THERE seems to be a growing tendency to use the words 'liveaboard' and 'continuous cruiser' in an interchangeable manner. This is definitely not correct writes Ralph Freeman.
It is very difficult to classify canal usage because one of the delights of living aboard a boat is that you have considerable freedom to make of it what you will.However, here is my 'starter for ten' on the way liveaboards operate on the Cut. (If I have missed a category out please email your liveaboard 'lifestyle' to the Editor).
Liveaboards categories
1) There are many folk that live aboard their boats and spend most of their time either in marinas or on official online moorings. (Whether they contravene local planning regulations by doing so is another issue). So they definitely have a 'home mooring' and are not continuous cruisers.
2) I know many boaters who, like myself, have a home (winter) mooring and cruise for over six months of the year. As such they have not been classed as continuous cruisers by BW/CaRT (until now?).
3) Those hardy souls that wouldn't go into a marina under any circumstances and live out on the Cut and do genuinely cruise the system, weather and stoppages permitting.
4) The ones everyone complains about that tend to have their 'favourite' mooring or merely bridge hop for a few miles. I would suggest this is a relatively small proportion of the liveaboard community in the areas I travel. The last statement is a result of more vigorous action by Enforcement Officers over the last few years.
5) Occasionally I come across continuous cruisers that do not live on board. To enable them to see more of the system, they cruise at weekends and moor up during the week whilst they travel back to their home/work.
I've received an email from Amy Dickerson, who quite rightly points out one category of liveaboard I overlooked in my recent article. The scenario goes like this:6) If you want to be free of the regulations applied to continuous cruisers then buy a cheap on-line mooring somewhere. It doesn't really matter where as you are not going to use it! However, if anyone asks you have a perfectly valid 'home mooring'. Folks doing this often move every 14 days anyway to avoid antagonising anyone, but don't really need to.
Trying to generalise across the network is a waste of time. The situation on the remoter parts of the Trent & Mersey or Staffs & Worcs can't be compared with the situation in urban/city areas such as London, Birmingham and Oxford.
I'm deeply suspicious of the implications drawn from (possibly dodgy?) statistics by people in authority who spend next to no time on the towpath. How do they know what is really going on?