How Many Hire Boats?

[magpie patrick]

In days of old (well, late 1990s and probably more recently) the BW annual report included how many craft were licensed and how many of those were hire boats. From memory when I first checked (around 1995) it was around 25,000 boats of which around 2,500 were hire boats. 

 

I can't find similar figures in recent CRT annual reports, only income from licensing. I can find figures of circa 35,000 boats licensed (it was increasing steadily in the 1990s so if anything I'm surpsied it's only that many) but would guess if anything the number of hire boats may have gone down. Not getting anywhere with Google either. Anyone know where I can find a figure? 

 

Thanks

 

MP

[Alan de Enfield]

Somewhat dated but may help.

 

BW 2002 : 1341** hire boats

BW 2007 : 996 hire boats.

 

** the 2002 figure includes retaurant and trip boats.

 

Edit to add :

 

Just for comparison the Broads authority had

 

2002 : 1276

2007 : 875

 

The EA Thames region had 

 

2002 : 377

2007 : 354

Edited October 23, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[magpie patrick]

8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Somewhat dated but may help.

 

BW 2002 1341 hire boats

BW 2007 996 hire boats.

 

It does thanks, as someone had quoted in conversation "about 1000" and your figures at least suggest this is a credible number. 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

 

It does thanks, as someone had quoted in conversation "about 1000" and your figures at least suggest this is a credible number. 

 

Note the edit;

The  BW 2002 figure included Trip and restaurant boats

[IanD]

1 hour ago, magpie patrick said:

 

It does thanks, as someone had quoted in conversation "about 1000" and your figures at least suggest this is a credible number. 

Though I suspect ~1000 hire boats account for more miles and locks travelled than the other 34000 privately-owned boats... 😉

[magpie patrick]

Just now, IanD said:

Though I suspect ~1000 hire boats account for more miles and locks travelled than the other 34000 privately-owned boats... 😉

 

They almost certainly do! But I'd rather not open that particular can of worms... 

[Stroudwater1]

It is surprising though how many boaters go out for 6 months of the year or so and travel at least 6 hours many days though which may balance things up. 
 

Hire boats we’ve met often now seem to do smaller shorter hire weekend trips possibly as longer than a weeks hire is extremely expensive.
 

Possibly the clientele of hirers has changed and  the queues at some flights don’t allow much distance to be covered too. 

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Stroudwater1 said:

It is surprising though how many boaters go out for 6 months of the year or so and travel at least 6 hours many days though which may balance things up. 
 

Hire boats we’ve met often now seem to do smaller shorter hire weekend trips possibly as longer than a weeks hire is extremely expensive.
 

Possibly the clientele of hirers has changed and  the queues at some flights don’t allow much distance to be covered too. 

Maybe, but based on observations of the number of boats coming the other way I'd say that moving hire boats still outnumber moving private boats, especially on the most popular canal sections with the highest lock event counts.

 

I wonder if there's any actual data for this, as opposed to anecdote? 😉

[ditchcrawler]

Not seen that many hire boats on our last two outings

[IanD]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Not seen that many hire boats on our last two outings

But where did you go, and when? We saw few moving boats of any description on the Sheffield-Anderton trip this month, for obvious reasons...

 

(but last year the Llangollen was rammed with them)

Edited October 23, 2023 by IanD

[Ken X]

There are certainly hot spots,  we often do the Llangollen in winter around Christmas, New Year and the number of hire boat yards is very noticeable, particularly as we have to squeeze past the moored boats. 🙂

 

This summer we started on the Shroppy, went up the Trent & Mersey, Bridgwater and onto the L & L with a swerve off to Manchester and saw very few moving hire boats in our travels. There were more than we expected to see in yards such as Anglo-Welsh and Anderson but even then we have met more in past years on the Bridgwater.

[Ex Brummie]

Just remember, not every hire boat has any identification features. Having a mooring near to a large marina seems to bear this out; or maybe owners have very large families.

[dmr]

I think there were a lot less hire boats out this summer, and I noticed a significant part of some hire fleets tied up at their base, I also saw some adverts for 50% price reductions. However I think it got busier later in the year. I heard a good theory that hire boating has got just too expensive for family holidays in the summer, its cheaper to fly somewhere hot, but more people without school age children are now hiring out of season.

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I don’t think the Day Hire Boats have suffered,

they seem to wizz about,

like wasps, 

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[David Mack]

Does the rise in the number of shared ownership boats correlate with the decline in hire boat numbers?

[Allan(nb Albert)]

10 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Does the rise in the number of shared ownership boats correlate with the decline in hire boat numbers?

The number of shared ownership boats has not risen from the glory gory days of OwnerShips and Challenger. It has decreased and is now under 200.

With regard to hire craft and day boats, BMIB gave a figure of over 2,000 a couple of years back. However, this was for all UK waterways not CRT waterways.

I subscribe to the view of about 1,000 on CRT waters. 


 

[matty40s]

38 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

The number of shared ownership boats has not risen from the glory gory days of OwnerShips and Challenger. It has decreased and is now under 200.

 

i think there are more than that AlbertAllan, there are quite a few I know of are under the radar so to speak, quite happy in their existence.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

5 minutes ago, matty40s said:

i think there are more than that AlbertAllan, there are quite a few I know of are under the radar so to speak, quite happy in their existence.

I have taken my figures  from Ownerships marketing info and the boatshare4u website and am confident regarding the numbers.

However, I would accept that some boats may chose not to appear on the boatshare4u website.

At the end of the day, a very significant proportion of the 35,000(?) boats on CRT's waters will have more than one owner. 
 

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

The number of shared ownership boats has not risen from the glory gory days of OwnerShips and Challenger. It has decreased and is now under 200.

How do you know that? Self-managed shared ownership boats are licenced the same as single-owner private boats, so are not counted as share boats. I suspect your 200 relates only to commercially managed share boats.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

9 minutes ago, David Mack said:

How do you know that? Self-managed shared ownership boats are licenced the same as single-owner private boats, so are not counted as share boats. I suspect your 200 relates only to commercially managed share boats.

My "less than 200" figure relates to shared ownership boats that have registered  with boatshare4u. These mostly describe themselves  as self managed .... 






 

[matty40s]

1 minute ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

My "less than 200" figure relates to shared ownership boats that have registered  with boatshare4u. These mostly describe themselves  as self managed .... 
 

Therefore a very transitory hopeful figure for you.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

Rather the only verifiable figure available ...

[Hudds Lad]

16 hours ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

I don’t think the Day Hire Boats have suffered,

they seem to wizz about,

like wasps, 

 

Seen quite a few this year, more than previously, definitely an uptick in bands of pirates  Lots of multi-generational families too which is nice.

Last one we saw on the Oxford had at least 20 people on (those i could count on the outside) and were having a very jolly time, arrrrrrr.

My favourite was crewed by a rugby team, that had so many of them on the back you could no longer see the tunnel bands.

[ditchcrawler]

51 minutes ago, Hudds Lad said:

Seen quite a few this year, more than previously, definitely an uptick in bands of pirates  Lots of multi-generational families too which is nice.

Last one we saw on the Oxford had at least 20 people on (those i could count on the outside) and were having a very jolly time, arrrrrrr.

My favourite was crewed by a rugby team, that had so many of them on the back you could no longer see the tunnel bands.

Picking up a few mates round the corner

[Hudds Lad]

5 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Picking up a few mates round the corner

a few mates, and a few crates