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I thank you for your concern, but TBH and with the greatest of respect, you are talking out of your hat. I have considerable knowledge of 240v systems as well as 12v systems having spent the best part of 30 years working on both types of system in my various business's and hobbies. So far I am here to tell the tale as too are all my projects including 40-50 or so properties for myself and others, 100's of trailers mostly hospitality and refrigerated, as well as a NB and a motorhome. While I am happy and competent to follow the instructions that come with the inverter I also like to question the reasons why to improve my understanding. Biggles

Devide and rule? If you think deviding boaters who want to do the absolute bare minimum boating and the absolute maximum of mooring without paying for a mooring from the rest who would happily support their right to do so then you are mistaken. People have their own opinions and do not have to wait for Sally Ash or anyone else to hand them out. The difference between those who boat as much as possible and those who boat as little as possible is boating. There are far more boaters out there who positively support BW's efforts to enforce their guidelines than you would like to admit and the only opposition seems to come from childish comparisons between BW and nazis, lost cause I'd say. These new conditions seem to oblige a movement rate of about one mile in 10 days and frankly I think anyone who considers that too much should be in a static caravan park.

Whether BWML returns a profit to BW or not, do we need government support to operate marinas and boat brokerage and chandlery? I would suggest not. The very existence of BWML will be consuming resouces at BW. And for what? Shouldn't their time and money and resources be better spent managing the canal system for the benefit of the public, as it cannot otherwise be managed as a profit making entity by anyone in the private sector? Given the high number of new marinas which have been built in recent years, I suggest that there is not a shortage of entrepreneurs willing to operate these services for a profit. So, why do taxpayers need BWML?

Why are they saddling a limited company with that amount of debt is the point, I think? It would prevent its sale as a private company almost certainly. If BW were to charge the market rate, BWML would not make a profit. The market rate for renting 18 marinas will be more than double, which entirely wipes out their profit.

Just as some of us now regret supporting removing the requirement to have a home mooring bit in the 95 act That was a bad move getting the home mooring bit taken out of the act for what was then a relatively small number of people.

