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continuosly cruising....how far are you suppose to go..


katty45

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54 minutes ago, Athy said:

On reflection, I wonder if this is sound advice for the O.P., as it portrays what you can get away with rather than what you're allowed to do. You wouldn't, I'm sure, advise people to drive at 80 m.p.h. along a road: they might get a way with it for a while, but when they're caught the penalty will be severe and their action may lead to their being suspended from the wheel. 

Its a difficult one but I do like to give an honest and balanced view. This forum does get a bit bogged down on debating the rules and regulations, and the legal background to these, so as a real long term continuous cruiser who travels extensively (and knows the K&A well) I feel I should give a view of what its really like. For a newcomer to the waterways its very difficult to get a view of what its really like just by reading stuff. I should have added that if you bend the rules and get unlucky or bend just a bit too far then you can get into very serious trouble very quickly, and once on this mythical CaRT Radar its hard to get off, and that the accepted level of rule bending can change from time to time and place to place.

On your speeding analogy, I would have given the advice "many people regard 80 as an informal speed limit on the motorways and feel they are unlikely to get into trouble driving at this speed". That does not mean that I am condoning or recommending it. When the OP first drives on the motorway we don't want him to conclude "everybody is driving at 80, those people on that forum talk a load of rubbish".

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

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13 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Stenson Lock is 'rated' at 13'6".

It is only about 3 miles from Stenson Lock to BoT and, you can get a 'fatty' all the way to BoT.

The Stanfords maps show the canal as 'wide' all the way into BoT with Dallow Lane Lock being the first of the 'narrow locks'.

I was working on the principle that a non-boater would probably not know where Dallow lane Lock was but being based in Ilkeston may well know where BoT is.

Well assuming Katty's boat can get to Burton then a range including Burton, Langley Mill, maybe Newark and Loughborough would be more than enough if spread evenly over the year (10months actually). That would be more cruising than many do. No idea what parking/commuting is like however or if this is at all practical alongside school etc

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3 minutes ago, Dave123 said:

Well assuming Katty's boat can get to Burton then a range including Burton, Langley Mill, maybe Newark and Loughborough would be more than enough if spread evenly over the year (10months actually). That would be more cruising than many do. No idea what parking/commuting is like however or if this is at all practical alongside school etc

from a school holidays point of view....theres 14 weeks holiday a year so i would be cruising mainly during that...

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19 minutes ago, katty45 said:

from a school holidays point of view....theres 14 weeks holiday a year so i would be cruising mainly during that...

That still leaves 38 weeks when you don't want to cruise?  I would think you'd need a home mooring.  The thing is, with that, as long as you go back there every now and then for a night or two (which leisure moorings are usually happy with), you can legitimately potter about a small area without coming under the CC regulations, so you don't need to be on a cruise as such and the distance criteria aren't relevant.

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8 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That still leaves 38 weeks when you don't want to cruise?  I would think you'd need a home mooring.  The thing is, with that, as long as you go back there every now and then for a night or two (which leisure moorings are usually happy with), you can legitimately potter about a small area without coming under the CC regulations, so you don't need to be on a cruise as such and the distance criteria aren't relevant.

But if you have a home mooring where the mooring operator doesn't impose silly rules about how many nights you can spend on board, then you don't really need to potter about much at all.

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2 hours ago, katty45 said:

from a school holidays point of view....theres 14 weeks holiday a year so i would be cruising mainly during that...

Ah ok. In that case yes you'd need a home mooring, if you don't want to be moving every other weekend.

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2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That still leaves 38 weeks when you don't want to cruise?  I would think you'd need a home mooring.  The thing is, with that, as long as you go back there every now and then for a night or two (which leisure moorings are usually happy with), you can legitimately potter about a small area without coming under the CC regulations, so you don't need to be on a cruise as such and the distance criteria aren't relevant.

