Victor: Must sort them out

SORT what out, I hear you ask—those so misleading stoppage notices, that's what.

So many times Keith and our esteemed have attempted to make sense out of so many 'peculiar' stoppage notices, but can only publish what is told.

Time and time again misinformation is purveyed, doing little but confuse.  Those absolutely ridiculous ones about having to book passage through the broad Grand Union tunnels—without reason—are a prime example.

Surely there must be someone at CaRT who has a working knowledge of the waterways.

Ignored

There is of course the fella who turns out that Boaters' Update, who as a boater could take it on.  Mind you, his problem is that he ignores emails, so obviously not one who likes being told.

So perhaps not such a good idea, eh?

Ready for action

With a swing bridge being repaired the same day on the Leeds & Liverpool, and a sunken boat hoisted out of a lock over a week-end on the same waterway, methinks that CaRT, so battered by the stories of that particular waterway's failures, now have a team there ready for action should any problem occur.

It is obvious to all that that particular waterway has a great many failures, so it makes sense to have a team handy, and a bonus that it can turn its hand to get a stuck boat out of a lock so quickly.

Forced-fed

I should expect that you, like us, are fed up of the never ending coronavirus stories we are getting force-fed these days, so I won't bother you with any more, just to remark that T. Lang—and I now hear John Coxon—are both challenging CaRT on its decision to close the waterways without any recompense for boaters.

As it only allowed a month's free licence out of the three months it closed the waterways last time, there's not much hope of anything from that lot.

Not an easy life

We all know that CaRT love to portray the life of a continuous cruiser as ‘happy go lucky’ meandering along the waterways with ner a care in the world, but the truth is very much the opposite.

For starters you have no address, which means you are treated as being at the bottom of the pile when it comes to getting what you are rightly entitled to. People will attempt to deny you your legal rights.

You can have lived and paid into this country all your life yet people treat such boaters like some form of alien being just flown in from Uranus or Pluto etc. and non compos mentis in the English language or way of life.

You have to fight to get a doctor, to get a bus pass, to get a dentist—perhaps if you had paddled in on a rubber dingy you might have been given all that you wanted without having to ask?

Now CaRT are trying to fleece them as well—or should that be again?

Victor Swift.