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Is it worth getting a home mooring?


DavidAN

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I'm trying to get a grasp of what the rules are for CRT home moorings. I would greatly appreciate it if anyone has answers to my questions.

My plan was to get a home mooring from the CRT and regularly travel to nearby cities (say 20 to 40 miles away) staying away for maybe a couple of weeks or more (maybe) before coming back and 'recuperating' on the home mooring for several days or a week in-between my adventures.

I read a CRT document "cruising-while-away-from-a-home-mooring.pdf" and it states, 

"every time you return to your home mooring (provided that this is not merely for
a nominal period in an attempt to circumvent the rules), your cruise ends and “the clock” is
effectively re-set. "

"However, shuffling between two locations close together, neither of which is your home
mooring, for an extended period is not permitted as that shuffling is not "cruising."

My questions are,

Is regularly sleeping overnights on a home (leisure) mooring allowed?

If I am using my boat as a live-aboard, would my plans be classed as 'circumventing the rules'?

Would it be better to just forget about having a home mooring and become a continuous cruiser instead?

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12 minutes ago, DavidAN said:

I read a CRT document "cruising-while-away-from-a-home-mooring.pdf" and it states, 

You may care to read the thoughts of a Judge on the subject.

C&RT have their own ideas, however,  'the law' appears to have other views.

The judgement in the case of CaRT v Mayers states that repeated journeys between the same two places would be 'bona fide navigation' if the boater had specific reason for making repeated journeys over the same stretch of canal. HHJ Halbert also stated that any requirement by CaRT to use a substantial part of the canal network was not justified by Section 17(3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995 because the requirement to use the boat for bona fide navigation is 'temporal not geographical'.

 

 

6:3 There are clear anomalies in both positions, CRT clearly regard the occupation of moorings by permanently residential boat owners who do not move very much as a significant problem (see paragraphs 3.5 and 3.6 above). However, neither the statutory regime in subsection 17(3) nor the guidelines can deal with this problem. A boat which has a home mooring is not required to be “bona fide” used for navigation throughout the period of the licence, but neither is it required to ever use its home mooring. The act requires that the mooring is available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. The boat is still subject to the restriction that it must not stay in the same place for more than 14 days but there is nothing whatever to stop it being shuffled between two locations quite close together provided they are far enough apart to constitute different places. If those who are causing the overcrowding at popular spots have home moorings anywhere in the country the present regime cannot control their overuse of the popular spots. Such an owner could cruise to and fro along the Kennet & Avon canal near Bristol and the home mooring could be in Birmingham and totally unused.

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20 minutes ago, DavidAN said:

Is regularly sleeping overnights on a home (leisure) mooring allowed?

Yes

If I am using my boat as a live-aboard, would my plans be classed as 'circumventing the rules'?

No, I wouldn't say so; not if you're talking about cruising to and mooring in several different places within a fairly wide area.

Would it be better to just forget about having a home mooring and become a continuous cruiser instead?

Quite probably. It depends. You talk about visiting cities that are '20 to 40 miles away' from a hypothetical home mooring. If you're talking about cities dotted along a 20-mile stretch of the same waterway, CCing up and down that stretch might well put you on CRT's enforcement radar. But if you're talking about one city that's 40 miles away from this hypothetical home mooring in one direction, one that's 30 miles away in a different direction, one that's 20 miles away in a different direction again (on a different waterway), etc., I can't imagine there being an issue and I don't see why you'd want/need to 'recuperate' on a home mooring for a short period between cruises.

 

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26 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 The act requires that the mooring is available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. The boat is still subject to the restriction that it must not stay in the same place for more than 14 days but there is nothing whatever to stop it being shuffled between two locations quite close together provided they are far enough apart to constitute different places.

Thanks.

 

I suppose the biggest problem will be the overnight sleeping on the home mooring. It will be a combination of CRT and Council rules. :(

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15 minutes ago, magictime said:

 I can't imagine there being an issue and I don't see why you'd want/need to 'recuperate' on a home mooring for a short period between cruises.

