continuous cruise confused

[Nickhlx]

so do they police your movements / whereabouts or do you keep a log or something? does it have to be signed off by any authority or do you have to keep proof of where you were ?

 

Nick

[mayalld]

so do they police your movements / whereabouts or do you keep a log or something? does it have to be signed off by any authority or do you have to keep proof of where you were ?

 

Nick

 

They suggest that keeping a log would be a good way to show that you are moving, but it isn't obligatory.

 

Having said that, the onus is on the boater to show that they comply, and if you don't keep a log, then if they accuse you of not complying with your licence, you could well be stuffed!

[wally]

Good question. I have heard something about a log but again not via BW.

Any answers anyone?

[mayalld]

Good question. I have heard something about a log but again not via BW.

Any answers anyone?

 

http://www.waterscape.com/media/documents/1862.pdf

Edited September 2, 2008 by mayalld

[wally]

Ah sorry yes that was where I read it.

Cheers

[John Orentas]

Hi Wally.

 

The best advice anyone can give is to take the words 'Continuous Cruiser' literally, it is as simple as that.. The problem is that we seem to have probably two people a week come on the forum with the idea that they are smarter than everyone else, they think they have found a loophole whereby they and they alone will have all the advantages of the waterways without contributing their share of the costs..

 

You should set off with an acceptance that it is not easy to do it on the cheap and you will have to contribute your share, I am sure that you are one of the few who already has that sensible attitude.

[kerching]

Hopefully our scenario next year will be to cruise 7 month and moor 5 month and return to work. On emailing BW earlier last month to see what winter moorings would be available in my preferred locations this year i was told their would be none. I did this just as a tester for next year.

 

Now if i am to CC for the 7 month, say doing the Four Counties at a nice slow pace, and return to the Manchester area and dawdle round say Bridgewater, Rochdale, C&H,HNC etc whilst i ply my trade to get the funds for the next years dawdle say along the L&L and back to the Manchester area to do the same again. It could be said i am making a progressive journey around the system.

 

I realise that this may be pushing the CC guidelines a bit and that BW are not duty bound to provide winter moorings, although they probably would not be residential, but what are we supposed to do. Private moorings seem to be more scarce than hens teeth and we would only use them for 5 months. We understand we would probably have to pay some kind of premium rate to moor in winter, say 5 months for the price of 6 of the rate in the given area, but if BW are not going to be accommodating or flexible what can you do . I am sure this would provide much needed revenue and would be my preferred option rather than be classed a "bridge hopper".

[Chris Pink]

That would be because the 1995 was never intended to be specific.

 

It was intended to delegate the interpretation to BW.

 

repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true

 

..not.

[GSer]

Hi Wally.

 

The problem is that we seem to have probably two people a week come on the forum with the idea that they are smarter than everyone else, they think they have found a loophole whereby they and they alone will have all the advantages of the waterways without contributing their share of the costs..

 

 

You seem to be assuming that all moorings are BW managed, that is a long way from the truth on the K&A, many boaters at the eastern end have a private mooring with none of their mooring fees going to BW or to the upkeep of the canal.

 

I suppose that will be the next 'spawn of the devil' on the canal, people with privatly owned moorings

 

An individuals contribution to costs comes via the license surely.

 

Paul

[magnetman]

You seem to be assuming that all moorings are BW managed, that is a long way from the truth on the K&A, many boaters at the eastern end have a private mooring with none of their mooring fees going to BW or to the upkeep of the canal.

 

I suppose that will be the next 'spawn of the devil' on the canal, people with privatly owned moorings

 

An individuals contribution to costs comes via the license surely.

 

Paul

Don't you have to pay an 'end-of-garden' mooring fee to BW if you moor a boat on the canal, even if you own the land?

[GSer]

Don't you have to pay an 'end-of-garden' mooring fee to BW if you moor a boat on the canal, even if you own the land?

 

 

Yes, you do, but there is one marina on the canal that is rumoured to pay BW nothing in the way of access fees due to the entrance being from the river itself, mind you, it only has space for maybe 200 boats. At the end of the canal at the Thames and Kennet Marina there are a large amount of boats that use the K&A on a regular basis none of them pay towards the upkeep of the canal except via the license.

 

Paul

[Hairy-Neil]

Don't you have to pay an 'end-of-garden' mooring fee to BW if you moor a boat on the canal, even if you own the land?

 

Yes.

 

The thing with the eastern end of the K&A is it's a river navigation so BW don't own the banks, except perhaps on the man made cut sections. Where a marina is accessed from the river they have no hold.

