Is there enough room

[JohnE]

This just doesn't make sense...

There are 35 000 boats on the canals.

There are approximately 4,345 km (2,700 miles) of interlinked, navigable canals & rivers

So‼️ 4345÷35000=0.1241

That's 124m or 400ft of space per boat.

Or am I missing something ❓

If I'm correct, a mooring point is needed ± every 150 yards🤔

 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by JohnE

[MtB]

2 minutes ago, JohnE said:

This just doesn't make sense...

There are 35 000 boats on the canals.

There are approximately 4,345 km (2,700 miles) of interlinked, navigable canals & rivers

So‼️ 4345÷35000=0.1241

That's 124m or 400ft of space per boat.

Or an I missing something ❓

 

 

 

 

 

This is something I moan about on here but no-one agrees with me. The canals are steadily filling up as volume manus like Collingwood et al churn them out and launch them, without taking any of the old scrappers out. Eventually the canals will just be rammed full but no-one seems much bothered about it....

 

 

[Russ T]

Did you count both sides, marinas and dry docks?

 

 

 

If a boat moves from a mooring spot and another immediately takes its place, that also halves the amount of space required. QED innit

[JohnE]

5 minutes ago, Russ T said:

Did you count both sides, marinas and dry docks?

 

 

 

If a boat moves from a mooring spot and another immediately takes its place, that also halves the amount of space required. QED innit

What happens at night 😕

[Russ T]

Just now, JohnE said:

What happens at night 😕

It generally gets dark, you can't see the boats, so it doesn't matter.

[Hudds Lad]

Now remove from your figures all the space taken up by those pesky things like locks, lock landings, service points, bridges, aqueducts, tunnels, narrows, bends etc. and it's probably a lot less room than you think!

[JohnE]

Just now, Russ T said:

It generally gets dark, you can't see the boats, so it doesn't matter.

I never thought of that 🤔

[Arthur Marshall]

25 minutes ago, JohnE said:

This just doesn't make sense...

There are 35 000 boats on the canals.

There are approximately 4,345 km (2,700 miles) of interlinked, navigable canals & rivers

So‼️ 4345÷35000=0.1241

That's 124m or 400ft of space per boat.

Or am I missing something ❓

If I'm correct, a mooring point is needed ± every 150 yards🤔

 

 

 

 

That's why I take the trombone. For some unfathomable reason, I always get my full 150 yards to myself.

[JohnE]

9 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That's why I take the trombone. For some unfathomable reason, I always get my full 150 yards to myself.

Well there are  2500 CCers so ± 1mile per boat in winter.. that's enough space for me

❄️ 

[IanD]

46 minutes ago, JohnE said:

This just doesn't make sense...

There are 35 000 boats on the canals.

There are approximately 4,345 km (2,700 miles) of interlinked, navigable canals & rivers

So‼️ 4345÷35000=0.1241

That's 124m or 400ft of space per boat.

Or am I missing something ❓

If I'm correct, a mooring point is needed ± every 150 yards🤔

 

Yes you're missing something -- most of those boats are in marinas most of the time...

[Alan de Enfield]

12 minutes ago, JohnE said:

Well there are  2500 CCers so ± 1mile per boat in winter.. that's enough space for me

❄️

 

Did you really mean ± 1 mile ? (that gives 2 miles of mooring)

Or, did you mean ~1mile

 

According to C&RTs figures there are 5000 or 6000+ boats without a home mooring (depending on which report you read)

[JohnE]

 😁Brilliant‼️

That solves that then.

Edited December 11, 2025 by JohnE

[Chris John]

About 10% of boats leave my marina I’d estimate 

Edited December 11, 2025 by Chris John

[David Mack]

9 minutes ago, Chris John said:

About 10% of boats leave my marina I’d estimate 

But not all at once.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That's why I take the trombone. For some unfathomable reason, I always get my full 150 yards to myself.

 

 

This reminds me of my neighbour in the last house. He was always banging on the wall around midnight making a terrible racket. Fortunately it didn't bother me too much as I could barely hear him doing it, as I was usually practicing my drums around the same time.

 

 

[Laurie Booth]

2 hours ago, JohnE said:

This just doesn't make sense...

There are 35 000 boats on the canals.

There are approximately 4,345 km (2,700 miles) of interlinked, navigable canals & rivers

So‼️ 4345÷35000=0.1241

That's 124m or 400ft of space per boat.

Or am I missing something ❓

If I'm correct, a mooring point is needed ± every 150 yards🤔

 

 

 

 

You are missing Marinas.

 

[JohnE]

38 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

You are missing Marinas.

 

Hadn't thought of that... although what happens when everyone is out & about on the canals. 

[alias]

5 minutes ago, JohnE said:

Hadn't thought of that... although what happens when everyone is out & about on the canals. 

 

They don't all come out at the same time.

 

For example I moor in a marina on a two mile pound between locks.  Between two large and one small marina and some online moorings there must be more than 600 boats on the pound.  I can't remember there ever being a queue of more than two or three boats to get through the locks. 

[IanD]

10 minutes ago, JohnE said:

Hadn't thought of that... although what happens when everyone is out & about on the canals. 

Even in summer I've never seen more than maybe a quarter of the boats in my marina out at any one time, and it's often much less than that.

[Jen-in-Wellies]

All these boats are displacing water that would otherwise be needed to fill the canal. Take them all away and the reservoirs would empty, trying to fill the boat shaped holes.

[magpie patrick]

Whilst we may jest the OP has a serious point, there is only so much canal to share. For a while I promoted rhe restoration of the coal canal on the basis that it would provide more room for boats on the Western K&A - The local authority bought the argument in principle but haven't yet found the money! 

[JohnE]

22 minutes ago, IanD said:

Even in summer I've never seen more than maybe a quarter of the boats in my marina out at any one time, and it's often much less than that.

22750 boats have a permanent mooring 

So if 25% are out at anytime that's 5687  plus the 5578 Ccers 

Say 12000 boats total.

So with 2700miles of canals that's a mooring every 1/4 mile.

 

19 minutes ago, Jen-in-Wellies said:

All these boats are displacing water that would otherwise be needed to fill the canal. Take them all away and the reservoirs would empty, trying to fill the boat shaped holes.

That's a very good point 👍 

Edited December 11, 2025 by JohnE

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, JohnE said:

plus the 55780 Ccers 

 

Presumaby you are including non-C&RT registered boats in this figure !

[phantom_iv]

Just need to restore some old canals or even build new ones to account for the increasing numbers of boats.

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, JohnE said:

22750 boats have a permanent mooring 

So if are out at anytime that's 5687 (25%) plus the 55780 Ccers 

Say 12000 boats total.

So with 2700miles of canals that's a mooring every 1/4 mile.

 

That may well be true on average (or it may be an overestimate), but most CCers moor up bow-to-stern (or even breasted up) in "honeypot" areas -- single-moored on one bank is about 100 boats per mile, moored both sides or breasted up is 200 boats per mile, breasted-up both sides (like in some bits of London) is 400 boats per mile. That way you can get all the CCers into 56/28/14 miles of canal, leaving the rest of the network much emptier than your figure -- especially since boats out from marinas also often moor up in "honeypot" areas (I'm including places like Braunston, Nantwich and many others) not out on the open canals.

 

So I doubt that the average moored out on the open canals is more than one boat per mile, which I don't think anyone would think is in any way a problem or risks "filling up"... 😉 

Edited December 11, 2025 by IanD