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A continuous cruiser licence is a class of boat licence issued on United Kingdom inland waterways under the control of the Canal and River Trust (a charity which replaced British Waterways in July 2012). The term "continuous cruiser" refers specifically to boats and/or owners operating under such licence.
The continuous cruiser licence is so called as it applies to boats continuously cruising the waterway network as defined in the preamble. The reason such a classification is important (and contested) is that a boat claiming "continuous cruiser" status need not obtain a (paid-for) home mooring. Officially recognised moorings usually attract substantial mooring fees, so a boater, exploring the network full-time and having no need of a permanent base, is not required by law to have a permanent mooring or "home port". Applicants for a continuous cruiser licence make a binding declaration to abide by rules for continuous cruising. [1]
The Canal and River Trust (C&RT) defines as a "continuous cruiser" any boat which is always on the move and making "reasonable progress" between successive moorings. The C&RT recommends that a boater who keeps a log of their trip is less likely to have problems justifying their credentials. [2]
Some boaters do not wish to move their boat very far – or not at all – if possible, (either to avoid expense, or to stay within an area e.g. from which they can travel to work) and cannot acquire (or, alternatively, do not wish to pay for) an "official mooring" in that place. Such boaters risk not being re-licensed (and hence they also risk having their boat removed from the Canal and River Trust's canals) by being repeatedly "logged" by C&RT spotters in or near one location. [lower-alpha 1]
Because of the need to make journeys long enough to justify the terms of their licence as defined by the licensing authority (or at least to avoid coming to the attention of local officials), but short enough to keep them near their desired location, boaters based in one area but with a "continuous cruising" licence are sometimes disparagingly termed "bridge-hoppers" or "continuous moorers".
Prior to 1995, all boats on the canal system controlled by [the then authority] British Waterways were required to have a permanent base for their boat known as a "home mooring". (similar in concept to registration of marine craft in a "home port"). Many boaters moved 'continuously', living on board as they travelled around, stopping in one place for a limited time. They neither wanted nor needed permanent moorings. Such boaters resented having to declare a home mooring, because they would have to pay a marina owner for services they had no intention of using, subsidising boaters who actually moored up either permanently, frequently or seasonally. This anomaly was recognised in the enactment of the British Waterways Act 1995 where Parliament accepted the boat owners' argument for fairness and built proviso into the 1995 act for boats not to have a home mooring.[ citation needed ]
The amount of licence fee paid under the jurisdiction of the Canal & River Trust depends on a boat's length and breadth, whether or not a "home mooring" is declared. However, boaters without a home mooring must agree to abide by guidelines for continuous cruising written by the authority under their interpretation of the Act and without consultation or agreement with the users.[ citation needed ]
All boats on the system, whether having a home mooring or not, must proceed under British Waterways Act 1995 section 17(3)(c)(ii) states "without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances". [1] However, many boaters without a home mooring feel they are discriminated against by 'heavy handed' action of C&RT enforcers and obliged to adhere to "guidelines" not conforming with the spirit or the wording of the 1995 act.[ citation needed ]
On 23 July 2013 the Court of Appeal granted permission to Nick Brown for a judicial review of the authority's "Guidance for Boaters Without a Home Mooring". Lord Justice Jackson said in his judgement that the issue of whether the 2011 guidance accurately sets out the powers of CRT and the restrictions on licence holders arising from section 17 of the British Waterways Act 1995 merited pursuit in judicial review. [3] In February 2014, two days after the judicial review started, Nick Brown, the legal officer of the National Bargee Travellers Association, applied to abandon his claim for a review. The judge, Mr Justice Lewis, accepted the application and awarded substantial costs to be paid by Mr Brown to the CRT. [4] [ dead link ]
The Grand Union Canal in England is part of the British canal system. It is the principal navigable waterway between London and the Midlands. Starting in London, one arm runs to Leicester and another ends in Birmingham, with the latter stretching for 137 miles (220 km) with 166 locks from London. The Birmingham line has a number of short branches to places including Slough, Aylesbury, Wendover, and Northampton. The Leicester line has two short arms of its own, to Market Harborough and Welford.
British Waterways, often shortened to BW, was a statutory corporation wholly owned by the government of the United Kingdom. It served as the navigation authority for the majority of canals and a number of rivers and docks in England, Scotland and Wales.
