When is the last time you went for a cruise on the canal?

[Rambling Boater]

Anyway, it's good to see so many people here have been out for a cruise over the last month.

 

It's been pretty busy here on the North Oxford today. It makes a huge difference when that sun comes out (sometimes!).

 

 

[Mike Todd]

5 hours ago, MtB said:

 

 

Also wrong.

 

But it will be a strange set of circumstances that convinces the Board that the vessel is "being used bona fide for navigation" (surely?) if you cruise less than a mile less and/or frequently than once a fortnight.

 

 

 

Really? Fancy that happening...

 

However, what did actually happen? How on earth did he come to lose it when he is always right, all the time?

 

 

 

 

Explain.

 

A critical case is that of a ferry (or similar) that spends all its time going between two places a short distance apart. AIUI, it would fail most attempts at defining travel distances/ranges but CaRT would happily be convinced that it is compliant.

 

Also, on navigations such as the Fossdyke (just to take as an example) 'places' can be much further apart than elsewhere on the CaRT network.

[Alan de Enfield]

24 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

 

Explain.

 

A critical case is that of a ferry (or similar) that spends all its time going between two places a short distance apart. AIUI, it would fail most attempts at defining travel distances/ranges but CaRT would happily be convinced that it is compliant.

 

Also, on navigations such as the Fossdyke (just to take as an example) 'places' can be much further apart than elsewhere on the CaRT network.

 

A year or two ago C&RT published (for discussion / consultation) a map of the whole network, including rivers, it showed what they considered to be 'places'. 

It didn't last more than a few days before it was taken down, never to be seen again.

I often wished I'd taken screen shots of it.

 

From memory, certainly for the River Trent, (my home waters) there was something like 10 miles between places, with major features being the boundary markers between 'places' (example : Gunthorpe Bridge and Newark Town Lock at 11 miles apart)

[TheBiscuits]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

A critical case is that of a ferry (or similar) that spends all its time going between two places a short distance apart. AIUI, it would fail most attempts at defining travel distances/ranges but CaRT would happily be convinced that it is compliant.

 

No, that was an example a judge gave - the Mersey ferry was the one described.  

 

CRT wouldn't issue a commercial licence to a passenger carrying ferry without a long list of things being ticked off, including a home mooring. 

 

As it would have a home mooring, the CC clauses - specifically bona fide navigation-  do not apply to the vessel so it wasn't a brilliant example.

[Alan de Enfield]

9 minutes ago, TheBiscuits said:

 

No, that was an example a judge gave - the Mersey ferry was the one described.  

 

CRT wouldn't issue a commercial licence to a passenger carrying ferry without a long list of things being ticked off, including a home mooring. 

 

As it would have a home mooring, the CC clauses - specifically bona fide navigation-  do not apply to the vessel so it wasn't a brilliant example.

 

 

The judgement in the case of CaRT v Mayers states that repeated journeys between the same two places would be 'bona fide navigation' if the boater had specific reason for making repeated journeys over the same stretch of canal. HHJ Halbert also stated that any requirement by CaRT to use a substantial part of the canal network was not justified by Section 17(3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995 because the requirement to use the boat for bona fide navigation is 'temporal not geographical'.

 

See paragraphs 7:22 Below :

 

 

6:3 There are clear anomalies in both positions, CRT clearly regard the occupation of moorings by permanently residential boat owners who do not move very much as a significant problem (see paragraphs 3.5 and 3.6 above). However, neither the statutory regime in subsection 17(3) nor the guidelines can deal with this problem. A boat which has a home mooring is not required to be “bona fide” used for navigation throughout the period of the licence, but neither is it required to ever use its home mooring. The act requires that the mooring is available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. The boat is still subject to the restriction that it must not stay in the same place for more than 14 days but there is nothing whatever to stop it being shuffled between two locations quite close together provided they are far enough apart to constitute different places. If those who are causing the overcrowding at popular spots have home moorings anywhere in the country the present regime cannot control their overuse of the popular spots. Such an owner could cruise to and fro along the Kennet & Avon canal near Bristol and the home mooring could be in Birmingham and totally unused.

