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Lets be honest, its a fat boat with solar and back boiler, as most have... Create a facebook page, get a spread in a crappy newspaper and pat yourself on the back. Then sell it in two years when you are sick of flat batteries and muddy towpaths. Pair of muppets.

The problem with a jigsaw is that the blade throw means it bounces of the interior fit out and bends the rage saw is adjustable in the depth of cut I go through the steel only vacuum up steel chipping and then a sharp wood saw through the lining with a dust sheet in place doudle glazed units fully fitted £950

Not needed, coz after they have took all the photos for facebook and other publicity, they wont move, they will just in a marina eating lentils and washing the dishes in the dishwasher that consumes more power than actually moving the boat.

You are missing something because your logic is flawed. You appear to be arguing that because a person does not have an unrestricted right to do as they please they must require explicit permission to do anything. Let's suppose you ask the question from the opposite point of view;- You: Under English law do I need specific legal permission to do something? Me: No You: So I can do whatever I want then? Me: Yes; providing that what you are doing is not in breach of the law. You seem to be so emotionally wound up in the issue that you lack clarity of thinking. That doesn't bode well for your chances of success. Over on TB you are mostly conversing with like minded people and will get a sympathetic hearing. You may not like some of the responses you get on CWDF but they are probably going to be more objective in respect of the overall picture. Use it to help you rather than fight it. JP

Is his wife Polish Lady?

I put the stake in the bank then chuck a line to it from the stern stuck in the mud 8ft out. I'm sure you could have figured that out if you'd tried!

Caption handwritten on the back of this pic is "Bridges length before Hartshill - Photo taken from Hangman's Bridge" I can't find reference to Hangman's Bridge anywhereso do you know where this was taken and which boat it is.

You could go to most pubs in the 60’s and drink ‘slops’ even if the landlord never told you so

50% more for fat boats, full price for butties and historic boats, a 1000% surcharge for London boaters, 50% surcharge for live aboard CCers - does this mean my marina-moored leisure narrowboat will now be free? Goodie! One of their reasons is that most people now pay in a timely manner so the discount is unnecessary. Hmmm, have they thought how things might progress if they remove said discount? They are a bit thick!

Those are the only tolls that apply because it is only the boats listed (commercial carriers) which have the "free liberty" to use the canal. There is no provision stated for the charging of tolls for pleasure craft because there is no "free liberty" for the use of pleasure craft i.e. you have no explicit right to use the Bridgwater for navigation purposes as a pleasure boater (I think that is what Nigel was hinting at earlier but happy to be corrected). That would turn your earlier argument about needing express legal permission to carry out an act on its head since by your own logic you shouldn't be there at all. It's therefore in your own interest that you were wrong on that score even though you don't acknowledge it. The reciprocal arrangement with CRT provides you with permission to use the Bridgwater as a CRT licence holder but only if abiding with the constraints of that arrangement. By all means gain support and work to ensure they are adhered to by Peel and even lobby for better terms but if you don't want to abide by what is contained within them you have to arrange permission to use the Bridgwater direct with Peel. There is a mechanism for that which is of course to buy a Bridgwater licence. All the above is based simply on what I have read and understood here. I don't claim to know the legislation personally and I may have an incomplete picture. However it looks to me that you are trying to pick an argument one grounds where there isn't one to pick. JP

Within the very restricted limits of my knowledge of the situation, I do not see as yet how Peel could legitimately bring an action for non-payment. Even so, I would not count on a County Court finding against them. Supposing they could and did bring such an action, then yes, your A & B would apply. Though you would need only to show that non-Bridgewater pleasure boats were entitled to navigate in the first place. I have seen nothing in the little I have looked at that persuades me that this is the case. It IS possible to demonstrate that no relevant byelaws have been passed; the only extant applicable byelaws are the Bridgewater Canal Byelaws 1961. If I were a Peel lawyer, I would be suggesting that obtaining relevant new byelaws would be a worthwhile investment. Nonetheless, I imagine that rather than bringing a small claims action for fees owed, they would be more likely to bring an action for trespass accompanied by an injunction request, as do CaRT in all their live-aboard s.8 Claims. Without evidence of a PRN, that would probably be indefensible [charges need not enter the picture, only the absence of consent], and you could find yourself banned for life and in a situation where flouting the Order would place you in contempt of court. It is what I would do in their position, should I know that a PRN had never been conferred in favour of the general public. I am not suggesting that they would be entitled to do so necessarily - s.9 giving constrained powers of action in case of trespass might suggest that the implied prohibition rule applies - but I know for certain that, regardless, Peel would win, because so many hundreds of such injunction cases have been brought on as little or less grounds, by both CaRT and the EA - successfully. It would be considerably more difficult for them to justify a trespass action against a mere passage where the boat never moored up during transit, but again, you would have to climb high through the court system to have a chance of getting the necessary deliberation time of a truly impartial judge [a gamble] in order to successfully defend against it. Would Peel bother? Perhaps not, for so long as the boat never touched the sides as it were, and did the transit only on rare occasions. If they faced a flotilla of boats challenging them, such a reaction might be more likely.

At my home mooring we're not charged for the hard standing and retain the mooring at the same time. So it costs no different to be in or out. However the dates in and out aren't flexible and fixed in stone (unless your boat suits a trailer) A mobile crane is brought in and the cost split between all the boats coming out. It averages about £35, the same happens when all of the boats are put back 4 months later, and another £35. The advantage of being part of a society with private moorings, but you can't go back in any earlier, and I've not known anyone staying out longer. The funny thing is although everyone has 4 months to do the work, it's hilarious how many of them are down there a week before the crane's due back. Scenes of frantic scraping and slapping bitumen on are the order of the day.

with equal respect to the mighty fred.....god rest him Yeah he owes Peel Holdings 10 trillion quid in over stay fees!