 

 

..... At the end of the canal at the Thames and Kennet Marina there are a large amount of boats that use the K&A on a regular basis none of them pay towards the upkeep of the canal except via the license.

 

Paul

 

Give them their due, they will also have to pay the EA for a license to use the Thames on a regular basis, to which most boaters make no direct contribution for the upkeep.

[GSer]

Give them their due, they will also have to pay the EA for a license to use the Thames on a regular basis, to which most boaters make no direct contribution for the upkeep.

 

 

Sorry it wasn't a dig about the Marinas themselves, just the assuption that its only CCer's that don't contribute more than their license fee commitments toward BW when in fact thats not true.

 

Paul

[magnetman]

Yes, you do, but there is one marina on the canal that is rumoured to pay BW nothing in the way of access fees due to the entrance being from the river itself, mind you, it only has space for maybe 200 boats. At the end of the canal at the Thames and Kennet Marina there are a large amount of boats that use the K&A on a regular basis none of them pay towards the upkeep of the canal except via the license.

 

Paul

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about people with individual private online moorings on the K&A. Marinas are a whole 'nother story of course. Thames and Kennet is not accessed from the Kennet and Avon it is accessed from the Thames. The same could be said for anyone coming from a different navigation system, they don't pay BW anything except a license but they usually aren't resident the whole time on BW waterways anyway so arguably they have less obligation to pay for its upkeep.

[NB Alnwick]

Hi Wally.

 

The best advice anyone can give is to take the words 'Continuous Cruiser' literally, it is as simple as that.. The problem is that we seem to have probably two people a week come on the forum with the idea that they are smarter than everyone else, they think they have found a loophole whereby they and they alone will have all the advantages of the waterways without contributing their share of the costs..

 

You should set off with an acceptance that it is not easy to do it on the cheap and you will have to contribute your share, I am sure that you are one of the few who already has that sensible attitude.

 

I agree entirely with what John says and I am sure that is just what British Waterways expect.

 

When we bought Alnwick, we intended to be continuous cruisers but, after a year, we realised that we were spending more than we could afford and we became part-time cruisers and part-time workers. Local BW staff at Braunston advised us to get a permanent mooring because, they said, "continuously cruising and regularly commuting to work are not compatible". They provided us with a temporary 'Winter Mooring' there and then for which we paid about £600 and the following April we were offered our current on-line mooring at Cropredy which is expensive but extremely convenient.

 

When we can afford to, we hope to give up our part time work and go continuously cruising again but in the meantime we have to accept that if we want to stay in the same location for more than a couple of weeks we have to pay for the privilege.

[GSer]

That fine and I agree that CCers, if they want to overstay their welcome, should be able to pay a fee for that privilage, my issue was the assumption that all CCers are somehow lesser people than mooring fee payers cos they pay less in the way of fees, when in truth there are more people than just CCer's that use the canals and don't pay the extra cash to BW for a mooring.

 

Paul

[mayalld]

repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true repeating something over and over again makes it true

 

..not.

 

And repeating that something isn't true doesn't make it untrue either.

 

The 1995 act is unambiguous. You must "satisfy the board"

[Chris Pink]

They provided us with a temporary 'Winter Mooring' there and then for which we paid about £600 and the following April we were offered our current on-line mooring at Cropredy which is expensive but extremely convenient.

 

That's remarkably short waiting list for what must be one of the most desirable mooring locations on the system.

 

I know for a fact that a lot of militantly-minded boaters without moorings have gone down that route because BW operated an ad-hoc (being very very polite) attitude to the waiting lists for moorings.

Edited September 3, 2008 by Chris Pink

[Amicus]

Surely the reason the "rules" are not well defined is because their pupose is not to regulate the continuous cruise, but to regulate/prevent the continuous bridge hopper, spirit of the thing, an all that.

Seems to me that BW are going out of their way to keep the "CC regs" to the minimum, in a perfect world (i.e. no piss takers) rules like these would not be needed.

[Chertsey]

I have long wondered whether those with a mooring were subject to the same rules as CCers; in fact we only hear of there BEING rules for CCers.

 

Sure, you can't stay a week on a 24 hour visitor mooring or a month on a 14 day one (allegedly), but why is that any different between the two groups of people? There's no rule that says that you have to spend any time on your mooring when you do have one, so it seems unfair to target self-declared CCers with ANY special demands, no matter what the legal status of those demands. Even if the same rules do apply, there is clearly a greater burden of proof on CCers to show that they're abiding by the rules.