The difference is that it's different being somewhere you know than just anywhere - finding a job or if there's a problem with the boat, are examples. Also, I may need to leave my boat at my mooring for the odd month while I'm sorting some other stuff out (I'm an expat returning from Europe).

 

Just thought I would add that the two moorings I am presently considering are on canal junctions which then split off again. It wouldn't be a case of just going up and down the canal. (It would drive me nuts if it was!)

 

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12 minutes ago, DavidAN said:

I suppose the biggest problem will be the overnight sleeping on the home mooring. It will be a combination of CRT and Council rules. :(

This seems to be highly dependent on the marina owner (if you are talking about off-line moorings). Some seem to be quite happy to turn a blind eye, especially if you are not sleeping on the boat anything like every night. Bear in mind that you have no security of tenure though.

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10 minutes ago, DavidAN said:

I suppose the biggest problem will be the overnight sleeping on the home mooring. It will be a combination of CRT and Council rules. :(

I can't see any reason at all why that should be a problem. There might be a problem if you were talking about living year-round on a leisure mooring (although many people do), but you're not. Living on your boat on a leisure mooring for a few nights or a few weeks really shouldn't be an issue; that is 'leisure' use, after all!

1 minute ago, DavidAN said:

The difference is that it's different being somewhere you know than just anywhere - finding a job or if there's a problem with the boat, are examples. Also, I may need to leave my boat at my mooring for the odd month while I'm sorting some other stuff out (I'm an expat returning from Europe).

Just thought I would add that the two moorings I am presently considering are on canal junctions which then split off again. It wouldn't be a case of just going up and down the canal. (It would drive me nuts if it was!)

In your shoes I'd be tempted to start out with a home mooring and give it up if you felt it wasn't worth it after a few months. Once you've done a bit of exploring and are familiar with the local boatyards, san stations, convenient mooring spots etc., you might well decide CCing will work for you (especially once you're past the stage of needing to leave your boat for the odd month).

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1 hour ago, magictime said:

I can't see any reason at all why that should be a problem. There might be a problem if you were talking about living year-round on a leisure mooring (although many people do), but you're not. Living on your boat on a leisure mooring for a few nights or a few weeks really shouldn't be an issue; that is 'leisure' use, after all! Agree.  You are not living on your boat, you just spend quite a bit of time on it. If you can show you are away for several weeks at a time at different times you certainly shouldn't have any problems.

In your shoes I'd be tempted to start out with a home mooring and give it up if you felt it wasn't worth it after a few months. Once you've done a bit of exploring and are familiar with the local boatyards, san stations, convenient mooring spots etc., you might well decide CCing will work for you (especially once you're past the stage of needing to leave your boat for the odd month). Agree.   However if you do need to leave your boat for a month, you would need to take a short term mooring. These can be relatively expensive.

 

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You are proposing various things that are contentious and on the edge of the law so there is no definitive answer.

If you have a home mooring then it appears that most of the cruising rules don't actually apply to you, but using a home mooring just to facilitate a non conforming continuous cruising lifestyle is not really a decent way to behave. I also assume that you do not wan't to become a test case in the courts.

You can almost certainly sleep on your boat on your mooring, this is another grey area, but as you will be cruising frequently your mooring can not be regarded as a residence. However strictly most moorings are not residential and so if you upset your land based neighbours then they can make trouble for you.

If you plan to "rest" for a week or two on your home mooring then you might as well just CC, but if you want to rest for a month or two then the mooring makes senses.

As suggested above, a lot depends upon exactly how many cities you plan to visit and whether they are 20 miles or 40 miles away. A good guide for "legal" CC'ing is to spread yourself out over lots of different moorings, if you just oscillate between your two or three favourite places then you could be in trouble, even if they are a fair few miles apart. Also staying in your favourite area all year then doing a single fast long distance dash might also fail to "satisfy the board" that you are a bone fide navigator.

...........Dave

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4 hours ago, DavidAN said:

My questions are,

Is regularly sleeping overnights on a home (leisure) mooring allowed?

 

Allowed by whom? If you mean CRT, they don't give a monkey's if you sleep on your boat or not. If you mean the local council then yes they care if you are using it as a residence. Will you be using it as your residence?

