small proportion are 14 days, or having every stop of the full 14 day duration. Over the years BW and CRT have tried to introduce more specific interpretations of the rules, so everybody knew where they stood, but the courts have said that the vague wording of the Act cannot be interpreted in more specific terms. Hence we still have the vagiaries of "satisfying the Board", and CRT themselves have been forced to set a very low threshold, that allows them to deal with those whose pattern of movement is furthest from the intentions (or spirit) of the Act, but which allows others to stay just on the legal side of that low threshold. And they are quite often described as "continuous moorers". 

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16 hours ago, IanD said:

 

I agree that if CART deem that CCers (or CMers, or whatever) are following the rules to the satisfaction of the Board then that's fine, and other law-abiding boaters shouldn't turn on them just because they choose to live/cruise differently to them.

 

However boating unity with the CM "scoff-laws" that Alan referred to -- NBTA members or not -- is *not* going to lead to "better outcomes for everyone", because the likely result is CRT cracking down on enforcement or even changing the rules in ways that are likely to have a negative effect on all the boaters who *do* follow the rules -- or at least mostly do, rather than deliberately flouting them.

 

The perceived problem with the NBTA is that they seem to always back the CM "scoff-laws" when it comes to disputes with CART such as moving boaters on -- they may well do other good work for all boaters (as posters on here have claimed), but most times they appear in the news/press/online it's defending CMers, to the annoyance of boaters who do follow the rules even if it's inconvenient, because they see the CMers as "taking the p*ss". For these boaters, unity with the CMers and NBTA is never going to happen.

 

You seem to have misunderstood my post.  I was calling for unity between fellow law abiding boaters, not between law abiding boaters and law breakers.  The post I was responding to was merrily lumping law abiding continuous cruisers in with those who habitually break the law, labelling them all Continuous Moorers.  That's what's destructive.  It blurs what should be a clear line and turns boaters against each other when they should be allies.  I don't support boaters who deliberately break the rules and then play victim as that makes CRT enforce harder on all the rest of us.  I've made that explicitly clear in various previous threads.

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12 hours ago, David Mack said:

 

I disagree. The intention behind the continuous crusing provisions of the 1995 Act was to accommodate those few boaters who had no need of a home mooring because they were cruising most of the time, and the 14 day longstop on staying in one place was there specifically to prevent those without a home mooring abusing that status and hanging around in one spot for long periods. But as is often the case in dealing with objections to a proposed change in the rules, the relevant wording was added to the Parliamentary Bill rather hastily at the last minute, and the consequences of the way it was worded were not appreciated at the time. Hence there is no definition of 'place' or how far apart two locations have to be to be considered different 'places', nor is there any restriction on how soon you can return to a 'place' where you have moored previously, nor is a distinction made between having stops of varying length, of which only one a small proportion are 14 days, or having every stop of the full 14 day duration. Over the years BW and CRT have tried to introduce more specific interpretations of the rules, so everybody knew where they stood, but the courts have said that the vague wording of the Act cannot be interpreted in more specific terms. Hence we still have the vagiaries of "satisfying the Board", and CRT themselves have been forced to set a very low threshold, that allows them to deal with those whose pattern of movement is furthest from the intentions (or spirit) of the Act, but which allows others to stay just on the legal side of that low threshold. And they are quite often described as "continuous moorers". 

In terms of how this actually affects anyone, this is just irrelevant nit-picking.  CRT have more than they can cope with just dealing with the numbers of boats who are blatantly breaking the rules.  Lumping even more boaters in with those rules breakers benefits nobody except those who would prefer to get all the boats off the network.  Please try to consider the bigger picture. 

 

I don't doubt that lots of boaters incorrectly use the the term "continuous moorers", it doesn't make it right though.

 

And I'll say again, there's no such thing as the spirit of the act, and the intention behind it is irrelevant.  The only things that matter are what the legislation actually says, and what those in authority actually do to enforce that legislation.  This is why lumping boaters with a proven lawful cruising pattern in with law breakers, by dubbing them all the same thing, is really harmful.

