And the latest is.....

[johnmck]

Hurleston top lock.

Paddle failure apparently. 

Awaiting the formal notification. 

[matty40s]

The summer of stoppages seems to be staying with you.....

[johnmck]

8 minutes ago, matty40s said:

The summer of stoppages seems to be staying with you.....

We do appear to be stoppage magnets this year! Luckily, all thus far have been remedied well before our arrival...

But.

If you are thinking of heading for Chester, or up the Macc, beware as these are our intended routes. What could possibly go wrong!

( Sitting out the rain in llangollen basin at the mo)

Edited August 19 by johnmck

[Peugeot 106]

I’d hoped to go down the flight tomorrow. Is it closed please?

[hider]

Coventry canal bridge 83 Plough Bridge.

 

Bridge strike.  Wall is in the canal. Closed UFN.

[johnmck]

32 minutes ago, Peugeot 106 said:

I’d hoped to go down the flight tomorrow. Is it closed please?

No formal notification as yet, but Facebook post states closed this evening pending inspection tomorrow.

[Arthur Marshall]

41 minutes ago, johnmck said:

We do appear to be stoppage magnets this year! Luckily, all thus far have been remedied well before our arrival...

But.

If you are thinking of heading for Chester, or up the Macc, beware as these are our intended routes. What could possibly go wrong!

( Sitting out the rain in llangollen basin at the mo)

There were three CRT lads fettling the stop lock on the Macc this morning, trying to work out why there's a horrendous leak in the top gate.

Just to add to the joy of my journey home from Great Haywood, the last person to come down at night had left every bottom gate open and all bottom paddles up, all the way down from Stoke. Water level at Barlaston was down a foot when I set off from there. Made it dead easy singlehanding into the locks, though.

[ditchcrawler]

[Peugeot 106]

26 minutes ago, johnmck said:

No formal notification as yet, but Facebook post states closed this evening pending inspection tomorrow.

Thanks. I’m not on Facebook so will just keep looking on the stoppages page

hopefully we can get down on one paddle?

[Midnight]

1 hour ago, matty40s said:

The summer of stoppages seems to be staying with you.....

I suggest the problems we have suffered in Yorkshire for the last 4 years are migrating south. I wonder what will happen when the big hire fleets get hammered 🤔

[matty40s]

18 minutes ago, Midnight said:

I suggest the problems we have suffered in Yorkshire for the last 4 years are migrating south. I wonder what will happen when the big hire fleets get hammered 🤔

I think they have been hammered by lack of bookings this Summer anyway from our observations round the Thames Ring.

For school holiday time to have so many boats lying idle is not a good sign.

[Midnight]

29 minutes ago, matty40s said:

I think they have been hammered by lack of bookings this Summer anyway from our observations round the Thames Ring.

For school holiday time to have so many boats lying idle is not a good sign.

Same up here, we have passed so many hire bases with a lot of boats tied up. Then again who wants to pay £1k plus with the chance of not being able to complete a ring or getting held up by a lock failure.

[ditchcrawler]

20 minutes ago, Midnight said:

Same up here, we have passed so many hire bases with a lot of boats tied up. Then again who wants to pay £1k plus with the chance of not being able to complete a ring or getting held up by a lock failure.

£1300 for 3 nights with Black Prince for a 2/4 berth. 2 people could have a week all in, in Turkey for that money 

[Arthur Marshall]

11 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

£1300 for 3 nights with Black Prince for a 2/4 berth. 2 people could have a week all in, in Turkey for that money 

So why is it so expensive to hire? The boat presumably is paid for within a couple of years at those rates, with the odd new gearbox every now and then due to mistreatment. Licences can't be in the tens of thousands for each boat. The yards pay minimum wage for cleaners. It can't cost that much to run a marina, and most companies seem to do both. I know the season is fairly short, but it does seem excessive. I know some on here have run hire fleets so their insight would be useful. The bloke who appears to run Heritage on the Macc doesn't seem to be a millionaire, though I may be wrong.

