Constant Cruising

[pedronasty]

Hi All,

 

I'm new to this. Haven't got a boat yet just trying to find out as much as possible first.

 

With the expense of and lock of moorings it looks like I might have to start off by being a constant cruiser.

 

I've spoken to the canal trust but even they didn't seem completely sure on the rules!

 

How far do I have to move every two weeks?

 

Are there lots of moorings round London for me to move to every couple of weeks? And if I just moor up on the side of the canal how do I know how long I can stay?

 

How do I find out where facilities such as filling my water and emptying my waste water tanks are?

 

Any other pointers for someone looking at this as a way of life? Things like having an address so I can vote or pay council tax, or where I could park my motorbike. Solar panels vs generators. How to get the internet.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Mark

Edited August 1, 2013 by pedronasty

[MtB]

Hi All,

 

I'm new to this. Haven't got a boat yet just trying to find out as much as possible first.

 

With the expense of and lock of moorings it looks like I might have to start off by being a constant cruiser.

 

I've spoken to the canal trust but even they didn't seem completely sure on the rules!

 

How far do I have to move every two weeks?

 

Are there lots of moorings round London for me to move to every couple of weeks? And if I just moor up on the side of the canal how do I know how long I can stay?

 

How do I find out where facilities such as filling my water and emptying my waste water tanks are?

 

Any other pointers for someone looking at this as a way of life? Things like having an address so I can vote or pay council tax, or where I could park my motorbike. Solar panels vs generators. How to get the internet.

 

Thanks in advance

 

Mark

 

Ok. Assuming you are not a troll...

 

1) You have to embark on a bone fide navigation. Your question 'how far do I have to move every two weeks' suggests you have no intention of bona fide navigation. Deal breaker!

 

2) No. Two weeks or whatever the sign says.

 

3) Cruise about and stop when you see one.

 

4) Buy a house, buy a house, buy a dongle, respectively.

 

 

Hope that helps

 

 

MtB

 

 

 

Edit in the morning to add:

 

Ok, I wrote this post late at night after a fair bit of good wine and I have to admit, I actually the opposite of what I said in my first line is the case, I assumed the OP IS a troll! So my apologies to the OP for my graceless response, but I'll leave it to stand as ohters have now commented on it.

 

And a virtual greenie to Lady Muck for saying what I should have said I said so comprehensively and eloquently.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Mike the Boilerman

[Caprifool]

The forums search function is a never ending source of information. Try it ;-)

[mark99]

Hi All,

 

 

Are there lots of moorings round London for me to move to every couple of weeks?

 

 

 

No; because there are quite a few already doing this (shuffling about or just staying put) hogging facilities on the cheap to the general dismay and annoyance of others.

Edited August 1, 2013 by mark99

[magpie patrick]

 

Ok. Assuming you are not a troll...

 

1) You have to embark on a bone fide navigation. Your question 'how far do I have to move every two weeks' suggests you have no intention of bona fide navigation. Deal breaker!

 

2) No. Two weeks or whatever the sign says.

 

3) Cruise about and stop when you see one.

 

4) Buy a house, buy a house, buy a dongle, respectively.

 

 

Hope that helps

 

 

MtB

 

 

Mike's answers are perhaps a little bit harsh but they do reflect the prevailing mood both among CRT and many boaters. The test has become "intent" over Bona Fide Navigation, and that could be interpreted as meaning that you are cruising because you want to cruise, rather than you are cruising to avoid having a home mooring. That said, covering a ten mile length won't be enough, Manchester to London and Back would be, it is where in between those extremes enforcement stops that is the issue. My own opinion (and that's all it is) is that London alone isn't enough, and even if it is it soon won't be. If I were doing it I'd be thinking as a mimimum of getting to Hertford, Bishops Stortford and Milton Keynes as my basic journey.

 

Whether that is practical for you depends on why you need to be in London, do you even need to be in London? I'm freelance and not that well paid, If/When I live aboard I'll be avoiding the big cities: I don't need to be there, and life is cheaper and less hassle if I'm not.

 

For post, see if a friend or relative will receive it. You want to pay council tax? Unusual but commendable. If a friend or relative is happy for you to be on the electoral roll at their address give them something towards their council tax, but so long as they don't live alone their bill won't be any higher just because you notionally live there.

[mrsmelly]

Hi

 

If you intend working in one place and living in that area then quite simply you need a mooring like the rest of us ( well should I say some of us ) If you are retired or of other means needing not to work then you can cc.there are a couple of thousand ish miles to travel round.