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I agree and disagree with both sides here... 😉

 

I believe that it's clear that there *was* an intention/spirit behind the CC rule which was to allow genuine canal-loving "Continuous Cruisers" to roam around the system without having to pay for a home mooring they neither wanted nor needed, because it's that category of boaters that was the issue when it was drafted. Unfortunately the law was badly written, hence all the knots that CART have tied themselves into in recent years.

 

Since then the way people use the canals have changed, many more people want to use them as a place to live cheaply or conveniently, they're not interested in roaming round the system and in fact want to essentially stay in one place -- but without having to find (because they're like rocking-horse poo) and pay for (because they're expensive) a permanent mooring.

 

Some of the CMers do the minimum moves necessary to stay within the CC rules, and regardless of whether "real" boaters agree with what they're doing (because they're not Continuously Cruising around the canal system) they *are* obeying the law as it stands.

 

Some "selfish CMers" either bend or ignore the rules and use tricks/excuses to stop their boats being confiscated or forcibly moved on, and the NBTA and others back them up. It's these CMers who are the problem, not just because they don't do what law-abiding boaters do but because many of them also overstay and block short-term moorings or moor in inappropriate places. It's these CMers who the wrath of "real" boaters (whatever that means) should be directed at, not the ones who follow the rules.

 

CART are in a bind here; the original rules were badly written and unclear (which is always a bad thing for a law), and they haven't helped themselves by recently giving in to pressure from the NBTA and others to kind-of-allow (but not officially!) CMers to adopt patterns of cruising (e.g. shorter in term-time, longer in holidays) to allow more leeway for families with children -- in spite of the fact that their own CC rules (but not the law...) *specifically* exclude this (or work) as a reason for staying in one place and state that boats doing this must have a home mooring.

 

So I agree with Dora that the battle here is between *all* law-abiding boaters -- regardless of whether they cruise around the system, or stay in one area but obey the CC rules -- and the "selfish CMers" who ignore the rules to the detriment of the canal system in general, and more specifically all the law-abiding boaters who can't find places to moor because of them.

 

But I disagree that there *isn't* an intention/spirit behind the law, because there clearly was, it was just badly drafted and has been even more badly enforced -- but nevertheless, it is all we've got, with little chance of it being changed because canals are not on the government's radar, so we have to make do with it, warts and all.

 

The problem is that the "selfish CMers" are relatively united, vocal -- especially in the press -- and have the support of the NBTA and others to make their case, where law-abiding boaters are divided (as shown in this thread), don't make much fuss, and only seem to have the support of CART -- who many "real" boaters seem to hate because of the way they run the system, they'd rather castigate CART for doing a bad job than try and think of any way to help them improve things.

 

If only there was some kind of organisation that really *did* represent the interests of boaters and the canal system and could promote these to both press and government, not just those of "selfish CMers"...

Edited by IanD
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4 minutes ago, IanD said:

I agree and disagree with both sides here... 😉

 

I believe that it's clear that there *was* an intention/spirit behind the CC rule which was to allow genuine canal-loving "Continuous Cruisers" to roam around the system without having to pay for a home mooring they neither wanted nor needed, because it's that category of boaters that was the issue when it was drafted. Unfortunately the law was badly written, hence all the knots that CART have tied themselves into in recent years.

 

Since then the way people use the canals have changed, many more people want to use them as a place to live cheaply or conveniently, they're not interested in roaming round the system and in fact want to essentially stay in one place -- but without having to find (because they're like rocking-horse poo) and pay for (because they're expensive) a permanent mooring.

 

Some of the CMers do the minimum moves necessary to stay within the CC rules, and regardless of whether "real" boaters agree with what they're doing (because they're not Continuously Cruising around the canal system) they *are* obeying the law as it stands.

 

Some "selfish CMers" either bend or ignore the rules and use tricks/excuses to stop their boats being confiscated or forcibly moved on, and the NBTA and others back them up. It's these CMers who are the problem, not just because they don't do what law-abiding boaters do but because many of them also overstay and block short-term moorings or moor in inappropriate places. It's these CMers who the wrath of "real" boaters (whatever that means) should be directed at, not the ones who follow the rules.