For Katty's benefit, if you have a home mooring *anywhere* the only restriction is that you can't spend more than 14 days in one place (except the home mooring), you don't have to meet the "bona fide navigation" requirements of continuous cruising (multiple places spred over maybe 20 miles with no shuffling back and forth) or ever visit your home mooring -- so you can move back and forth between two places every 14 days (assuming mooring spots permit this), neither of which has to be your home mooring. If one of them is your home mooring you can spend longer there (subject to license conditions).

Edited by IanD
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2 hours ago, David Mack said:

But if you have a home mooring where the mooring operator doesn't impose silly rules about how many nights you can spend on board, then you don't really need to potter about much at all.

I was sort of assuming the OP wanted to potter, but yes, that would be the best solution. I've had two farm moorings where they didn't care if you lived on or not, which was lucky, as I did.

 

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1 minute ago, IanD said:

For Katty's benefit, if you have a home mooring *anywhere* the only restriction is that you can't spend more than 14 days in one place (except the home mooring), you don't have to meet the "bona fide navigation" requirements of continuous cruising (multiple places spred over maybe 20 miles with no shuffling back and forth) or ever visit your home mooring -- so you can move back and forth between two places every 14 days (assuming mooring spots permit this), neither of which has to be your home mooring. If one of them is your home mooring you can spend longer there (subject to license conditions).

Yes but... expect to get hassled by CRT and wind up in court.  You may of course win, but you also may not.  By the letter of the law, it would seem IanD is correct, but CRT are certainly acting as if he isn't per their T&Cs.  It's fine to be a barrack room lawyer as long as you can stand the heat in the kitchen, to mix a few metaphors but if you want a peaceful life, it's better to work with the spirit of the law, rather than just the letter.  And you can't trust judges to make their judgements on the way the law is rather than what they think it ought to be.  And CRT can probably afford better lawyers than you...

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10 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Yes but... expect to get hassled by CRT and wind up in court.  You may of course win, but you also may not.  By the letter of the law, it would seem IanD is correct, but CRT are certainly acting as if he isn't per their T&Cs.  It's fine to be a barrack room lawyer as long as you can stand the heat in the kitchen, to mix a few metaphors but if you want a peaceful life, it's better to work with the spirit of the law, rather than just the letter.  And you can't trust judges to make their judgements on the way the law is rather than what they think it ought to be.  And CRT can probably afford better lawyers than you...

This is very true, do you want to risk your home and sanity based upon legal advice given to you by a bloke on a forum with no legal expertise whatsoever?.

If you have the time to investigate you will find a few court judgements in canal cases which did not turn out quite as the legal "experts" here were 100% certain they would.

CaRT really do NOT like the idea that having a home mooring lets you behave like a bad continuous cruiser somewhere else, and do you blame them?.

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

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Its simple. If you cruise sufficiently to make a home (ie fixed point) mooring impractical then you can be a CCer without a home mooring. Otherwise you must have a home mooring. Impractical is simple as well. If you are too far away from any single fixed point for most of the time then it is impractical. Note that the absence of a suitable (to you) mooring at the fixed point is not relevant.

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Remember when you move the boat if you go far it can be a pain shuttling your car to where you have moved the boat to. What can be a nice walk or cycle in the summer can be bloomin awful on a day such as today in the winter it can be expensive also.

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2 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

eh??

 

I've been fondly imagining for years that she he is called Mrs Melly.

DUHH  !!!!     :unsure:

eh what?

I thought katty 45 was suggesting I marry her,even though we have just met. (turns out she already has a bloke)

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23 hours ago, LadyG said:

I don't actually know, but I suspect every Saturday , perhaps in London, or other crowded areas, that folks don't just throw caution to the winds and cruise about  for hours hoping to find a decent mooring, instead they pre-arrange with another cc to swap moorings, this will probably work quite often. So there is an analogy with shuffling a deck of cards.

I suppose they carry traffic cones to reserve their moorings while the 2 (probably needs to be at least 3 to comply with the 'rules' ) boats are actually engaged in the act of shuffling, to prevent opportunists taking their intended mooring.  Otherwise they would risk ending up with a party game a bit like musical chairs.