[Mike Tee]

Return on investment - as boat prices increased that means (technically) the hire fleets should revalue the book value of their fleet up rather than depreciate it which in turn would mean a vast decrease in return on investment if they did not increase prices. Only part of the reason for increases but quite significant.

Any good accountant would recommend selling the fleet and investing elsewhere if the ROI was too low.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, Mike Tee said:

Return on investment - as boat prices increased that means (technically) the hire fleets should revalue the book value of their fleet up rather than depreciate it which in turn would mean a vast decrease in return on investment if they did not increase prices. Only part of the reason for increases but quite significant.

Any good accountant would recommend selling the fleet and investing elsewhere if the ROI was too low.

That seems economically insane,  as well as being logically nonsense. I can accept it's good accountancy practice, having worked in one for years, but it's still barmy.

The point of a business is to provide the owner with a living. If it does that, then pretending the value of your assets have magically increased is irrelevant, especially as by the time you have to realise them, the value may have gone through the floor. Like all economic theory, and in fact most of everything to do with money, it's based on fairy stories we tell ourselves, and does immeasurable harm. No wonder they're all going broke.

[Ken X]

9 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

£1300 for 3 nights with Black Prince for a 2/4 berth. 2 people could have a week all in, in Turkey for that money 

This does seem a bit high although I have not used Black Prince for a few years.  We have just paid £2500 for two weeks on a two berth boat in June/July from Anglo-Welsh which, whilst it is not cheap, suits us. 

 

We noted quite a few boats moored at hire yards whilst we were out, but also several new boats being fitted out at Black Prince and ABC so investment is still being made.

 

The stoppages do seem to be gently ramping up over the years.  Our planned route only became available less that two weeks before we left due to stoppages and I think it closed again soon after we left.

 

We talked to a few C&RT workers and volunteers during our trip and the clear message was that the infrastructure is only being fixed when it fails and even failures were being left if there was redundancy i.e. one of two paddles.  Preventative maintenance seemed non-existant.  The bods on the ground were very very aware of the degradation of the system and there was a real fustration that they could not do more to prevent the slow decline of the canals. 

 

One employee we met had just been verbally abused by a boater whilst working on a set of paddle gear and we spent some time chatting to him as he was still a bit raw.  Very nice chap but his morale had taken a bit of a beating.  The will of the bods on the ground is definitely there to restore the network and do the best they can, but the money and drive to improve from higher up seems sadly lacking.  I leave the politics to others but we are increasingly looking to other waters for our holidays as the reliability, or lack of it, is becoming a factor in our plans.  We live near the Wey and the Thames and both are looking more and more attractive.  Might even peer down the Basingstoke again after a few years away and that is a challenge.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, Ken X said:

This does seem a bit high although I have not used Black Prince for a few years.  We have just paid £2500 for two weeks on a two berth boat in June/July from Anglo-Welsh which, whilst it is not cheap, suits us. 

 

We noted quite a few boats moored at hire yards whilst we were out, but also several new boats being fitted out at Black Prince and ABC so investment is still being made.

 

The stoppages do seem to be gently ramping up over the years.  Our planned route only became available less that two weeks before we left due to stoppages and I think it closed again soon after we left.

 

We talked to a few C&RT workers and volunteers during our trip and the clear message was that the infrastructure is only being fixed when it fails and even failures were being left if there was redundancy i.e. one of two paddles.  Preventative maintenance seemed non-existant.  The bods on the ground were very very aware of the degradation of the system and there was a real fustration that they could not do more to prevent the slow decline of the canals. 

 

One employee we met had just been verbally abused by a boater whilst working on a set of paddle gear and we spent some time chatting to him as he was still a bit raw.  Very nice chap but his morale had taken a bit of a beating.  The will of the bods on the ground is definitely there to restore the network and do the best they can, but the money and drive to improve from higher up seems sadly lacking.  I leave the politics to others but we are increasingly looking to other waters for our holidays as the reliability, or lack of it, is becoming a factor in our plans.  We live near the Wey and the Thames and both are looking more and more attractive.  Might even peer down the Basingstoke again after a few years away and that is a challenge.

