Cruising while also having a mooring

[DailyCrumpet]

I hope this is not a totally daft question but I have waded through a huge amount of discussion and reporting both on this site and across other sources regarding the requirements for a cc license holder vs someone with a home mooring. However what if you have a mooring that you pay for and therefore are not a CC'er for the sake of getting your licence but you do cruise a lot rather than stay in the mooring all the time. Can you be accused of being a 'bridge hopper' if you do a lot of local cruising and short term mooring rather than being stuck in the home mooring all the time, or can you do what you want (sticking to maximum stays) because you also have a home mooring to fall back on? Does this even make sense? Hope so if not I will be happy to reiterate.

 

 

[Jess--]

From what I can work out if you are not on your home mooring you are treated as if you were a continuous cruiser.

 

It tends to be viewed this way to try and prevent ghost moorings where a boat has a mooring on paper (usually in the north of the country) but is never seen there because it's always somewhere else on the network (usually around the london area)

[eightacre]

I think you are worrying unnecessarily. The CRT rules regarding length of stay apply to everyone, but as far as your licence is concerned you won't be "bridge-hopping".

[David Mack]

If you leave your mooring on an extended cruise over a reasonable distance, never stopping for more than 14 days (or such shorter time as is signposted) you will be fine.

 

If you leave your home mooring every weekend and potter down to the nearby pub, stay the night and then return to your home mooring you will be fine (the clock is reset each time you return to your home mooring).

 

If you have a home mooring, but the boat is never there, but is regularly spotted in the same 2 or 3 locations within a few miles of each other you may well be regarded as being a bridge hopper with a ghost mooring.

[Paul C]

If you've read up on the subject already, then all the evidence is there to make your own mind up about the situation/legality/official position held by CRT.

 

Personally, I see it as a legal loophole - and because its legal, I have no issues with it at all.

 

I appreciate its a dynamic situation though, and that the changes to the T&Cs which affect this have only just come in so we've seen no action (on either side, if you perceive there to be 'sides') from it yet. The Tony Dunkley case is interesting but because it was ultimately dropped, just that.

[W+T]

Easy, get the mooring and do a syou wish, tell no bugger what you are doing and see what comes of it, just enjoy while you can. there will always be somebody to moan about what ever you do.

[Arthur Brown]

If you make a cruise that could be called progressing -ie moving round the system that's fine as long as you obey any time limits and return visits on your route. If you have a mooring in no man's land and cruise a mile each way from Camden Town tube station, expect to see the product of your CMing rapidly imposed by CaRT

[DailyCrumpet]

Thanks everyone - the term 'ghost mooring' is now helping me clarify the scenario and I'm finding some extra CRT Q&A bits that I hadn't yet picked up on.

I would not be holding a ghost mooring simply regularly escaping the confines of a less than glamorous marina but having a home mooring does mean you keep returning to square one and therefore don't stray over a huge radius and will be reappearing on the same bits of canal when working away from and back to the marina, hence my original question.

[Arthur Brown]

While not offending the CC provisions you could offend some shorter restricted visitor moorings especially some restricted to nn hours or days with no return within month size periods.

 

If the mooring is on private waters then you could be seen outside your favourite pub every Sunday lunch and never reported elsewhere leading to a presumption that you were there for all the time between sightings.

[magictime]

having a home mooring does mean you keep returning to square one and therefore don't stray over a huge radius and will be reappearing on the same bits of canal when working away from and back to the marina, hence my original question.

 

I really can't imagine CaRT giving you any trouble just because you're using your home mooring as a home mooring - i.e. setting out from it at the beginning of a cruise and returning to it at the end. As you suggest, there's no way around the fact that a boat using a home mooring as a base for regular leisure cruising (which is the intended use of non-residential home moorings, after all!) is regularly going to be cruising and mooring in the local area. As long as you're respecting time limits on visitor moorings etc., I wouldn't worry about it.