 

It seems that just having a mooring, even if you never use it, buys you out of a lot of grief. Our mooring is on the Middle Level, but we have never been asked by BW to prove it.

 

Someone, somewhere, must be prepared to provide very cheap moorings for people who never use them....

Edited September 3, 2008 by WarriorWoman

[Chris Pink]

Surely the reason the "rules" are not well defined is because their pupose is not to regulate the continuous cruise, but to regulate/prevent the continuous bridge hopper, spirit of the thing, an all that.

 

So we're back to having the law define what you don't want rather than accepting that is was written after a lot of discussion and lobbying by very learned legal people and approved by the people who are elected by us to do this kind of thing.

 

The fact that you don't want the so-called 'bridge-hopper' does not give you, or anyone else, the right to say that is what the law is for.

 

Without such psychic powers how can you say that a law which makes no reference to either activity is intended to allow one and not the other?

 

in fact we only hear of there BEING rules for CCers.

 

That's because the shout-loudest brigade who rattle on about the 'unfairness' are those with an axe to grind against continuous cruising, mainly as far as i can ascertain, in a kind of envy that they don't pay the same charges as those with moorings (on BW water).

[carlt]

It seems that just having a mooring, even if you never use it, buys you out of a lot of grief. Our mooring is on the Middle Level, but we have never been asked by BW to prove it.

 

Someone, somewhere, must be prepared to provide very cheap moorings for people who never use them....

There are, indeed, plenty of people willing to offer "paper moorings" but the boater, with a long term mooring, is obliged to follow the mooring regs, when away from their base, just like a ccer.

 

I know one person who has a mooring (ironically, on the Middle Level) but has never visited it, who was encouraged to move on, when they'd overstayed.

 

I too, when I moved from my LT mooring in cropredy, up to above Broadmoor lock, to escape the beardy ones of Fairport, was invited, by the Whitecap, to either return to my allocated spot or start cruising.

[Amicus]

So we're back to having the law define what you don't want rather than accepting that is was written after a lot of discussion and lobbying by very learned legal people and approved by the people who are elected by us to do this kind of thing.

 

The fact that you don't want the so-called 'bridge-hopper' does not give you, or anyone else, the right to say that is what the law is for.

 

Without such psychic powers how can you say that a law which makes no reference to either activity is intended to allow one and not the other?

 

OK, I missed the question mark in my post, I'd have thought the gist of the sentence was obvious sans question mark.

[mayalld]

I have long wondered whether those with a mooring were subject to the same rules as CCers; in fact we only hear of there BEING rules for CCers.

 

Sure, you can't stay a week on a 24 hour visitor mooring or a month on a 14 day one (allegedly), but why is that any different between the two groups of people? There's no rule that says that you have to spend any time on your mooring when you do have one, so it seems unfair to target self-declared CCers with ANY special demands, no matter what the legal status of those demands. Even if the same rules do apply, there is clearly a greater burden of proof on CCers to show that they're abiding by the rules.

 

It seems that just having a mooring, even if you never use it, buys you out of a lot of grief. Our mooring is on the Middle Level, but we have never been asked by BW to prove it.

 

Someone, somewhere, must be prepared to provide very cheap moorings for people who never use them....

 

OK, here's my take on this;

 

There are several kinds of boater that declare themselves to be CCers;

1. Those who are absolutely unambiguously cruising around to the complete satisfaction of BW
   
2. Those who are genuinely cruising around, but whose cruising pattern may fall foul of any over formulaic rule setting
   
3. Those who aren't really ccing, but can't get a mooring where they want one at a price they can/will pay.
   
4. Those who just don't give a toss about the rules.
   

In my view of the world, groups 1 & 2 are fine, and I have no problems with them paying less overall.

 

Group 4 are beyond the pale, and need to be hoiked out of the water at the earliest opportunity.

 

Group 3 are what I would term "economic mon-continuous cruisers".

 

There is an economic incentive to become a CCer, and my take on moorings that you never visit (or even paper moorings) is that by paying for a mooring somewhere, you have jumped through a hoop, and taken a decision to travel continuously-ish, without laying claim to the financial advantage.

[carlt]

There is an economic incentive to become a CCer, and my take on moorings that you never visit (or even paper moorings) is that by paying for a mooring somewhere, you have jumped through a hoop, and taken a decision to travel continuously-ish, without laying claim to the financial advantage.

So you're okay with someone fraudulently selling non-existent moorings at a reduced rate, in order that a boater can behave like a bridge-hopper/continuous moorer/ whatever you want to call them?

 

Isn't this just increasing the number of alleged "criminals" in the equation?