Cannot be continuously monitored

THE letter from CaRT states 'If we've any concerns about a boater's past cruising pattern, we will get in touch about six weeks before the licence renewal date', writes Bill Ridgeway.

This raises the question how does CaRT know (rather than assume) any cruising pattern unless they are continuously monitoring boats. To do this every boat would require to be fitted with a GPS monitoring device linked to a computer.

Cannot be monitored

It is evident that boats do not have such a device and CaRT do not have the computer system. Therefore, boats cannot be continuously monitored. The best CaRT can do is, for each boat, to manually record sample data regarding location, movement (or not) and direction of a boat and assume the gaps in its sampling.

I would guess that as it would be uneconomical to put a lot of effort into this exercise there would be some very big gaps in data. It would be very easy to assume, for instance, a boat is here today and it was here two days ago so, therefore, it has not moved when in fact it may have moved 10 miles out and 10 miles back.

Just guesswork

It reminds me of the saying (attributed to Lord Kelvin) 'to measure is to know'. The corollary is anything else is just guesswork.

There is no legal minimum distance for a continuous cruising boat to go to claim to be a continuous cruiser so a test of reasonableness needs to be applied. The principle of a test of reasonableness is that it should be equally fair and unfair to both parties. That is the key question which needs to be resolved here.

The letter seems to set up CaRT as sole judge, jury and executioner and goes against the principle (created by the Magna Carta) of presumption of innocence until proven guilty by nothing less than a court of law.