Musings of a continuous cruiser

WELL, after six months of most of the summer sitting in a marina for the first time in some years (primarily to allow us to finish our major refit), we find ourselves once more back on the cut, writes John Howard.

We're on the central GU ambling between Stoke Bruerne and Leighton Buzzard—a journey of some 20 plus miles. The local enforcement team have confirmed that this is satisfactory for a continuous cruiser in their latest interpretation of the law.

Inexplicit and ambiguous legislation

Each year now I find it handy to call the local enforcement team to check on the latest 'interpretation', and so far it has always aligned itself with our cruising pattern, which is handy (for us at least) as we don't have the inclination or energy (or finances) to take on the might of CaRT in the courts as some fellow boaters have found themselves forced into, in order to try and derive some clarity from the now 20 year old inexplicit and ambiguous piece of legislation I think anyone has ever come across.

You'd think that after 20 years of wrestling with this legislation BW, and latterly CaRT would have thrown some resource and parliamentary influence into clarifying this costly and inefficient waste of their resources.

Withdrew their support

CaRT had a good go at it last year when it produced a series of draft maps highlighting its view of where each 'place' began and ended. I understand from someone in the CaRT enforcement team that after initially giving the thumbs-up in support of this major undertaking, though, several boating organisations withdrew their support (after a tremendous amount of work had been done) and the project was subsequently scrapped.

I was fortunate enough to have sight of some of these maps and from my point of view they were a gigantic leap forward in the clarification of the whole bone fide navigation, and place to place confusion introduced by the 1995 Waterways act. Obviously there would be those who's cruising pattern (or lack of it) might have been inconvenienced by this new document—and there may well have been need for a little subsequent 'tweaking' to some of the maps—but as a first base principle in making it clear what was acceptable as a cruising pattern, I think CaRT have made a massive error in apparently being manipulated into dropping this excellent piece of progress.

Organisations no longer have support

I hope Richard Parry will think again on this one and finally realise that perhaps some of these boating organisations no longer have the support of a large cross section of boaters these days. Perhaps CaRT should divert some of it's impassive resources and finances into clarifying the root cause of many of the perceived thorns in its side (i.e. the confusing legislation) in order to reduce the number of conflicts and subsequent court cases, releasing money and resources once more to the maintenance of its rather neglected waterways.

We have been travelling now for a little over a month and already are re experiencing the 'community spirit' of the liveaboards on the cut, and meeting up with one or two familiar faces along the way (boaters, dog walkers friendly locals and even our friendly enforcement team on their bikes).

Come home again

Apart from going slightly 'stir crazy' in the marina, the inevitable cliques found in some marinas, the power crazy caretaker and the fact that every day you see the same side of a boat from your windows, we found that there appears to be very little camaraderie from the confines of a marina, whereas back out on the cut we have a constantly changing scenery, lots of room for the dogs to run free and the seemingly endless number of boating stories to be exchanged as one meets friends both old and new. After only a week, I told my wife that 'I felt like I'd come home again'. Our backyard may be 2000 miles long but it still feels like home.

Whilst on the subject of marinas, there doesn't seem to be any kind of legislation or governing body that is protecting the moorers. Perhaps someone can put me right on this one? Apart from one marina at the top of the Nene (and maybe the new one at White Mills too?), we have yet to find much of even the basic safety devices such as lifebuoy rings, fire extinguishers and escape ladders at the end of pontoons.

Dummy CCTV cameras give a false sense of security in some marinas—although I understand that if tested in court, the marina owner's insurers may fall foul of this particular cost saving. Pontoons also seem to be another 'buy it and forget it' purchase for many of the older marinas. Slippery wooden surfaces, rotting and loose planks and even subsiding pontoons are in evidence in some marinas, where getting to and from your boat on a wet and windy winters day can be something of a challenge.