 

4 hours ago, DavidAN said:

If I am using my boat as a live-aboard, would my plans be classed as 'circumventing the rules'?

 

Again, classed by whom? CRT don't care if you live on your boat or not. There are no CRT rules preventing you living aboard. As above, the local council may require you to get PP if you are on a permanent mooring.

 

4 hours ago, DavidAN said:

Would it be better to just forget about having a home mooring and become a continuous cruiser instead?

 

Cheaper, yes. Better, no. With a home mooring CRT take a much more relaxed view if you want to just cruise around locally. In fact they ignore me now I have a home mooring that I don't use much. Previously, I would get the occasional email reminding me it is time I 'continued my journey'.  

 

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4 hours ago, DavidAN said:

 

Is regularly sleeping overnights on a home (leisure) mooring allowed?

If I am using my boat as a live-aboard, would my plans be classed as 'circumventing the rules'?

 

I  think the law cannot prevent you from sleeping.  Staying overnight on the boat in a marina on an occasional basis, such as  say two nights a week  ,  is surely not an issue.

However  you will probably find that marinas may have a limit on the number of residential moorings according to the conditions of their planning permission. Also the marina will possibly  be   obliged to charge a higher rate for a residential mooring as they are required to  collect council tax from those who they do allow to be residential.

 

 

 

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25 minutes ago, dmr said:

You are proposing various things that are contentious and on the edge of the law so there is no definitive answer.

If you have a home mooring then it appears that most of the cruising rules don't actually apply to you, but using a home mooring just to facilitate a non conforming continuous cruising lifestyle is not really a decent way to behave. I also assume that you do not wan't to become a test case in the courts.

You can almost certainly sleep on your boat on your mooring, this is another grey area, but as you will be cruising frequently your mooring can not be regarded as a residence. However strictly most moorings are not residential and so if you upset your land based neighbours then they can make trouble for you.

If you plan to "rest" for a week or two on your home mooring then you might as well just CC, but if you want to rest for a month or two then the mooring makes senses.

As suggested above, a lot depends upon exactly how many cities you plan to visit and whether they are 20 miles or 40 miles away. A good guide for "legal" CC'ing is to spread yourself out over lots of different moorings, if you just oscillate between your two or three favourite places then you could be in trouble, even if they are a fair few miles apart. Also staying in your favourite area all year then doing a single fast long distance dash might also fail to "satisfy the board" that you are a bone fide navigator.

...........Dave

If I'm understanding the OP's plans correctly, I think it's overstating things to suggest he's doing things that are 'contentious and on the edge of the law'. IMHO the highlighted sections are what it boils down to: he really shouldn't have problem if he doesn't try to make residential use of a leisure mooring (by living there for all or most of the year) and if he CCs around a reasonably wide area on several different waterways.

6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Again, classed by whom? CRT don't care if you live on your boat or not. There are no CRT rules preventing you living aboard. As above, the local council may require you to get PP if you are on a permanent mooring.

Cheaper, yes. Better, no. With a home mooring CRT take a much more relaxed view if you want to just cruise around locally. In fact they ignore me now I have a home mooring that I don't use much. Previously, I would get the occasional email reminding me it is time I 'continued my journey'.  

To be clear, the business about councils and planning permission only applies if you're talking about living on your mooring permanently. There's no problem at all with living on your boat permanently if you move around enough.

And depending on how wide an area you actually are talking about cruising, the benefits of having a home mooring rather than CCing might well be marginal or non-existent. It sounds as if you're thinking of heading thirty or forty miles along each of three or four different waterways on a regular basis, which really ought to be acceptable to CRT, I'd have thought - it's a very long way from typical 'problem' behaviour such as shuffling up and down between a handful of mooring spots on a 10- or 20-mile stretch.

27 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I  think the law cannot prevent you from sleeping.  Staying overnight on the boat in a marina on an occasional basis, such as  say two nights a week  ,  is surely not an issue.

