I'm coming into this discussion rather late ('though it is interesting
to see that last year's positions have hardly wavered <g>) for various
reasons - some more painful than others .. lol..
For those who don't know, and to make my own situation quite clear, I am
a continuous cruiser and (mostly) a liveaboard; various events have
conspired to limit my cruising throughout the past three months and so,
embarrassingly, I have found myself 'cruising' a relatively short length
of the K&A to date - a situation that I am hoping will change
significantly throughout the next year.
Steve Wood wrote:
> The only relevant factor in whether or
> not you should be able to use visitor moorings or not is whether or not
> you have paid a licence fee. I do think this is a fundamental principle
> and linking mooring fees to the ability to moor in any location other
> than the specific one that you have paid for leads us down a slippery
> slope. There were previous discussions on here some time ago where it
> was suggested that paying a mooring fee in one location somehow entitled
> one to overstay in another. BW themselves floated (sic) the idea of
> regional mooring permits which were strongly rebuffed as I recall.
> Licence fees allow one to move and stay anywhere for 14 days (or less in
> specific locations.) Mooring fees reserve a bit of bank (or pontoon) for
> your exclusive use.
>
> I am opposed to the concept of allowing time limited visitor moorings to
> be filled up with CCs if a fee is paid over the winter. I can see a case
> for unused space to be allocated as long as sufficient capacity is left
> for those of us who happen to enjoy boating out of the peak season, and
> I'll propose 50% of any given location as a starter figure for what can
> be temporarily let.
>
I have to agree with you on this - but I doubt that BW would get the
additional income they expected (which they obviously need to obtain in
order to continue to both maintain the waterways and keep the cost of
licenses down) if winter moorings were along the towpath, rather than on
a dredged visitor mooring.
Surely the only answer has to be to increase the overall length of the
present visitor moorings, despite the increased capital expenditure in
the shorter term? This has to negate many of the arguments put here and
improve the lot of the marina/permanent mooring nb owners, as well as
that of the CC community.
>> I am miffed at BW's failure to understand why I like boating and why
>> I'd like to cruise on my boat in my holidays and why I'd like have an
>> expectation of the chance to moor somewhere convenient for villages,
>> towns and attractions when I am on holiday. As I have mentioned before
>> I could cruise in exotic locations, including food & entertainment for
>> less £'s per week than it costs to fund Uncle Mort per cruising week.
>>
>
> Couldn't agree more. The opportunity to attract more people onto the cut
> as a result of the recession was grasped by the hire boat industry, yet
> some within BW seem to think that above-inflation licence fees rises are
> somehow the right way forward.
Well I have to say that, sadly, I am miffed at the very obvious split
between those here with a permanent mooring and those who choose not to
have one because they move around the system.
But, I have to ponder, would this schism disappear if we all paid a
marina to reserve us a berth in deepest Yorkshire - but never used it?
Somehow I doubt it, and *that* is what causes the sadness as nobody here
would ever know whether this was the case (or not) simply because the nb
seen on a mooring on the cut just doesn't display that information.
Too many folk seem to make the assumption that the nb currently on a
mooring, one which they might want to use themselves, has no home marina
- and is therefore somewhat less worthy to be there than they believe
that they are.
We rightly wouldn't put up with this on the roads, where a ten year old
Mini has exactly the same right to park as a top of the range Bentley
which is kept in a centrally heated garage overnight, assuming that both
are legally on the road, so why do some folk think the cut ought to be
different?
Trevor
nb Wyrd
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