Canal Life 2017

[MtB]

'Dumping' is set to become a serious issue I think. Certainly on the K&A. Wherever I moor I can't help but notice which boats appear occupied and which don't - or rather which boats tend to have lights showing in the dark or heat haze from the chimney in daylight.

 

I'd say roughly 50% of the boats I walk past on the towpath in the evening on the way back my own boat appear dark and cold. Admittedly the owners of some boats may be home even later than me, and others may have gone to sleep already or be in the pub, but I suspect getting on for 50% of CCing boats are not regularly occupied around here.

 

I put this down to CRT ramping up the prices of towpath moorings. Five or six years ago a 70ft unserviced on-line mooring could be had for £1,000 a year. Now the same mooring is £3,000 (ish). There is no such thing as a cheap mooring on the K&A these days.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

DMR

Take uo composting.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

Sorry,

Thats not the point.

 

The point was winter moorings

 

I don't know the answer.

 

I'm drunk.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

I f he is dead,

Compost him/her

[David Schweizer]

'Dumping' is set to become a serious issue I think. Certainly on the K&A. Wherever I moor I can't help but notice which boats appear occupied and which don't - or rather which boats tend to have lights showing in the dark or heat haze from the chimney in daylight.

 

I'd say roughly 50% of the boats I walk past on the towpath in the evening on the way back my own boat appear dark and cold. Admittedly the owners of some boats may be home even later than me, and others may have gone to sleep already or be in the pub, but I suspect getting on for 50% of CCing boats are not regularly occupied around here.

 

I put this down to CRT ramping up the prices of towpath moorings. Five or six years ago a 70ft unserviced on-line mooring could be had for £1,000 a year. Now the same mooring is £3,000 (ish). There is no such thing as a cheap mooring on the K&A these days.

 

Well they don't know how lucky they were then. I was paying a lot more than that for an unserviced 52 ft towpath mooring in the West Midlands fifteen years ago. The K&A has just caught up with the rest of the county.

Edited February 10, 2017 by David Schweizer

[MtB]

Maybe not on the K&A but when I left T&K marina five years ago I'd been watching moorings on the BW site regularly going for a three figure sum.

[David Schweizer]

Maybe not on the K&A but when I left T&K marina five years ago I'd been watching moorings on the BW site regularly going for a three figure sum.

 

And how much were you paying for your other mooring at Calcutt? I'd be surprised if that was three figures, we were quoted well into four figures fifteen years ago.

Edited February 10, 2017 by David Schweizer

[mrsmelly]

 

And how much were you paying for your other mooring at Calcutt? I'd be surprised if that was three figures, we were quoted well into four figures fifteen years ago.

 

Its a pound a foot per week here.

[magictime]

I put this down to CRT ramping up the prices of towpath moorings. Five or six years ago a 70ft unserviced on-line mooring could be had for £1,000 a year. Now the same mooring is £3,000 (ish). There is no such thing as a cheap mooring on the K&A these days.

 

I suppose the thing about moorings is that they have radically different values to different types of boater.

 

If you have a strong preference or need to leave your boat unattended for long periods, only doing a few weeks' and weekends' cruising here and there, a mooring has quite a high value to you. Maybe your boat spends 10 months of the year on its mooring, saving you a considerable amount of worry and hassle compared to having to move it around to comply with the 14 day rule, making it relatively easy to feel you're getting your money's worth.

 

If you have a strong preference for cruising most weekends (say), or in any case find it easy enough to do so, a permanent mooring just doesn't have anything like the same value to you. In our own case, we had a mooring for our first year or two of boat ownership, but found our boat was rarely on it except in winter because we tended to just leave it on the towpath between weekend cruises within a largeish 'local' area in West and North Yorkshire. Giving up the mooring saved us £800 a year or so (small boat!) but the only hassle involved was a few short winter cruises we might not otherwise have bothered with.

[hounddog]

Lots of gaps of 30 to 40 foot between boats.

 

Easy then, simply move one boat 35 foot and then there's room for you beside it.

 

If they're truly 'dumpers' as you say, no-one will even moan.

 

Once again the solution is a lot easier than complaining on the internet.

[MtB]

 

And how much were you paying for your other mooring at Calcutt? I'd be surprised if that was three figures, we were quoted well into four figures fifteen years ago.

 

It was about £1600 a year IIRC. Cheaper than a CRT online mooring. Although there was a 'entry fee' of about £450 IIRC payable right at the start, which made the first year a little over £2k.

(45ft boat though.)

[Victor Vectis]

I f he is dead,

Compost him/her

Last year I watched an ecological Punch & Judy show, the 'professor' going under the moniker of Professor Queen Bee.

 

Having performed the infanticide Mr Punch puts the baby's body out with the recycling. Judy enters and asks the audience where the baby is. On receiving the reply that Punch has killed it and put the body in the recycling she says:

 

"Oh children that's terrible, terribe. Naughty Mr Punch. The baby is organic so we all know it should go in the compost, not the recycling!"

[MtB]

But did the crocodile still eat the sausages?

 

(And were they vegan sausages?)

[David Schweizer]

 

It was about £1600 a year IIRC. Cheaper than a CRT online mooring. Although there was a 'entry fee' of about £450 IIRC payable right at the start, which made the first year a little over £2k.

(45ft boat though.)