 

Hire boat prices depend strongly on how new/luxurious/recently-built the boat is, the "top-end" boats (which we tended to hire) are considerably more (at least 50%) than the "middle-of-the-road" ones -- but then this has always been the case. I expect all the costs for hire bases have increased in recent years, just like for many other businesses. They also need to refurbish or replace boats on a regular basis as they get old and tired, and costs for both these have also gone up a lot in the last few years -- the ROI is not to do with the boats they already have, it's the cost of building new ones or refitting older ones.

 

It also doesn't seem that hire firms are making a fortune out of it, in fact in recent years several long-established ones have closed or been sold, and others (like Shire Cruisers) are up for sale... 😞 

 

The simple fact is that the costs of owning and running a canal boat hire business are a lot higher than the costs of owning and running holiday lets or hotels in Turkey -- cheap holidays abroad have been able to undercut similar holidays in the UK for more than 50 years, and the same is even more true for hire boats.

 

So if cost and sunshine and cheap food and drink is what matters (which is perfectly reasonable, I'm not knocking it, I've done it too!), go and have an all-in holiday in Turkey. If having a holiday on the canals in the UK and enjoying what they can offer -- stoppages and all! -- then do that, though it'll undoubtedly cost more.

 

But don't complain *because* it costs more, that's inevitable... 😉 

Edited August 20 by IanD

[JoeC]

13 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

£1300 for 3 nights with Black Prince for a 2/4 berth. 2 people could have a week all in, in Turkey for that money 

I hired a boat out for 7 days a couple of years ago. However day 1 you could not collect it until 15:00 and day 7 you had to have it back by 09:00 so in reality I only had it for 5 days to cruise with.

[wandering snail]

3 hours ago, Ken X said:

The stoppages do seem to be gently ramping up over the years.  Our planned route only became available less that two weeks before we left due to stoppages and I think it closed again soon after we left.

 

We talked to a few C&RT workers and volunteers during our trip and the clear message was that the infrastructure is only being fixed when it fails and even failures were being left if there was redundancy i.e. one of two paddles.  Preventative maintenance seemed non-existant.  The bods on the ground were very very aware of the degradation of the system and there was a real fustration that they could not do more to prevent the slow decline of the canals. 

 

One employee we met had just been verbally abused by a boater whilst working on a set of paddle gear and we spent some time chatting to him as he was still a bit raw.  Very nice chap but his morale had taken a bit of a beating.  The will of the bods on the ground is definitely there to restore the network and do the best they can, but the money and drive to improve from higher up seems sadly lacking.  I leave the politics to others but we are increasingly looking to other waters for our holidays as the reliability, or lack of it, is becoming a factor in our plans.  We live near the Wey and the Thames and both are looking more and more attractive.  Might even peer down the Basingstoke again after a few years away and that is a challenge.

NABO has been highlighting all these issues with CRT and boaters ad nauseum. Stoppages are indeed ramping up, we have done the number crunching which shows that several canals are now more shut than they are open. 'Wait until it breaks' has been an admitted by CRT policy for a long while now, again highlighted ad nauseum by NABO but still boaters choose to bury their heads. The boater dissatisfaction surveys may have given the top management in CRT a prod, certainly recently they seem to be actively looking to engage with NABO. Whether this will encourage them to try to turn things around or whether it's become too late, boaters by their apathy are also complicit. 

[Ken X]

30 minutes ago, IanD said:

😞 

 

But don't complain *because* it costs more, that's inevitable... 😉 

Certainly no complaints from us. We go into these things because we want to and the costs are clear before we start. We like the flexibility to go where we want, when we want, (usually last minute) and walk away at the end with no ties. Some years it's one trip and some three but all that freedom has a cost element and we think it's worth it. What we are finding more problematic is the reliability of the canal network itself.

[Lily Rose]

12 minutes ago, JoeC said:

I hired a boat out for 7 days a couple of years ago. However day 1 you could not collect it until 15:00 and day 7 you had to have it back by 09:00 so in reality I only had it for 5 days to cruise with.