 

CART are in a bind here; the original rules were badly written and unclear (which is always a bad thing for a law), and they haven't helped themselves by recently giving in to pressure from the NBTA and others to kind-of-allow (but not officially!) CMers to adopt patterns of cruising (e.g. shorter in term-time, longer in holidays) to allow more leeway for families with children -- in spite of the fact that their own CC rules (but not the law...) *specifically* exclude this (or work) as a reason for staying in one place and state that boats doing this must have a home mooring.

 

So I agree with Dora that the battle here is between *all* law-abiding boaters -- regardless of whether they cruise around the system, or stay in one area but obey the CC rules -- and the "selfish CMers" who ignore the rules to the detriment of the canal system in general, and more specifically all the law-abiding boaters who can't find places to moor because of them.

 

But I disagree that there *isn't* an intention/spirit behind the law, because there clearly was, it was just badly drafted and has been even more badly enforced -- but nevertheless, it is all we've got, with little chance of it being changed because canals are not on the government's radar, so we have to make do with it, warts and all.

 

The problem is that the "selfish CMers" are relatively united, vocal -- especially in the press -- and have the support of the NBTA and others to make their case, where law-abiding boaters are divided (as shown in this thread), don't make much fuss, and only seem to have the support of CART -- who many "real" boaters seem to hate because of the way they run the system, they'd rather castigate CART for doing a bad job than try and think of any way to help them improve things.

 

If only there was some kind of organisation that really *did* represent the interests of boaters and the canal system and could promote these to both press and government, not just those of "selfish CMers"...

Some good points here, especially at the end where you nail the issue of the CMers being united and thus getting far more attention and sympathy from the press and the general public who read it.  That's exactly the problem and it's why labelling law-abiding continuous cruisers as continuous moorers is so harmful.  (It's also factually inaccurate).

 

You've raised a nuanced point about the act too.  There may well have been a spirit/intention behind the law, in that those who were in the discussions before drafting it had a certain idea, but the law (or act) itself is simply the words written in the legislation, no more, no less, anything beyond that is just pointless speculation and benefits no boaters.

 

I used to think the 1995 act was poorly worded.  I've mostly changed my mind on that.  I think it's actually quite well worded, it's just been poorly enforced over the years.  BW allowed a huge problem to creep up on them when they could have nipped it in the bud and prevented a lot of the trouble CRT have now.

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34 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

Some good points here, especially at the end where you nail the issue of the CMers being united and thus getting far more attention and sympathy from the press and the general public who read it.  That's exactly the problem and it's why labelling law-abiding continuous cruisers as continuous moorers is so harmful.  (It's also factually inaccurate).

 

You've raised a nuanced point about the act too.  There may well have been a spirit/intention behind the law, in that those who were in the discussions before drafting it had a certain idea, but the law (or act) itself is simply the words written in the legislation, no more, no less, anything beyond that is just pointless speculation and benefits no boaters.

 

I used to think the 1995 act was poorly worded.  I've mostly changed my mind on that.  I think it's actually quite well worded, it's just been poorly enforced over the years.  BW allowed a huge problem to creep up on them when they could have nipped it in the bud and prevented a lot of the trouble CRT have now.

 

The trouble is that there are only two terms being used when we really need three...

 

1. Continuous cruisers (CC) : aim to move around the canal system instead of staying mostly in one place

2. Occasional cruisers (OC) : aim to stay mostly in one place but not break the law, moving by the minimum needed to meet the CC rules

3. Continuous moorers (CM) : aim to moor mostly in one place and ignore the CC rules completely or as much as possible

 

I think the names for the first (CCers) and third (CMers) categories are both accurate, because they describe what they do (or intend to) -- move around (within the rules) or stay in one place (against the rules).

 

We don't (yet...) have a term for the second category (OCers?) who follow the rules to the letter even if they don't follow them in spirit, but as Dora says they *are* law-abiding and it's in the interests of CCers and boats with home moorings (who also follow the rules) to join with them against the rule-breakers -- for whom the best term we have is CMers... 😉

Edited by IanD
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