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Is it possible that CaRT just want all of the waterways to contunue and improve as they claim? Surely if they wanted to be rid of CCers they could just increase the licence fees for people without a home mooring. I know it's nice and easy to have a big bad bogey man to blame for all our ills but these constant accusations of ulterior motives and hidden agendas is verging on paranoia.

divide and rule seems to be trotted out by every chancer and piss taker to somehow indicate that because we all have boats we should unite behind their wish to occupy two moorings 1/2 hour apart for 14 days each ad infinitum or else one day the CaRT gestapo will kick our doors in.

Can we not just have one thread that doesn't have a go at CCers?

To be a CCer as I understand it, a boater declares they are engaged in bona fide navigation. I suggest that anyone seeking a minimum distance to move in 14 days is by definition not engaged in bona fide navigation, thereby demonstrating themselves non-complaint. MtB

Aaarrghhhh!! I cannae take it any more! <pedant> It's "ripArian!" </pedant>

It does tend to seem a bit heavy handed taking the card but peeps do pee off without paying I am afraid. It never happens to me though, in fact we and some friends are going out to a restaurant now and I will use the same way I always have its called cash and it never fails. Oh and as an afterthought if you tell them you use real money ill bet they let you have a tab, they often do with me. Cash is, always has been and always will be King there is simply no way even the biggies will ever make us a cashless society. Tim

I think everyone has said the same thing, just in different ways, many times. But the fact remains that whether you own a car and use it daily or 10 times a year, you need a license. Whether you fish for one day or every month, you need a license. Whether you want to drive a car once or for the rest of your life, you need a license. The CRT is no different in requiring you to get a license if you want to keep a boat on their canal/river system. They take care of it and if falls under their jurisdiction. Many people own boats and either keep them in the water full time, have them out for a month or two for repairs, or put them in only when they use them. But whatever the circumstance, you need a LICENSE. It is just one of those things you have to suck up. How long is your day boat, 20, 30 feet long? If so, you get off easy for a license. Consider yourself lucky that you have a place to keep your boat, others have to pay a mooring fee plus the cost of a license. I wish I had a place like that.

Hi, I suppose one of the advantages of mooring restrictions is that there will be a reasonable through put of boats mooring up during events such as 'SB @ War' -- as previously at these popular events boaters would moor up days in advance to get a good pitch and then leave the boat unoccupied until the event. Empty boats occupying moorings do not provide customers for local enterprises - these tend to 'screw' the public who visit to view the events in droves. Boaters normally are self sufficient with regard to food and 'pop'. One place which gets my vote is the Indian restaurant, it's brill, a large take away normally lasts two days (normal health restrictions on reheated rice apply). Leo (No1) PS Is the Boat still charging top dollar for drinks?.....

I own the land to the middle of the road in front of my house but I still have to pay road tax if I want to park a car on it. What's even more annoying is that the council keep laying tarmac on my vegetable patch.

I suspect it was a genuine mistake. I find mistakes in restaurant bills occur frequently, and often its failing to charge for something we had rather than charging for something we didn't have. If we are undercharged I always point this out and have the bill changed, though this sometimes raises comments such as "gosh, you are honest" as opposed to it being the expected behaviour. What sort of a nation are we <generalisation alert> when we would intentionally not pay for something we had, knowing full well the price on the menu? These sort of small businesses rarely make a vast profit and work pretty hard for what profit they do make.

I don't think Cart are coming up with any new ideas that BW didn't come up with. I do think they are fed up with one small group of boaters that cause them a disproportionate amount of trouble

Regardless of who ruined whose holiday.... If a boat isn't licensed and there is a section 8 for not licencing it then licensing it doesn't, in my understanding, make everything instantly OK does it? Once proceedings are underway, proceedings are in place? I thought I understood section 8 until a local boat was removed from the waterways. It was licenced but the Boat didn't have a mooring and had overstayed which I was told (not by the authorities) was due to the mooring situation. I also thought that the licence was about floating on CRT waters whether in a marina or not and nothing about cruising.

none. If it's something i cant fix myself then i would rather arrange for an engineer myself than be stuck with having to rely on the RCR appointed contractors

you are NOT going to get 11 bulbs for 50p.

I have twice (in 2 yrs) loaded the casette into a travelling suitcase, wheeled it miles through a city, paid 30p, and walked into a rail station, and emptied it in a toilet (while the announcements were being made). I used loads of chemicals, and my cubicle smelled of roses, while the guy in the next cubicle smelled like he was dying. It would of been simpler to toss it into the canal, but since the canal is where I live, I would never do that..... Just because someone is away from traditional service points, doesnt mean you cant find a way. The elsan point in my photos, is at Castlefield in Manchester. You would think, since Castlefield is such a popular destination for hire boaters, and boaters alike, that someone would have thought to upgrade it a little. It's really old, and run down...no wonder it blocks so easily. Again, it would have been simpler for us to dump the casette into a canal, but instead we travelled at night, for an hour, to a local marina with services. We then moored up for the night on the towpath, and in the morning the marina operator said...."You took a chance mooring there for the night"....gulp.

Sorry, but without a constitution and membership, how can you possibly claim to represent anyone except yourselves as individuals?

Well i'm not surprised that CRT have decided to discontinue such meetings, and I am surprised that they agreed to them in the first place. Never having been aware of these meetings, I would think that boaters who did know about and attend these meetings on the most part would have had some sort of axe to grind - and probably many different and disparate axes. It is not unreasonable that CRT prefer to deal with organised bodies representing a known number of customers presenting a united viewpoint.