However  you will probably find that marinas may have a limit on the number of residential moorings according to the conditions of their planning permission. Also the marina will possibly  be   obliged to charge a higher rate for a residential mooring as they are required to  collect council tax from those who they do allow to be residential.

To be clear agan, this business about residential moorings and planning permission isn't relevant so long as the OP is talking about using a leisure mooring for leisure purposes - which he is.

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21 minutes ago, MartynG said:

Also the marina will possibly  be   obliged to charge a higher rate for a residential mooring as they are required to  collect council tax from those who they do allow to be residential

It is a fair bit more complex than that.

If it is a composite hereditament then the cost is apportioned across the number of residential moorers and the marina will collect and pay the council tax.

If each individual mooring is rated for council tax then ‘normally’ the individual moorer will be responsible for the payment of the CT – in a few occasions the marina will offer to consolidate the collection and payment of the CT, but at the end of the day the moorer is the one responsible (ie should the marina not hand over the monies)

 

It is a veritable minefield and there are pages and pages of Government guidance  (VOA website) to boaters on the subject.

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1 minute ago, magictime said:

To be clear agan, this business about residential moorings and planning permission isn't relevant so long as the OP is talking about using a leisure mooring for leisure purposes - which he is.

I think he is talking about living aboard as he refers to living aboard in his original post.

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31 minutes ago, MartynG said:

I think he is talking about living aboard as he refers to living aboard in his original post.

Yes, but he's only talking about living aboard on his home mooring for short periods in between cruises. He'd no more be using his home mooring for residential purposes than you or I would be using a visitor mooring for residential purposes by staying there for a week or so from time to time.

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9 minutes ago, magictime said:

Yes, but he's only talking about living aboard on his home mooring for short periods in between cruises. He'd no more be using his home mooring for residential purposes than you or I would be using a visitor mooring for residential purposes by staying there for a week or so from time to time.

 

Someone more cynical than me might be tempted to wonder if the OP is a troll in the original sense of the word, so ambiguously worded is it, and so carefully crafted it appears to be to probe the limits of the various regs. 

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13 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Someone more cynical than me might be tempted to wonder if the OP is a troll in the original sense of the word, so ambiguously worded is it, and so carefully crafted it appears to be to probe the limits of the various regs. 

The original sense of the word? I wonder if that's quite what you mean;)

In any case, I'd hardly say his query looks fine-tuned to 'probe the limits of various regs'. Someone talking about living on a leisure mooring all or most of the year might be stretching the definition of 'leisure use'; someone talking about staying there for a week or so in between cruises is not. Someone talking about shuffling between a handful of mooring spots on a 20-mile stretch of canal would be stretching a point in terms of CRT's guidance on CCing; someone talking about cruising 20 to 40 miles in each of three or four different directions is not.

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1 hour ago, magictime said:

The original sense of the word? I wonder if that's quite what you mean;)

 

In the internetty sense of the word, yes. 

A post intended to provoke a long and heated discussion/flame war, while the trollist sits back and watches in satisfaction.

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8 hours ago, dmr said:

but using a home mooring just to facilitate a non conforming continuous cruising lifestyle is not really a decent way to behave

I don't think you have the right to say what is decent or what is not. You seem to be assuming that I want to live on a boat for fun rather than absolute necessity. Is it decent behavior to live in a car or live on the streets? 

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8 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Allowed by whom? If you mean CRT, they don't give a monkey's if you sleep on your boat or not. If you mean the local council then yes they care if you are using it as a residence. Will you be using it as your residence?

I could find no information about sleeping on a home leisure mooring, only that living on one is not allowed.  I even found that one marina had gradings for their mooring plans which stated how much live-aboard usage was allowed for each. The impression I got was that home leisure moorings are for 'storing' a boat.

If it is normal to sleep on them for several days at a time then I'm happy with that.

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7 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Someone more cynical than me might be tempted to wonder if the OP is a troll in the original sense of the word, so ambiguously worded is it, and so carefully crafted it appears to be to probe the limits of the various regs. 

In what way is it ambiguous? I think it was clear from my questions that the regulations are not clear, at least not to me. If they were, there would be no point in asking the questions.

 

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