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Any good statistics that show increase in liveaboards across the Inland Waterways?


Jim Batty

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I’ve been trying to get a handle on what the increase might be in people choosing to live aboard boats across the Inland Waterways system -- say over the past five years. It’s proving more difficult than I thought. Does anyone know of some good surveys or data out there?

 

Here’s what I’ve discovered so far.

 

Liveaboards in London:

 

1,615 continuous cruisers were sighted in London in the March 2016 5th annual boat count -- which was an increase of 390 extra boats over the previous year.

In 2012 there were 638 CCers; 2013 = 769; 2014 = 1,031; 2015 = 1,225. [Report of a CRT Users Forum, Oct 2016 ]

“Last year Greater London saw a 34% increase in continuous cruisers” [CityMetric article, Mar 2015 -- doesn’t quite fit with the above.]

Liveaboards across the system:

 

A 2008 boaters’ survey conducted by BW included the question “Is your boat your main residence?”, to which 18% answered yes as a main or Mon-Fri residence. Extrapolating from this, BW estimated that there were about 5,400 residential boat on their waterways (out of about 32,000).

The EA estimated that there were just over 309 vessels and static houseboats on Agency waters (out of about 23,000).

The Broads Authority estimated less than 50 boats used as a main residence (out of about 12,000).

-- [These are all from the AINA Advisory Document Residential Use of Waterways, 2011]

 

A separate difficulty is distinguishing liveaboards from continuous cruisers. From our own (south of Braunston) experience I’d guess that about 50% of continuously cruising boats are usually uninhabited. (I’m not making judgements here, I’m interested in the liveaboard aspect.)

 

Is this people’s perception generally, or am I way off?

 

 

Thanks for any insights.

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Unless the question has been specifically asked, as in the 2008 survey, it will be impossible to find out. This is because the "no home mooring" licence is the same for liveaboards, continuous cruisers (who may or may not be liveabords), those who liveaboard but continuously cruise in the summer then take a winter mooring and those who use their boat for purely leisure purposes but prefer to move every 14 days rather than pay to put the boat in a marina.

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You dont need statistics. Ask long termers what they think. When we moved onboard in 89 usualy went more than a day before we saw another liveaboard. In 92/ 93 we moored on the K and A near bath and between Bath and Bradford on avon there were about 6 of us liveaboards and we could moor anywhere such as Dundas or Bathampton and be virtualy on our own The increase is dramatic and growing year on year. People now live aboard due to stupid property prices, we all lived on board then because we wanted to as now.

 

 

Tim

Edited by mrsmelly
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Beware of conflating liveaboards with continuous cruisers. There are plenty of boats with no home moorings whose owners live in bricks and mortar elsewhere. Even greater numbers may well exist for liveaboards who do have home moorings.

 

The answer is that simply nobody knows.

 

Anecdotally, it seems pretty clear that it is on the increase.

 

Also what exactly do you mean by 'choosing' to live on a boat. Many current liveaboards never got to choose, their parents chose for them.

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I’ve been trying to get a handle on what the increase might be in people choosing to live aboard boats across the Inland Waterways system -- say over the past five years. It’s proving more difficult than I thought. Does anyone know of some good surveys or data out there?

 

Here’s what I’ve discovered so far.

 

Liveaboards in London:

 

1,615 continuous cruisers were sighted in London in the March 2016 5th annual boat count -- which was an increase of 390 extra boats over the previous year.

In 2012 there were 638 CCers; 2013 = 769; 2014 = 1,031; 2015 = 1,225. [Report of a CRT Users Forum, Oct 2016 ]

“Last year Greater London saw a 34% increase in continuous cruisers” [CityMetric article, Mar 2015 -- doesn’t quite fit with the above.]

That fits exactly - 'last year' is 2014, increase from 769 in 2013 to 1,031 in 2014 is 34%

 

Dave

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Unless the question has been specifically asked, as in the 2008 survey, it will be impossible to find out. ...

 

Yes, I suspect you are right. And that question doesn’t seem to have been asked very often.

 

You dont need statistics. Ask long termers what they think. When we moved onboard in 89 usualy went more than a day before we saw another liveaboard. In 92/ 93 we moored on the K and A near bath and between Bath and Bradford on avon there were about 6 of us liveaboards and we could moor anywhere such as Dundas or Bathampton and be virtualy on our own The increase is dramatic and growing year on year. People now live aboard due to stupid property prices, we all lived on board then because we wanted to as now.

 

 

Tim

 

I’d like to be able to quantify the increase. (So I can then argue that we should be increasing online residential moorings, not reducing them.)

 

Those sound like golden days! I’ve always felt you should move onto a boat ... only if you really want to live on a boat. I feel sorry for anyone who feels ‘trapped’ living afloat because of house prices -- it must seem like they’re always waiting for ‘life to begin’ or things to become ’normal’. I can’t imagine people who really don’t enjoy it to hack it more than two winters.

 

Beware of conflating liveaboards with continuous cruisers. There are plenty of boats with no home moorings whose owners live in bricks and mortar elsewhere. Even greater numbers may well exist for liveaboards who do have home moorings.

 

The answer is that simply nobody knows.

 

Anecdotally, it seems pretty clear that it is on the increase.

 

Also what exactly do you mean by 'choosing' to live on a boat. Many current liveaboards never got to choose, their parents chose for them.

 

Yes, not conflating them is what I was doing by distinguishing them!

 

Ha. Good. Hadn’t thought about ‘born-aboards’.