Dongles work well fot tinternet

You dont pay council tax as you aint got anyone to pay it to as you move all over the place and have no fixed address

If you feel you have a need to vote then ccing may not be for you

Solar panels are great but generators produce much more leccy, both would be good.

 

Tim

[carlt]

 

 

If you intend working in one place.....then quite simply you need a mooring like the rest of us ( well should I say some of us ) If you are retired or of other means needing not to work then you can cc.there are a couple of thousand ish miles to travel round.

This is just not true unless your work is at the extreme ends of the system.

 

If you are willing to commute to work for an hour then you could have hundreds of miles of waterways to legitimately cruise without having a home mooring.

[mrsmelly]

This is just not true unless your work is at the extreme ends of the system.

 

If you are willing to commute to work for an hour then you could have hundreds of miles of waterways to legitimately cruise without having a home mooring.

You of course are correct Carl but in reality that is not the case. The vast majority of bridge hopping mooring dodgers travel as little as possible and return to the same spot all too often. We have a guy at work who does that at the moment and thinks I am daft paying for my mooring when I could just dodge like he does.

 

Tim

[carlt]

The vast majority of bridge hopping mooring dodgers travel as little as possible and return to the same spot all too often.

Oh, sorry I thought we were talking about continuous cruising.

 

Is it not better to respond to the OP's query by saying "The cruising pattern you describe will not satisfy the enforcing authority but this is one that will." rather than saying that it is impossible to continuously cruise and hold down a job?

[magpie patrick]

This is just not true unless your work is at the extreme ends of the system.

 

If you are willing to commute to work for an hour then you could have hundreds of miles of waterways to legitimately cruise without having a home mooring.

 

 

Indeed: two examples relevant to me:

 

60 miles as the crow flies from Bath gives me the whole of the K&A, the Thames above Reading, most of the Southern Oxford, A bit of the Grand Union, Part of the Stratford Canal, the other Avon from Stratford, The Severn, the G&S... and Bath is at an extreme of the system!

 

From Marple, where I'm typing this, a sixty mile radius covers virtually every waterway north of Birmingham!

 

Well that's me sold on the idea anyway!

[Lady Muck]

Hi Pedronasty - I've lived onboard in London seven years, though not as a cruiser.

 

I've spoken to the canal trust but even they didn't seem completely sure on the rules!

 

These are the guidelines, I'm surprised they didn't tell you http://www.waterscape.com/media/documents/1862.pdf

 

These guidelines will be challenged by judicial review in the near future. If the challenger loses, then we all know where we stand with the guidance, if the challenger wins, then they will possibly change the guidance or have enough evidence to get a new act of parliament. Whatever happens, we will all very sure of the requirements.

You should be aware that:

Because of the housing crisis, the number of constant cruisers in London has gone from under 200 to about 1000 in the past 6 years and continues to increase (edited to add - 50 boats a month). CRT can't limit numbers and lots of us (including quite a few cruisers, now) are worried about this.

The boaters services are overloaded- as well as the numbers of boaters increasing, the number of taps, elsan points etc has gone down.

There is conflict between residents on the bankside and boaters, for instance in Islington, the council is threatening to take CRT to court because of what they see as anti-social behaviour (overcrowding, litter, fires on towpath, fumes from boat stoves, engine and generator running etc) The water tap at Old Ford has been vandalised (pipes cut) maybe as much as ten times now.

There is conflict between other user groups (leisure boaters, visitors to London, community boats etc) who are unhappy that they can't find moorings when visiting, they can't turn boats as there are boats moored in the way etc.

 

Some of us are working hard to try and find a solution, but the one constant we have is that we can't stretch the canal and there is limited opportunity for new moorings.

How far do I have to move every two weeks?

 

See the guidance. If you try to permanently live in central London, moving between a handful of visitor moorings, then you can expect to be ticketed and asked to cruise further. In practise we see some boats take long trips out of town, especially in the summer - holidays are spent on the Thames, in the Midlands or at the far ends of the Lee or Stort.

 

Are there lots of moorings round London for me to move to every couple of weeks? And if I just moor up on the side of the canal how do I know how long I can stay?

 

It's a bit full in town, in my opinion. There are visitor moorings, but your license permits you to moor anywhere for 14 days unless a sign says otherwise. There are some places you can't moor, because there's not enough depth, nothing to tie onto.

How do I find out where facilities such as filling my water and emptying my waste water tanks are?