 

Surely it's 6 days plus a bit.

 

For example, pick up on Saturday afternoon (day 1), hand back Saturday morning (day 8).

 

Full days are Sunday to Friday = 6 days. Plus the 2nd half of the afternoon on day 1 which in summer gives quite a number of hours cruising time.

[MtB]

38 minutes ago, IanD said:

Hire boat prices depend strongly on how new/luxurious/recently-built the boat is, the "top-end" boats (which we tended to hire) are considerably more (at least 50%) than the "middle-of-the-road" ones -- but then this has always been the case. I expect all the costs for hire bases have increased in recent years, just like for many other businesses. They also need to refurbish or replace boats on a regular basis as they get old and tired, and costs for both these have also gone up a lot in the last few years -- the ROI is not to do with the boats they already have, it's the cost of building new ones or refitting older ones.

 

Depreciation is by far the biggest 'invisible' expense when. running a hire boat business, I'd imagine. I doubt there is much change out of £200k when building a new hire boat for the fleet and after 20 years of hiring it out, it will sell for maybe £40k (infaltion aside). Thats £8k a year, per boat. In addition, there is cost of the capital employed. £200k at say 5% is £10k a year per boat. So without even considering the miriad other expenses involved, it is costing the proprietor £18k a year per boat just to have it there, in the market, touting for customers.

 

Then there is the hire base you'll need. Fenny Compton marina just sold and the asking price (IIRC) for the site was £3m. There's another £150k a year in cost of capital if you want to own the hire base. 

 

 

[IanD]

25 minutes ago, wandering snail said:

NABO has been highlighting all these issues with CRT and boaters ad nauseum. Stoppages are indeed ramping up, we have done the number crunching which shows that several canals are now more shut than they are open. 'Wait until it breaks' has been an admitted by CRT policy for a long while now, again highlighted ad nauseum by NABO but still boaters choose to bury their heads. The boater dissatisfaction surveys may have given the top management in CRT a prod, certainly recently they seem to be actively looking to engage with NABO. Whether this will encourage them to try to turn things around or whether it's become too late, boaters by their apathy are also complicit. 

 

I doubt that anyone with even one working eye is denying that stoppages have been getting worse in recent years (at least since CART was set up) as the maintenance backlog has got bigger -- and it was pretty huge even before CART started, IIRC it was estimated at £100M (or more?) back in 2005... 😞 

 

But just what do you think CART can do to "turn things around" given that the fundamental problem is not enough income to do the required work?

 

Apart from the obvious course of increasing license fees, which boaters -- especially via the NABO and NBTA -- scream blue murder about, while simultaneously complaining about stoppages... 😞 

 

And how does "boater apathy" make this any worse? How can any amount of boater enthusiasm fill in a yawning financial gap?

 

You can "highlight all these issues with CART" as much as you want, but like the NHS no amount of highlighting and complaining is going to do a damn thing unless there's more money available... 😞 

Edited August 20 by IanD

[Ken X]

9 minutes ago, wandering snail said:

NABO has been highlighting all these issues with CRT and boaters ad nauseum. Stoppages are indeed ramping up, we have done the number crunching which shows that several canals are now more shut than they are open. 'Wait until it breaks' has been an admitted by CRT policy for a long while now, again highlighted ad nauseum by NABO but still boaters choose to bury their heads. The boater dissatisfaction surveys may have given the top management in CRT a prod, certainly recently they seem to be actively looking to engage with NABO. Whether this will encourage them to try to turn things around or whether it's become too late, boaters by their apathy are also complicit. 

I wonder how the hire boat industry and C&RT relationship plays out. As serial hirers we have been poling around the network since the sixties first with parents and then on our own. We, and others like us, are slightly removed from the cut and thrust of boat ownership. In my case due to employment which irregularly took me away from the UK and latterly due to health issues which always made boat ownership impractical. We have, however, retained the interest and have, over the years, put a pound or two over the counter of various hire companies. We are, to a certain extent, relying on the hire companies to fight our corner and it would be interesting to see how this is going.