 

Which supports my earlier statement that those on the K&A enjoying 70ft moorings for a £1,000 pa did not know how lucky they were.

[Victor Vectis]

But did the crocodile still eat the sausages?

 

(And were they vegan sausages?)

Well yes and no.

 

As well as killing the baby Punch kills one of Judy's bees (Judy being a bee keeper you understand) and turns it into yellow and black stripy sausages, which the crocodile then eats.

 

ETA The whole show was quite a bizarre, ecological take on Punch and Judy. Even Prince Charles put in an appearance (!) He encouraged the audience to sing to the wildflowers he had planted (wildflowers = good for the bees) to make them grow.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Victor Vectis

[MtB]

 

Which supports my earlier statement that those on the K&A enjoying 70ft moorings for a £1,000 pa did not know how lucky they were

 

 

I'm not following you here.

 

I thought we were discussing the proliferation of dumpers, and what the reasons might be.

I was suggesting it is because CRT have raised the price of online moorings from £1k to £3k.

[Machpoint005]

 

 

I'm not following you here.

 

I thought we were discussing the proliferation of dumpers, and what the reasons might be.

I was suggesting it is because CRT have raised the price of online moorings from £1k to £3k.

 

Which perhaps raises the question of whether it was an intended or unintended consequence?

[MtB]

 

Which perhaps raises the question of whether it was an intended or unintended consequence?

 

 

Yes indeed.

 

My view is it is an unintended and unexpected consequence, I think CRT have an overall policy of getting rid of on line moorings in favour of marina moorings, and raising the price of on line moorings has been done in order encourage boaters into marinas.

 

CRT expected boaters with moorings to think "Oh for the same money I can go in a marina with a nice car park, pontoons and all the facilities" and migrate into the marinas. What actually happened was a good proportion thought they'd CC instead. Moving the boat once a fortnight is not that onerous when it saves £3,000 a year.

Not only that but £750 for a three month winter mooring with priority space on one of the very best VMs also begins to make sense.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[Sir Nibble]

There used to be a lot of dumpers who just claimed a bit of piling and used it like an online mooring. Not moving for weeks then cruised for a weekend and put back in the same place. I imagine enforcement waking up put a stop to such blatant abuse.

[MtB]

There used to be a lot of dumpers who just claimed a bit of piling and used it like an online mooring. Not moving for weeks then cruised for a weekend and put back in the same place. I imagine enforcement waking up put a stop to such blatant abuse.

 

 

That's not dumping though, that's CMing.

 

'Dumping' is fully compliant CCing whilst not occupying the boat when moored. its an abuse but a change in the law will be required to stop it.

[tommytelford]

Going back to the start of this topic the comment was made that there were gaps of 30 or 40 feet between boats. In this day and age where casual mooring is becoming so difficult why don't boaters consider othes and moor up close to othe moored boats so leaving the maximum of space? Last year we wanted to stop at Fradley and had the same problem with boats leaving 10 feet gaps. We found the biggest space and asked 2 guys to move, One was quite happy to do so and the other one moved but complained that it meant he would have to be "too close" to the boat behind him.

[MtB]

Going back to the start of this topic the comment was made that there were gaps of 30 or 40 feet between boats. In this day and age where casual mooring is becoming so difficult why don't boaters consider othes and moor up close to othe moored boats so leaving the maximum of space? Last year we wanted to stop at Fradley and had the same problem with boats leaving 10 feet gaps. We found the biggest space and asked 2 guys to move, One was quite happy to do so and the other one moved but complained that it meant he would have to be "too close" to the boat behind him.

 

 

What gets my goat (I lurve that term!) is the tendency for boaters arriving on VMs to refuse to tie to the same mooring ring as the boat in front. Instead, they use the next ring along thereby leaving a 5m+ space.

[mrsmelly]

 

 

What gets my goat (I lurve that term!) is the tendency for boaters arriving on VMs to refuse to tie to the same mooring ring as the boat in front. Instead, they use the next ring along thereby leaving a 5m+ space.

 

I am absolooooooooooootely with you on that one i bloomin ate peeps who leave gaps. Its bad enough trying to find a big enough gap when you own a full boat as it is and when there are loads of 10 foot gaps The only time it can help is if you are just coming in to moor and a piddly little sixty footer has pulled out and he had moored up with gaps so you can still get in. It doesnt effect us often though as we tend to avoid vms like the plague and go out of town as it were.

[Dave Payne]

 

Easy then, simply move one boat 35 foot and then there's room for you beside it.

 

If they're truly 'dumpers' as you say, no-one will even moan.

 

Once again the solution is a lot easier than complaining on the internet.

That was my first thought, but I know some boaters where I wouldn't dare touch their boat.

[magictime]

'Dumping' is fully compliant CCing whilst not occupying the boat when moored. its an abuse

 

In what way? We used to be out on our boat at least every other weekend doing short cruises around a fairly wide 'local' area, plus a few longer cruises when we had the opportunity, and were quite happy to leave the boat on the towpath in between cruises. As such we had absolutely no use for a home mooring, any more than a liveaboard cruising in a similar pattern would have done. Are you suggesting Parliament intended only to exempt liveaboard CCers from the requirement for a home mooring, and inadvertently created a loophole that has then been exploited by people like us? What makes you think so?