 

I would agree with the above my own moorings has shown an increase in livaboards for me it was because I wanted a boat for others its because they have no choice

 

Do people really not have a choice to move aboard a boat? Even financially? Only if you see it in binary terms: house/flat or boat. You could live in a van, tee pee, house share, flat share, cheap-ish bedsit on the edge of town, live at home, sofa surf, migrate south to wander about and live in a tent picking up odd jobs along the way, exchange work for a place to stay, ... OK, I’m half-joking. But really, you COULD do a lot of these. It just may be that for some people, living on a boat would be better than any of these ways of living. But then that would be a choice wouldn’t it?

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Yes, I suspect you are right. And that question doesn’t seem to have been asked very often.

 

 

 

I’d like to be able to quantify the increase. (So I can then argue that we should be increasing online residential moorings, not reducing them.)

 

If all licence holders were asked if they wanted an increase in online moorings, then the answer would be a definitive NO, because the vast majority of boaters will not want to to go past mile after mile of moored boats on tickover.

 

There is a mile long online mooring at the northern end of the Shropshire Union which is not popular with those who regularly use that route. This is why CRT and BW before them have a policy of encouraging marinas and reducing online moorings.

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If all licence holders were asked if they wanted an increase in online moorings, then the answer would be a definitive NO, because the vast majority of boaters will not want to to go past mile after mile of moored boats on tickover.

 

There is a mile long online mooring at the northern end of the Shropshire Union which is not popular with those who regularly use that route. This is why CRT and BW before them have a policy of encouraging marinas and reducing online moorings.

 

Hi Cuthound

 

Thanks for your responses. Yes, I am aware of those CRT/BW policies that seek to transfer online boats into marinas. Ultimately, though, marinas and offline developments are very expensive and very patchy. They are only a partial solution.

 

And, yes, slowing to pass long stretches of liveaboards is a drag. That’s why I think there shouldn’t be long lines of liveaboards gathered in one place. I also think that it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of modern marine engineering to develop simple and robust mooring technology that goes some way to addressing the problem of boats jostling when passed an anything above tick-over. It seems to me the waterways world is in flux and we need new ideas to address its new challenges.

 

... but I’m sort of getting ahead of myself. I’d really like to know how dramatic an increase in liveaboards there actually is taking place -- or not -- and especially outside London and the western K&A.

 

Has there been a great increase on the Shroppie over the last five years?

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If all licence holders were asked if they wanted an increase in online moorings, then the answer would be a definitive NO, because the vast majority of boaters will not want to to go past mile after mile of moored boats on tickover.

 

There is a mile long online mooring at the northern end of the Shropshire Union which is not popular with those who regularly use that route. This is why CRT and BW before them have a policy of encouraging marinas and reducing online moorings.

 

Actualy on a personal level that is not the case I vastly prefer on line moorings and I dont care two hoots how long the boat lines are I always pass on tickover it realy is no big deal and marinas are absolutely awful so each to their own.

 

Tim

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Actualy on a personal level that is not the case I vastly prefer on line moorings and I dont care two hoots how long the boat lines are I always pass on tickover it realy is no big deal and marinas are absolutely awful so each to their own.

 

Tim

yes but some people actually use boats to travel relatively long distances, hundreds of mile in a season, 20+ miles in a day, that cannot be done at tickover in daylight even in summer. If we still had working boats there would be no passing at tickover ever, as time is money and 1 MPH versus 4MPH is a no brainer you either moor properly for a 4MPH passing, or you would just be torn off the bank in Europe on the canals they do not slow down.

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yes but some people actually use boats to travel relatively long distances, hundreds of mile in a season, 20+ miles in a day, that cannot be done at tickover in daylight even in summer. If we still had working boats there would be no passing at tickover ever, as time is money and 1 MPH versus 4MPH is a no brainer you either moor properly for a 4MPH passing, or you would just be torn off the bank in Europe on the canals they do not slow down.

 

Well luckily we are not in Europe and that is not relevant as they do not have our tiny ditch system were shallow narrow water makes fast movement a problem. I have done many a 20 plus day years ago as a newbie but no longer want to do that. I agree that lots of people do not know how to moor correctly but I am not one of them I have way more experience in several types of boats than many. Also alass we no longer have many working boats on the narrow or larger systems in the uk which is a great shame I luv the pictures of my Dad steering his barge from Goole to Nottingham in the 1930s they are very evocative. Our system now like it or not is 99 percent leisure use and we dont need speed passing a few moored boats, there is usualy many miles in your twenty mile day without long lines of moored boats. We have plenty of places we can go fast if we want to such as my fav bit of the system on the tidal Trent ( Speed limits vary ) so nip onto that its fab.

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Unless the question has been specifically asked, as in the 2008 survey, it will be impossible to find out. This is because the "no home mooring" licence is the same for liveaboards, continuous cruisers (who may or may not be liveabords), those who liveaboard but continuously cruise in the summer then take a winter mooring and those who use their boat for purely leisure purposes but prefer to move every 14 days rather than pay to put the boat in a marina.

Even surveys will seriously under count as I know of a number that liveaboard on leisure moorings keeping a low profile to avoid council etc conflict. They would never tick the liveaboard box.

 

It probably suits the officials not to know so they will not ask or even deliberately look.

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Even surveys will seriously under count as I know of a number that liveaboard on leisure moorings keeping a low profile to avoid council etc conflict. They would never tick the liveaboard box.

 

It probably suits the officials not to know so they will not ask or even deliberately look.

 

This post hits the nail squarley on the head. The funny ones tho who try to stay under the radar then have a RBOA sticker in the boat window do amuse me though.

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