I think the nub of all of this is that he doesn't have "a case against Peel". He wants them to enforce their case against him, and he wants others to not pay, and flaunt their non payment to Peel, such that Peel enforce their case against them. He says he has offered to pay the costs of anybody who has to defend their case against Peel, but he then said in an early post that this would amount to about twenty quid, rather than the thousands that defending a case against Peel might cost. If he truly wanted to take some action and make something happen, I'd guess that the approach should be by way of applying for an injunction preventing Peel from charging for things he doesn't believe they should be charging for.... I'd also guess that he wont be doing that......

Yes we are in agreement that the manufacture of the boat isn't eco-friendly. They should have made it out of clay and straw bales if they wanted it to be well insulated and eco-friendly, preferably on the bank .

Ah but was that because to motor was under-sized or because the batteries were flat? And did the designers make the skoolboy error of expecting 5kW of solar panels to actually deliver 5kW of power? How quaint!

A widebeam with solar panels on the roof is certainly a unique new idea, in fact I have not seen one of them since I was last on a wide canal. Does anybody remember Unity on the K&A? a "replica" of an original K&A working boat with solar panels and an electric motor to simulate the silent cruising of a horse drawn boat?. It did just about work for very slow and short cruises in summer but did have a generator discretely hidden in a wooden barrel on the deck. I was once one of many people pulling the rope to get it up through Newbury as it did not have enough power to get up against the (modest) flow. ..............Dave

They can choose who they try to enforce it with, and who they don't try to enforce it with. I suspect they won't enforce it (take non-payers to court) but will continue to try (issue invoices/claims). I would have thought Gigoguy is such a pain in their side that they would have taken court action by now, if only to make an example and to discourage others like myself who would refuse to pay without some proof they can.

Having checked whether there are any loose nuts on the mounts, it may be worth running the engine, then put it in gear, and rev it a little bit. If the rattle disappears it could be a slightly tired drive plate.

When the small bolts securing the mount base to the engine bed work loose they do rattle so that would be my first check.

They may indeed have to prove it to a court if anybody takes them to court. However, that doesn't mean that they have to spend vast sums of money prove it to the satisfaction of every malcontent who doesn't want to pay.

We have a similar problem with ducks "overnighting" on the paving adjacent to the bank of our end of garden mooring. Nothing deters them, even letting our GSD chase them off at regular intervals. They just keep coming back and tormenting the poor dog.

nah, don't think so. must be in your over-active imagination.

Just a few pictures of of our work

But it's still a fugugly widebeam.

True, and they'll probably sound better. Although a proper purist music buff duck might prefer vinyl.

Feck moi, WHAT a load of ecobollux spouted in that article. "South African born Ryan, 46, says he was shocked to discover there were no boats on the market that were fully sustainable" Well fark me sideways, I wonder why that is. Could it possibly be because it is not technically feasible? After £250k squandered on this vanity project I wonder how long it will take for it to appear on apolloduck for errr... £250k. This bit impressed me especially: "The SunFlower needs 5KW a day to run the domestic supply, so just one hour of full sun produces more than the boat’s daily domestic needs." I didn't see "just one hour of full sun" today in October, let alone in December or January. Never mind the technical illiteracy of "5KW a day". I wish this sort of ecoshyte didn't exercise me so much. Huh. just listening to "A New Error" by Moderat. Lurvely music... chill!!

Yes but it blunts them driving them through concrete

Re them having to prove it... I remember a long thread some years back on here about the illegality of CRT (though it may well have been BW back then) charging for mooring permits, and some highly vocal members being absolutely certain that there was no legal justification for it. The same arguments as here were used - that it was illegal extortion with no basis in law and that anyone who paid for a permit was an idiot (not that gigoguy has said any such thing in this case). As far as I am aware, no-one ever got BW/CRT to write to them explaining the bit of Act which it was based on, and everyone just kept paying it. I suspect this will end up going the same way. I know that gigoguy, CRT and many others have tried to persuade Peel to change their minds, and Peel say tough and won't budge - but they don't have to UNLESS someone can clearly show that they can't. Possession, as they say, is, rightly or wrongly, nine tenths of the law and it's their canal. And it would seem that the obscurity of the original documentation is such that you could argue about it for years and not reach a conclusion and therefore all the clout is with Peel, because no-one is going to do that for forty quid. And as Peel aren't even going to try to go to court, or take someone's boat off them, for forty quid either, it'll never end up in court. They may for other reasons, but not that. And most people who are forced to return within 28 days and spotted, will stump up. For the same reason, people will carry on paying for their boat licences, because they will assume that any argument saying they don't need to is simply daft and not worth considering. As I've said, with enough pressure and the right kind of political action, you might get the return limit reduced. You certainly won't get licence fees scrapped, and picking a fight that you can't win is not sensible - all it does if force your opponent to refuse to give ground on smaller matters to avoid looking weak. You need to make them feel good about giving way, that by doing what you want that they have actually beaten you. This may of course be impossible...

No. It means you don't come onto public forums and make stupid posts. Hmmmm. Yes. Looks like a bad case of sour grapes to me doctor.

Yes welcome. The main thing is most new hirers don't know about the £10 charge for each lock you pass through. Cheques must be made payable to "Mike the Boilerman"...

Does she only take her socks off...?