Some pickings from the published accounts of BWML. I am a Chartered Management Accountant and here is my interpretation of the information contained therein. PROFITS BW are due to receive £1.7m from BWML in the form of profits share, rents and service level agreements. BWML made a profit of £975k being a 12% return on capital employed. Capital employed is the £8.1m as shown as net assets or shareholder funds on the balance sheet. This is pretty healthy as you can’t get 12% from the bank. HOWEVER, they made this return from their assets being the 18 marinas. But they don’t own them, so these assets are not on the books, as they are owned by BW. The true return would be this profit level plus £755k annual lease cost added back in = £1.731m divided by the £8m here plus the value of the marinas on BW’s books. The marinas cost BW £17.3m (gleaned by Dominic M via a FOI request). So, £1.73m profits divided by assets of £25.4m = 6.8% return. This is still a healthy return, but could they do better?? WORKING CAPITAL – OR CASHFLOW The financial accounts highlighted that one of BWML’s risks is their credit risk. They hold fortnightly meetings with each marina manager to ensure that the debts are kept as low as possible… Well, the numbers hold a very poor story. Debtor days is a standard calculation used to calculate how well the company is collecting in its debts. It is calculated as follows: Trade debtors / sales x 365 days. So, this year 2158,331 / 4275,656 = 149 days being 4.8 months. SHOCKING. The average moorer / lessee of buildings takes 5 months to pay!! Last year the figure was 4.9 months. (For the sales figure I took the turnover but less the income from retail, brokerage and repairs as I assumed that no credit would be given to customers for these types of transactions). So, given that they discuss this fortnightly, what action are they taking? It is also intriguing that the mooring fees are billed in advance and presumably customers have to pay in advance. Yet this calculation is based on NOT what has been billed and is due. Instead it is based on the revenue that BWML has recognised, ie, the time has lapsed, so essentially the average moorer has occupied the mooring for 5 months without paying. There is not information on BWMLs bad debt. I expect it would be sizeable. Creditor days is a way of keeping one’s money in the bank by paying suppliers late. It helps when you can’t collect money in from your moorers on time.. So, this year creditors of £4218,844 / admin exps £5811,708 x 365 = 265 days being 8.5 months. Prior year was the same. So, BWML pays its suppliers 8 months after the goods have been bought. INCOME Moorings – Prior Yr £4056,962 with 84% occupancy means 2505 moorings occupied on average out of a total available of 2982. So, average annual income per mooring £1619.50. - This year £4330,933 with 81% occupancy which means 2415 moorings occupied on average. On the face of it a 7% increase in income. But with the change in occupancy rates stripped out, the average income per mooring £1793 which is a whopping 11% increase on the prior year. These mooring incomes seem reaonable to me and in line with the going rates. Brokerage – Income £248,206 over 11 of their 18 marinas which is a paltry £22.5k per marina. - Say the average boat price is £40k, then BWML will earn 6% or £2400 per boat sale. This means they have sold 103 boats in one year, which is two per week or 9 per marina per year. - Let’s estimate the costs of this operation: Offices at Sawley(?) rent £15k, rates & office costs of £10k, total £25k. Three full time staff equivalents to take the boats onto the books, show people round and do all the sale paperwork £75k. So Income £248k less costs £150k leaves contribution to BWML of £98k which is less than £10k per marina. Another way of looking at the viability of their brokerage is to look at the 19 boats they have currently for sale:- - Future sales of the 19 boats may bring in 19 x £2400 brokerage fee = £45,600. If they take 4 months to sell, then BWML makes nothing at all, as their monthly costs amount to a similar sum (£150k / 12 mths x 4 mths = £50k for 4 mths costs). Brokerage is a numbers game. It only turns a profit if you have a decent number of boats for sale! STAFF COSTm 74 FULL TIME EQUIVALENTS WITH A WAGES BILL OF £1.6M = AVERAGE PAY OF £22K. Total payroll £1.9m gives a cost per employee of £26k. Pension contributions stand at 14% for the coming year. This year’s accounts showed contributions of 8.4%. I am classed as a senior manager and as such am entitled to an excellent 10% contribution by the company… For someone earning £22k per year, the average pension contribution of £1843 per year works out at £2310 before tax, so their basic pay is the annual equivalent of £24.3k. Should we compare this to the general marina management which comprises someone on say £8 / hr for 40 hr week which is £17k plus a free mooring worth £2k which is £2.5k before tax, so this gives a comparable pay of max £20k. BWML are paying £4.3k more. I am not saying that the staff should not earn decent money, but you cannot say that BWML are having to pay a higher rate because of a shortage of candidates……….. Directors – Prior Yr £182,030. This year £205,926 gives a £24k increase or 13% increase. May pay rise in 2009/2010 amounted to 1.3% which is just a tenth of this rise. Across the 6 Directors this equates to annual pay of £34,321, so I assume some of the directors are part time and non exec. Pension – a scary note advises that the pension fund has a £38.5m hole in it. Across just 74 staff and 6 directors this equals £475k EACH!! Since BWML was incorporated Oct 2003, which is 6.5 yrs ago, then BW has saddled this subsidiary with £5.9m for every year of its life. PS. If you are impressed, please get in touch as I need a job! I was made redundant today from a job in the private sector. I am thinking of applying to BWML for the job of credit controller.

Bingo. Without seeing a full breakdown of funds flows it's impossible to take any view of what is going on. The fact that the auditors will have seen the full breakdown and have signed off on the accounts is a pretty good sign that there's nothing dodgy going on. Yes, I know, Arthur Anderson and Enron, but that's the exception, not the rule. It's also worth noting that there are methods of moving money around within a group without just doing it via a dividend. I would imagine they are doing it such a way that minimises the tax hit for the group as a whole, which may well not be via dividend. Most charities have trading arms which send their profits back to the parent charity via gift aid donations, not dividends, as I believe this minimises the trading company's corporation tax charge. Granted BW is not yet a charity, but something similar may be going on which you can't pick up from the abbreviated accounts.

These are just typical accounts relating to a wholly owned subsidiary company and are completely meaningless without a breakdown of the P&L. The balance sheet tells the story of a very successful business especially a company that does not directly own any tangible assets. On what basis do you make that statement have you seen the full audit or are you basing that on the Annual Return filed at Companies House, the audit charge would appear fairly reasonable for a business of that size in fact maybe even a bit on the cheap side.

I was cruising the GU today I was just about to go into Leighton lock #27 when I saw a Narrow Boat boat tied up by the bank. On closer inspection it was obviously a leisure mooring but the boat had no valid waterway license or a registered number!!!. I attempted to breast up against it but the though of my child keeping the occupants awake with her Nintendo DS was too much and we tied up somewhere else. After all we were intending to leave at 10AM! This is disgraceful I pay my license and a some times a mooring charge but I'm sure someone should report this as a matter of urgency. I would like to report this of course, but I am far too busy eating pies, correcting peoples grammar and pretending I am an important consultant. I have attached a picture for the forums records so when you see this disgraceful boat you can all say Tut Tut and moan about it to your friend. Regards Bob B

i would just bring it up at the meeting your having with sally (get rid of boaters) ash, am sure it would make her stumble and throw one of her wobblys, or ask for the meeting to be adjourned until such time as they can find someone with more authority and knowledge on the subject can attend