 

7.22.3
I consider the requirement imposed by CRT that a substantial part of the network is used cannot be justified by relying solely on section 17(3). That section requires “bona fide navigation throughout the period of the licence” not “bona fide navigation throughout the canal network”. The requirement is temporal not geographical. In my view it does NOT follow from:

“Such journey or cruise must take place “throughout the period of the licence”

that it

“therefore requires progression round the network or at least a significant part of it”

7.22.4
If a person who lived permanently on his or her boat had specific reason for making repeated journeys over the same stretch of canal between two points sufficiently far apart to be regarded as different places, it would in my view be purposeful movement by water from one place to another and hence “bona fide navigation”. In the course of argument I used the example of someone who lived on his boat but was also using the vessel commercially to move coal from a mine to an iron foundry only a few miles away and then returning empty for another load.

7.22.5
To take an extreme example, in its heyday, the Mersey Ferry operated continuously to and fro over the same stretch of water which is less than a mile wide. No one would ever have accepted the suggestion that the ferry boats were not bona fide used  for navigation throughout the period of their operations.

[Momac]

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

From memory, certainly for the River Trent, (my home waters) there was something like 10 miles between places, with major features being the boundary markers between 'places' (example : Gunthorpe Bridge and Newark Town Lock at 11 miles apart)

I think  Hazelford Lock or the C&RT pontoons at  Fiskerton and Farndon should count as ''places'' (between Gunthorpe and Newark) ?

Even so there must be the best part of 5 miles between some locations on the non tidal river.

I guess you could anchor any place you like although it is very rarely seen .

 

oops - writing about the river again

 

 

[David Mack]

On 01/05/2022 at 22:07, MtB said:

 

We had one on here a few years ago who took it the extremes. Three years I think he spun it out for, claiming he could not afford the parts necessary AND a license for his historic sinker.

And if its the one I'm thinking of, he turned down more than one offer from other forum members of a tow from his broken-down-by-choice mooring spot to either a permanent mooring site or a boatyard that might be able to help fixing the engine.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

And if its the one I'm thinking of, he turned down more than one offer from other forum members of a tow from his broken-down-by-choice mooring spot to either a permanent mooring site or a boatyard that might be able to help fixing the engine.

 

No I think you are confusing two different people.

 

The person you are thinking about is still in possession of his boat.

[Alan de Enfield]

Wasn't it Kris88 that played the game for about 3 years, C&RT believed him when he said he needed a left handed thumble widget that could only be produced by Tibetan Monks under a full moon and that cloud cover had stopped manufacture for many months.

 

Got the letter 'we are coming to get the boat' and miraculously he managed to move it into a marina.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Wasn't it Kris88 that played the game for about 3 years, C&RT believed him when he said he needed a left handed thumble widget that could only be produced by Tibetan Monks under a full moon and that cloud cover had stopped manufacture for many months.

 

Got the letter 'we are coming to get the boat' and miraculously he managed to move it into a marina.

 

This was around the time we sold our boat with about three months left on our paid for mooring. I offered to to discuss with our moorings manager the possibility of him taking up our old spot to facilitate his boat being sorted. At no cost to him. To be fair it was a long way from where he was and would have needed a long tow to get it there.

 

He declined.

 

Fair enough, but what peed me off was him subsequently posting (possibly on Thunderboat) that I only made the offer 'to make me look good on the forum'.

 

Fair enough, swivel mate, was my thought.

[MtB]

8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Wasn't it Kris88 that played the game for about 3 years, C&RT believed him when he said he needed a left handed thumble widget that could only be produced by Tibetan Monks under a full moon and that cloud cover had stopped manufacture for many months.

 

Got the letter 'we are coming to get the boat' and miraculously he managed to move it into a marina.

 

That's the chappie!

 

Amusingly, over on the channel he is engaged in a seemingly never-ending hate war with that nice Mr Dunkley.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

That's the chappie!

 

Amusingly, over on the channel he is engaged in a seemingly never-ending hate war with that nice Mr Dunkley.

 

I thought you never visited Thunderboat? Or rarely at least.