 

You can download info from the Waterscape Website - http://www.waterscape.com/things-to-do/boating/guides

We have a London Boaters Facebook group, all the trading boats (fuel boats) have Facebook pages. We have an email list and a website.

 

Any other pointers for someone looking at this as a way of life? Things like having an address so I can vote or pay council tax, or where I could park my motorbike. Solar panels vs generators. How to get the internet.

 

You can vote, as long as you register as a traveller. Many of us use a relatives address for post. It's not really permitted to keep a motorcycle on the towpath, some people have a modified tug deck on their boat. Solar panels are great in summer, next to useless in winter. Genrators get nicked if you don't secure them properly.

 

You're not permitted to run an engine or generator between 8pm and 8am, this can be a real problem if you get home late from work and have flat batteries. If you ignore this and are moored in a residential area and run it anyway, then we can end up in a situation like we have in Islington, with residents complaining about the noise and fumes.

 

Moving and getting water and emptying your loo can take all weekend up, quite easily. Remember boating is as fast as walking, to go from Camden to Kings Cross can easily take three hours because of the locks. As there are now so few water taps, in the more central areas that are busy with boats, expect to queue, especially at weekends.

 

I don't mean to be gloomy, it's just that when you walk the towpath and see the boats you probably didn't realise the downsides, especially not this time of year.

One of the big problems we have in London is the people who buy a boat in the summer, only to realise it's hard work and they hate it, they then struggle to sell up and rent the boat out to someone else, often someone with no experience of boating, who has no idea that they can't hang around in central London and they end up doing things that annoy others (for instance mooring on water points or lock moorings).

Edited August 2, 2013 by Lady Muck
new facts n figures

[cotswoldsman]

 

Solar panels are great in summer, next to useless in winter.

Ummm do not agree mine certainly manage a good charge during the winter as they say it is all about light not sun. OK not as much as during the long days of summer but still enough to mean I run my engine less in the winter than I did before I had Solar Panels

[carlt]

 

You're not permitted to run an engine or generator between 8pm and 8am, this can be a real problem if you get home late from work and have flat batteries.

As a continuous cruiser you can always go boating.

 

There are no time restrictions on running your engine if your boat is moving.

[RLWP]

Lady M, have a virtual greenie, and a hug

 

Richard

[DillyDally]

Another virtual greenie from me Lady M (why can't I give a real one)... Brilliant and precisely informative post!

[Lady Muck]

As a continuous cruiser you can always go boating.

 

There are no time restrictions on running your engine if your boat is moving.

You can, but in practise that just doesn't seem to happen much, in town.

Ummm do not agree mine certainly manage a good charge during the winter as they say it is all about light not sun. OK not as much as during the long days of summer but still enough to mean I run my engine less in the winter than I did before I had Solar Panels

thanks for clarification

[carlt]

You can, but in practise that just doesn't seem to happen much, in town.

Again, like I said to MrSmelly, if you want to continuously cruise then you need to do it within the rules which is perfectly possible.

 

If you are unable to do it legally then, in practice, you are not a continuous cruiser.

[Grace and Favour]

Excellent summary Lady Muck

 

Have a greenie ✔

[Lady Muck]

I'd say that in the West End, it's got to the point where the number of boats is making it increasingly difficult to comply with the rules. If you want to move your boat, you need to find somewhere to move it to.

 

Another observation is that some boaters seem unwilling to cruise very far for services, I'd think nothing of a six hour trip to a boatyard, but for many one hour is too much.

The trading boats (some of whom now do pump out and elsan) have made this easier for boaters to remain in a small geographical area, but I've noticed an expectation from some noobs that everything will come to them and they don't need to go looking for it. When this doesn't happen they get angry. Cue frantic postings to the fuel boats because their loo is full.

 

I guess this is more about our modern, 'it's all about me' culture than boating.

 

After all, we all managed perfectly well in London for decades without that many services in town (there have never been many boater services in town).

[carlt]

It does seem a shame that people can't see beyond the end of their road.

 

I was catching the London train from Long Buckby Station to get to work in the 90s, rather than live in the city and my commute time was often shorter than my colleagues who lived in the capital.

[Lady Muck]

I know, that's the really sad thing - boaters seem happy to be triple berthed in a depressing part of town where there are indecent assaults on the towpath and no boater services, when just a few hours away, you can be in beautiful countryside, freshwater lake to swim in, supermarket and train station 10 minutes away, I will never understand it. Why buy a boat that enables you to moor in beautiful places where you could never ever afford to live, yet choose to remain in the roughest, noisiest part of central London?

