Arthur Marshall

Any change of rules, or the definition of them, will be useless without enforcement. Without that, which is more or less where we are now, rules don't really exist. They're just guidelines, which nice people follow most of the time and a fair number don't bother at all. A six month purge on unlicenced boats involving immediate removal and destruction would be expensive but cost effective in the long run. No court cases - not much point if the relevant boat is in bits, and the way the courts are anyway, any case and its cost would be deferred for years. Then a scrapping of the difference between leisure and residential moorings solves that problem. If Council tax is an issue, let the councils sort it if they want to, it's nothing to do with CRT how people use their boat; their only licences are "home mooring" or CC. And enforce the latter.

What I find interesting is that CRT appear to only consider their own online moorings when working out their rates. On the Macc there are plenty of privately owned farm moorings which appear to be about a quarter of the price of CRT ones. However, when CRT calculate their EOG rates, they only use their mooring rates (as above, generally unpublished) as a guide - which, in effect, means they can charge what they like. The EOG is supposedly half the local rate. Extrapolating from the mooring I had on the Shroppie and the two I've had on the Macc, it's actually twice, assuming that a private landlord will charge the maximum he thinks the market will bear.

The main reason it would have very little effect is that the majority of canal users are leisure boaters, and the last thing they want to do is stay in one place for more than a day or two. For the "move once a fortnight" CCers, too it would make very little difference, the non-movers aren't going to shift any more than they do now. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle that would ensue when normal practice was resumed.

No, I've not lived on the boat for over twenty years - I live in Macclesfield now and the boat lives at Congleton. I need to be back in Macc at the end of August for a couple of gigs, so simply can't take the risk of being too far from home. I'm beginning to think a summer of sitting in the garden eating whatever the fruit trees are providing is going to be more fun than going round and round the 4 counties ring, nice though it is.

I was planning Stratford. I went there about thirty years ago and thought it was time for a repeat. As it is, I'll head back to the Shroppie and hope there's still some water in the T&M in August so I can get home. I'm seriously considering selling up.

I'm sure you're right. .

Perhaps they should have got the lease right in the first place, stating that the prime purpose of the reservoir was feeding the canal, and a secondary one was for providing leisure facilities for blokes with yachts. I presume the yachters are happily poncing about on the pond while the delays to the canal feeder mount up? I may of course be wrong...

Sounds about right. It appears Todbrook delays were at least partly due to appearing the local yacht club.

Indeed. Though you could argue that allowing the number of boats on the system to multiply hugely without making any attempt to guarantee the water supply or maintain it properly is something they could have considered. I do wonder, for example, if Todbrook will ever come fully on stream.

I've given up planning anything. I'm assuming the Shroppie won't run dry, but whether I'll ever get back to Macclesfield is anyone's guess. This was going to be my last major run due to health reasons, so it's all a bit disappointing. Can't really blame CRT, or BW before them. Been underfunded for decades.

That was this year's planned trip, maintaining my record of not managing a single intended route for the past five years. While I can see this causing some grief to the liveaboards and CCers, it's devastating for CRTs majority customers, the leisure users, who really must be wondering if it's still worth paying four of five grand (or more) a year in order not to use their boat.

Indeed, which is why, I imagine, the whole riding the gate thing started - because it's logical for a full length boat. But most boats these days aren't, I suspect most are about 55 foot and a fair few, like mine, are much shorter, when, I think, it makes little sense and carries a greater risk than tying the boat up. Other opinions are available and equally valid (except, of course, that I'm right and everyone else is wrong...). Like everything else with boats, it's up to the individual who knows the boat and what they're comfortable with. What's dangerous is to imagine there's a universal best way, or, even worse, a "right" way to do stuff.

Someone on the boat could move it back from the lock gate. It's why engines have reverse. It just seems daft to me to take the risk, but as I said, plenty do. I prefer to avoid a potential panic paddle drop, if you'll pardon the alliteration. I'm sure, with an experienced boater, it's perfectly safe 95% of the time.

Ah, the days of my youth! I do wonder if I'll see it working again. Sorry to miss you.

Certainly not the only way a single hander can go up locks. I've never ridden the gate and never would. If there's nobody on the boat it looks like a recipe for disaster, there are so many ways to get the bow stuck on a bit of knackered lock. I can see why a 70 foot boat would do it. I've always thought anyone would have to be out of their mind to try it on a short boat like my 40 footer. Infinitely safer to tie the thing up in the middle of the lock and then bring it up carefully. All that being said, plenty of singlehanders seem to do it and haven't sunk. Yet.