A New contributor

WE TAKE pleasure in welcoming boater John Howard as a regular contributor to narrowboatworld, a boater who has already contributed various articles, his latest pointing out the missed opportunity of CaRT to use the Napton stoppage as PR.

His real experience with narrowboats began until a little before his 50th birthday when he purchased a rather run-down, but extremely solid Jonathan Wilson built 62ft foot semi trad named Gulliver, and writes:

Not long afterwards, having definitely been bitten with the narrowboat boating bug, resulting in long winter evenings and every weekend uncovering far too many poor decisions made by the previous owner in terms of mostly electrical and water installations, I rapidly came to the conclusion that my taking early retirement was the only way in which this boat was ever going to be sufficiently re-engineered to be able to hold its head up in public again.

Early retirement

So after a swift examination of my annual pension statements, and convincing my (then partner) Kathy to finally marry me, we both decided that early retirement would give us the best chance of getting the boat to a safe standard, whereby we could spend the next few years cruising the length and breadth of the UK canal network (of course fixing stuff as we went along—too often due to a mechanical failure), living aboard, enjoying the beautiful English countryside whilst truly learning about each other and our beloved Gulliver.

We have learnt so much over the past seven years, and there isn't a single place in my boat that hasn't been scrutinised, repaired, replaced or refurbished to the point that (with a great deal of help from my best pal Graham—who is fortunately a boat engineer!) I'm very confident about handling almost any problem that rears its head these days. We are currently embarking on a major refit, which will involve moving every element within the boat to a new location. In fact it looks like the only thing we plan to leave in place is the Lister STW3, which needs constant reassurance and 'fettling' to keep her in good spirits.

Vague CaRT Rule Book

It seems to me, even talking to boaters of many tens of years experience, that until recently the towpath telegraph was the only way to really find out what was happening on the canal network, as the CaRT rule book (such as it is) is so vague and confusing as to be almost of no use at all.

I think the thing that I would like to see emerging over the rest of my lifetime on the network is a clearer understanding of the rules, and that those rules are laid out on a level playing field for all boaters (whatever their perceived category or status), and that CaRT finally learn to manage their resources and priorities to keep the navigation open in as many places as possible for the boats for which it was originally conceived. If this results in a the additional benefits to cyclists, anglers, ramblers, nature lovers etc, then all to the good.

Communication

I believe that 'communication' is the key, and it seems to me that narrowboatworld is currently unique in ensuring that unbiased communication is available to all who want to be involved—which is why I tend to submit my ramblings to the editor when injustice, confusion and the subsequent email urge becomes too strong to resist.