 

I've moored at Long Buckby and commuted to meetings in Twickenham a few summers ago.

 

And the lower Lee (two locks below my mooring), at the moment is basically an open sewer, it stinks and there are dead fish everywhere.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Lady Muck

[Dekazer]

In addition to what Lady M has said, don't rule out getting a mooring - it's likely that a mooring would cost less than the rent on a flat. Although they're not common, it's not impossible to find residential moorings. I know of some that are on auction (Willow Wren) and Packet Boat, Apsley and Moorhen Marina seem to have vacancies from time to time. Engineers Wharf pops up every so often. If you commute further, you can moor for less.

 

We've always chosen to live on residential moorings (in London - we're just about to move to our third) and it costs less than a flat would (including the loan to buy the boat).

 

As someone who has lived aboard for many years, and therefore knows how my boat works etc, I wouldn't move off a mooring to CC around London at the moment. Too difficult now.

 

I would, however, consider doing what some people do and keep my boat on a leisure mooring, and just cruise loads. Some marinas are very clear that you can stay onboard in the marina for X nights per month. If you take the boat out of the marina for the remaining nights, you're clear.

 

You might find, as a new boater, that having access to certain onshore facilities might be useful. For example, if you get a boat that needs some work doing, it's a lot easier to do at a mooring than on the towpath. Worth considering.

 

I hope that you can see that most people have replied in a way that is ultimately in your interest, even if some are sterner than others. Fair play to you for doing your research, and if you go ahead with your plan, best of luck with it, but the concensus here is that you'd be better off finding a mooring.

 

Lucy

[OldGoat]

I'd say that in the West End, it's got to the point where the number of boats is making it increasingly difficult to comply with the rules. If you want to move your boat, you need to find somewhere to move it to.

 

Another observation is that some boaters seem unwilling to cruise very far for services, I'd think nothing of a six hour trip to a boatyard, but for many one hour is too much.

The trading boats (some of whom now do pump out and elsan) have made this easier for boaters to remain in a small geographical area, but I've noticed an expectation from some noobs that everything will come to them and they don't need to go looking for it. When this doesn't happen they get angry. Cue frantic postings to the fuel boats because their loo is full.

 

I guess this is more about our modern, 'it's all about me' culture than boating.

 

After all, we all managed perfectly well in London for decades without that many services in town (there have never been many boater services in town).

 

 

A very well thought out and presented series of posts.

Canals were just not designed for miles and miles of moored boats.

The infrastructure (water points, refuse and waste water disposal) is not designed for that type of use.

 

I have sympathy for folks who couldn't possibly raise the money for a flat or house and turn to the waterways as an alternative. To my mind it's a time bomb waiting for a big (relatively) bang.

Time was when folks living aboard did so because they had affinity for that sort of environment - and accordingly took care not to damage it. Now it's seen as a cost effective form of accommodation and people care less for managing their surroundings. That's someone else's job, innit?

 

Something's got to give, somewhere - a pollution incident, perhaps. Draconian legislation? Collapse of the canal system?

It could take several years to resolve and end up being very unpleasant for all boaters.

 

I can't think of any PRACTICAL solution; ideas anyone?

[Lady Muck]

Well, we're into six four hour workshops, a new member of staff in CRT and counting. Thing is, we can try to make more moorings, but we can't limit the number of boats - just like Londons roads, the solution works, but only for so long. I also feel a bit bemused when we get boaters who don't use our waterways fighting for the rights of our local cruisers, when I'm not sure they understand what is going on here, what the real issues are.

 

I have to say, the great majority of boaters here are respectful, but it's a scale thing. If you have 50 boats and 5% of boaters are known to be selfish idiots who moor on lock moorings and leave rubbish, then that's just a few boats. If you have 1000 boats, well, go figure.

Edited August 1, 2013 by Lady Muck

[carlt]

Canals were just not designed for miles and miles of moored boats.

The infrastructure (water points, refuse and waste water disposal) is not designed for that type of use.

The canals were not designed for thousands of pleasure boats toing and froing either but, as the emphasis has changed from cargo transport to leisure and living, they have become more capable of accommodating both online moorings and leisure craft.

 

I think the problem is exaggerated by those who inhabit the few areas where congestion exists and, though we may see isolated problems I really don't think there is any danger of any "big bang".

 

Edited to add: I didn't mean that those in congested areas exaggerate their particular problem, btw, just that the problems are not system wide).

Edited August 1, 2013 by carlt