I'm more involved in this one than I'd like to admit, but I will emphasise I have had no part in the proposed solution. I have not recommended the zoning system, I have not approved it, I have not condoned it, I have simply been informed it was happening. BW, in London, have had enough. They have tried persuasion, coercion, offering moorings at an alternative location, and they end up with the same response "we ain't movin". Unlike the K and A, BW have been monitoring this closely, they've known since 2005 that the Olympics were coming, and that certain problems, like the ranks of boats that never move above Old Ford Locks, had to be resolved. Perhaps they should have just let the Met police deal with that problem? That isn't to say BW are blameless, A "formalisation" of most existing arrangements has been suggested, but get policy objections "we don't authorise moorings of more than ten boats", "It isn't our job to provide affordable moorings", The problem with this is there are boaters who will pay, but not the asking price, and perhaps BW should provide for them. The boater who wishes to stand on their rights and wouldn't even pay a fiver for a mooring (sorry, but they do exist) is being given a massive loophole by BW, because BW won't take £2,000 off someone who would pay that for the right to stay where they are. It comes down to the same problem, a small number of people (in this case probably no more than 30 boats) play hardball to the extent that BW seek to change the system to the detriment of the many. They only need an act of parliament to do so, and with this government, I'm afraid they'd get it. Rant over, ending with a red card for both sides

So, BW set out some rules, and a group of people decide that they don't want to play by those rules. And the answer, by your reasoning, is that BW should say "oh, OK, if you don't want to play by the rules, don't bother" BW aren't about making people move up and down a 1 mile stretch. They are about making people comply with the requirement to "satisfy the board" that they are "engaged in bona fide navigation throughout" if they want to be CCers. There is an alternative for people who want to form a community and stay put in exactly the same spot. It is called a "permanent mooring". Loads of people have them, and pay a landowner for the priviledge. They can have a community, provided they pay what it costs to have a mooring.

Hi all, While totally understanding the need to ensure that boats move around, I feel the proposed new rules to be draconian and likely to cause all sorts of problems. Moreover, they are going to spread to the entire country if left unchallenged. I am one of those continuous cruisers who tries my best to stay within the letter and spirit of the law. While I have not sailed on the Lea/Lee yet, I plan to go there in a few weeks. The main problem I see is the size of the new “neighbourhoods” that CCers will be required to move between. Because... This is what used to be BW's policy: “...on a rural waterway a village or hamlet will be a neighbourhood and on an urban waterway a suburb or district within a town or city will be a neighbourhood... in densely populated areas different neighbourhoods will adjoin each other and in sparsely populated areas they may be far apart (in which case uninhabited areas between neighbourhoods will in themselves usually be a locality or 'place').” That is perhaps not entirely clear but still makes sense. It makes for a pleasant life moving around the system at a leasurely pace with much choice. But now BW are proposing a set of new “super-neighbourhoods” the size of a small county. If these are accepted, life on the cut will become much less flexible. There will be a constant pressure to follow a fairly fixed plan and move at least 6-7 miles at a time, or pay out the nose. In the height of Summer, this is of course not an issue. Our boats are made for moving and nothing is better than spending all day sailing when conditions invite for it. There are many days and weeks during a year, however, which do not invite for sailing long distances. I can think of times when an hour or so on the cut was quite enough. So the proposed new “super-neighbourhoods” would imply a significant extra burden when you least need it. And please don't get me started about Winter moorings – if I really wanted to live for 5 months in the same spot, I would get one of those brick thingies..! Here is the sad part: The extra hassle for boaters caused by this change of definition will not be balanced by any benefits whatsoever, for any other parties! While more effective enforcement and steep fines will possibly have an effect - freeing up space and solving other problems – I believe introducing the new “super-neighbourhoods” as opposed to the old “village” neighbourhoods will bring nothing but hassle. Making a boat move 7 miles will not free up any more space than making it move 1 mile! The much increased traffic will only cause unnecessary problems - for all parties. The problems include - more stress and less boating pleasure - more erosion of banks - more congestion at bottlenecks - more disturbance for on-line moorers, anglers, etc - boaters moving at higher speeds than they might otherwise prefer - more pollution - more waiting at locks - much more water required - much more wear and tear at locks Small neighbourhoods in line with the old definition, coupled with some of the new ideas for effective enforcement would be sufficient to solve the problems in question. But the change to super-neighbourhoods would cause lots of new problems without adding ANY extra benefits! Please note that this does not only concern the rivers Stort and Lee/Lea. BW say the Regent's canal will be next, and if unchallenged, no doubt this new idea will then be deployed nationwide. Time is running out and now is the time for constructive action, not bickering amongst ourselves! Therefore I suggest... We boaters should take BW's idea and tweak it with smaller neighbourhoods. We should draw up an alternative map of the rivers Lea and Stort – one with smaller neighbourhoods in line with the old definition. For example, on the stretch from Limehouse to Edmonton I believe that at least 5 neighbourhoods can be marked out – maybe more. NO! I am not intending to spend the whole year travelling from Limehouse to Hertford. But I'd love to be able to move fast some times and slow at other times. I am sure you all feel more or less the same. This alternative map can be contributed to BW and presented at the upcoming meetings. It will be a constructive input which can solve the problems equally well as BW's map. This alternative map can be crafted regardless of any discussion about the other aspects of the proposal – fee levels, 7-day zones, etc. Unless this alternative map is presented, BW will get their way by default, and you will soon see these super-neighbourhoods all over the country. Next Winter it might be you who experience much less flexibility in your boating life! The map we draw here can in time become a template for the entire country. Who picks up the challenge? Edited to add... On a related note, I have been texted this: Come to london boaters meeting on sat 26 feb 1pm st michael & all angels church hall, lavender grove E8 3LR and sign up to mailing list london@lilo.org.uk for more info. Anyone knows more about that meeting? Maybe it makes sense that boaters get together and talk before meeting BW..! Sven