2 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

eh what?

I thought katty 45 was suggesting I marry her,even though we have just met. (turns out she already has a bloke)

so you don't want to wed Mrs Melly.

 

I'm sure she will be disappointed, even though she is already wedded.

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  • 1 month later...

Log on to the CRT website,click on licensing,and then click on "Guidance for boaters without a home mooring"

The CRT's explanation is slightly clearer than some of these posts,but does seem to leave room for some interpretation.

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2 minutes ago, Furness said:

Log on to the CRT website,click on licensing,and then click on "Guidance for boaters without a home mooring"

The CRT's explanation is slightly clearer than some of these posts,but does seem to leave room for some interpretation.

It can not be specific because the law is not specific, so CRT have given their interpretation and how they intend to enforce it.  If you wish to challenge them be prepared for an expensive legal case which you just might win.  But then again you might not............

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53 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

It can not be specific because the law is not specific

C&RTs specific answer, via email to the specific question :-

London Enforcement Manager Simon Cadek sent an email to a boater who was warned that they were on course for failing their six month restricted licence, telling them what they would need to do to 'pass'.

The email is on public record as part of advice to boaters in the London Boaters Facebook group and dates from the end of 2016.


When we are looking at boat movements we are looking for characteristics of bona fide navigation, these fall roughly into four categories:


· Range: by range we mean the furthest points a boat has travelled on the network, not merely the total distance travelled. While the BW act does not stipulate what that distance is the Trust has previously said that anyone travelling a range of less than say 20 miles (32km) would struggle to satisfy the Trust that they are engaged in bona fide navigation and that normally we would expect a greater range.


. For the avoidance of doubt, a small number of long journeys over a short period of time, followed or preceded by cruising in a small are of the network would not generally satisfy the Trust that you are engaged in bona fide navigation.


· Overstaying: we look to see how often boats overstay, either the 14 day limit on the main length of the canal, or shorter periods where local signage dictates, for example short stay visitor moorings.


While we are flexible with the occasional overstay from most boaters due to breakdown, illness or other emergencies, we will look at the overall pattern balanced with range and movement pattern in order to form a view.


Overstay reminders are issued when a boat is seen in the same area for more than 14 days. While we are unable to say how far you need to travel each time you move, we would advise that you normally travel further than a few km each time.


This will prevent you from getting reminders and depending on the length of other trips you make and how many times you turn back on yourself, should increase your overall range over the course of your licence.


· Movement: Continuous Cruiser Licences are intended for bona fide (genuine) navigation around the network, rather than for a boat to remain in one mooring spot, place neighbourhood or area.


We would expect boats on these licences to move around the network such that they don’t gravitate back to favoured areas too often i.e. in a way that it’s clear to us that they’re living in a small area of the waterway.


The basic principle of this is that these licences are not intended for living in an area and if it looks like a boat is habitually returning to a particular part of the waterway then this would not generally satisfy the Trust.


Within an acceptable range we’d expect a genuine movement, so for example it would not satisfy the Trust if a boat went on a 60 mile trip during the course of say two weeks, then returned to cruise in an area of say 5 miles the remainder of the time (figures are examples only).


Generally speaking, the smaller the range the less we’d expect to see boats back at the same locations. Of course people need to turn around and they’re perfectly free to re-visit places they have been to before, it’s living in a small area on this kind of licence that would cause a problem.

42 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

Continuois cruising is a state of mind and nothing to do with distance.

According to judge Lord Justice Whatsit, that is. 

(I think that was his name. )

 

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'.

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

(snpiped)

 

 

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'.

I think the problem with taking this as being of any use is that as it was a County Court judgement, it doesn't count as a precedent and therefore isn't a binding ruling on anyone else.  So another judge might decide very differently. I think that's what I remember Nigel saying, but please correct me if I'm wrong.  Also, I don't think that "having to take the kids to school and then go to work" would count as legitimate specific reasons!

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