Those boats could be licenced

IT IS often a favourite past-time of many boaters to complain about all the unlicenced boats on the system and castigate CaRT into the process, writes Neil Quarmby.

Often these boats are actually licenced but the owners don’t have a current licence displayed. The recent photograph of an apparently unlicensed boat in Victor’s piece is just such a boat.

Actually licenced

It is quite likely that all of the apparently unlicenced boats he came across are actually licensed. I have often passed boats that seem to have very out-of-date licences but on occasionally checking the more outdated ones, have found that they are licenced.

Can I suggest that concerned boaters just check here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/boating/licensing/boat-check If the boat is actually unlicensed then you can advise the trust of its location so that the enforcement team can follow it up.

Boaters need to print out

Quite often the ‘offending boats’ are continuous cruisers/liveaboards. Of course if you use the online renewal process the licence is a download which the boater needs to print out. That’s probably easy if you are land-based but not as easy for liveaboards.

It’s true that every boat ought to display a current licence but just because it isn’t displaying a current licence, doesn’t mean that the boat is unlicenced.