It's a balance. I was just asking what the options are..that's all. Dont see why FIL should miss his footie if there's a simple way for him to watch once in a while

Ok, if it suits you. For us, boating is a leisure activity not a lifestyle. You were probably stuck in one place for the winter anyway. I can't imagine what we would do with ourselves cooped up in a very small space for all that time without work to keep us busy. Work is not a necessary evil for me. I am MD of my own business and find it fascinating. She is financial cotroller of a much larger company and really likes her job. I was thinking about this last night. She was watching Dancing on Ice in the lounge whilst I watched the Antiques Road Show in the kitchen - couldn't do that on a boat. We didn't consider that the use of two televisions might reduce our available electricity supply. Earlier we had visits from two of my children complete with partners and three grandchildren - nine people including us. Couldn't do that easily on a narrow boat in winter. I am not the least bit envious of anyone setting off on the cut for the summer. I think I'd get bored. Three weeks is enough for me. As it is I think we get the best of both worlds.

Nothing but encouragement here so far. I would be careful of those who dive into a freezing lake and then cry "Come on in." "The water is lovely!" Having leisure boated for ten years now we wouldn't dream of selling the house and moving aboard. I would recommend that you try more than a week and do so in mid winter before you make a decision. Whilst we can happily live in a narrow tube for a week or two, it would drive us mad if we had to do so permanently. You will get lots of euphoric talk about having the countryside as your garden, wildlife etc. No different to having a permanent caravan/motorhome/country cottage/ house in a rural area or just going for a walk in he countryside regularly. It is not as peaceful as it appears. Look at the number of moans on these forums about speeding boats, mooring in awkward places, ettiquette at locks, dog muck, water levels, British Waterways incompetence.......... The list goes on and on and a lot of these complaints are from those who live aboard and are encouraging you to do the same. We could retire and boat permanently but we like the lifestyle that two good incomes provides. Both of us enjoy our jobs. We: Don't do gardening - have a visiting gardener. Don't do DIY - pay tradesmen. Don't do cleaning at home - have cleaners in weekly. Eat out at least three times a week. Run two cars without having to make sure that they are in the right place all the time. Pay no mortgage. Don't get cold in the winter fetching fuel/water or emptying toilets etc or get stuck in one place for weeks on end as some have last year. Don't have to worry constantly about the state of the charge in our batteries (Look at the number of threads on the subject of batteries here to see what I mean). Don't have to chase our post around the country. Don't have to find somewhere to live when the boat is out of the water. Don't have problems registering with doctors etc. But we go boating when we feel like it which is quite often.

You are correct. There are some horrible people here. I find it easier to laugh at them rather than comment. Sue

I have had a one off expansion box made by TT Marine, they did not appreciate what I wanted it to do as are firmly in the camp of "you need a silencer to make the engine quiet", whereas I am in the camp if you have one then show it off. Loud is good for 2 and 3 vintage engines Charles

Just completed rebuild, no gearbox, pulley or alternator, will store for 6 to 12 months awaiting next stage in project enjoy!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlS5Fp_IhXo