A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods by canal had virtually disappeared by 1970. However, some commercial traffic continued. From the 1970s onward narrowboats were gradually being converted into permanent residences or as holiday lettings. Currently, about 8580 narrowboats are registered as 'permanent homes' on Britain's waterway system and represent a growing alternative community living on semi-permanent moorings or continuously cruising.
A mooring is any permanent structure to which a seaborne vessel may be secured. Examples include quays, wharfs, jetties, piers, anchor buoys, and mooring buoys. A ship is secured to a mooring to forestall free movement of the ship on the water. An anchor mooring fixes a vessel's position relative to a point on the bottom of a waterway without connecting the vessel to shore. As a verb, mooring refers to the act of attaching a vessel to a mooring.
The Llangollen Canal is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The name, which was coined in the 1980s, is a modern designation for parts of the historic Ellesmere Canal and the Llangollen navigable feeder, both of which became part of the Shropshire Union Canals in 1846.
The Ashton Canal is a canal in Greater Manchester, England, linking Manchester with Ashton-under-Lyne.
The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a varied history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role of recreational boating. Despite a period of abandonment, today the canal system in the United Kingdom is again increasing in use, with abandoned and derelict canals being reopened, and the construction of some new routes. Canals in England and Wales are maintained by navigation authorities. The biggest navigation authorities are the Canal & River Trust and the Environment Agency, but other canals are managed by companies, local authorities or charitable trusts.
Caldon Canal is a branch of the Trent and Mersey Canal which opened in 1779. It runs 18 miles (29 km) from Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, to Froghall, Staffordshire. The canal has 17 locks and the 76-yard (69 m) Froghall Tunnel.
A houseboat is a boat that has been designed or modified to be used primarily for regular dwelling. Most houseboats are not motorized as they are usually moored or kept stationary at a fixed point, and often tethered to land to provide utilities. However, many are capable of operation under their own power. Float house is a Canadian and American term for a house on a float (raft); a rough house may be called a shanty boat. In Western countries, houseboats tend to be either owned privately or rented out to holiday-goers, and on some canals in Europe, people dwell in houseboats all year round. Examples of this include, but are not limited to, Amsterdam, London, and Paris.
The Montgomery Canal, known colloquially as "The Monty", is a partially restored canal in eastern Powys and northwest Shropshire. The canal runs 33 miles (53 km) from the Llangollen Canal at Frankton Junction to Newtown via Llanymynech and Welshpool and crosses the England–Wales border.
The Millennium Ribble Link is a linear water park and new navigation which links the once-isolated Lancaster Canal in Lancashire, England to the River Ribble. The Lancaster Canal was never connected to the rest of the English waterways network, because the planned aqueduct over the River Ribble was never built. Instead, a tramway connected the southern and northern parts of the canal. An idea for a connecting link following the course of the Savick Brook was proposed in 1979, and the Ribble Link Trust campaigned for twenty years to see it built. The turn of the Millennium, and the funds available from the Millennium Commission for projects to mark the event was the catalyst for the project to be implemented, and although completion was delayed, the navigation opened in July 2002.
The National Association of Boat Owners (NABO) is a UK inland boating organisation, of which its primary dedication according to their website is:
The Stainforth and Keadby Canal is a navigable canal in South Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England. It connects the River Don Navigation at Bramwith to the River Trent at Keadby, by way of Stainforth, Thorne and Ealand, near Crowle. It opened in 1802, passed into the control of the River Don Navigation in 1849, and within a year was controlled by the first of several railway companies. It became part of the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, an attempt to remove several canals from railway control, in 1895. There were plans to upgrade it to take larger barges and to improve the port facilities at Keadby, but the completion of the New Junction Canal in 1905 made this unnecessary, as Goole could easily be reached and was already a thriving port.
The Great Loop is a system of waterways that encompasses the eastern portion of the United States and part of Canada. It is made up of both natural and man-made waterways, including the Atlantic and Gulf Intracoastal Waterways, the Great Lakes, the Erie Canal, and the Mississippi and Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. The entire loop stretches about 6,000 miles (9,700 km).
Huddlesford Junction is a canal junction at the original north-eastern limit of the Wyrley and Essington Canal where it met the Coventry Canal, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, England.
The Association of Waterways Cruising clubs is a waterway society and umbrella organisation in England, UK. It was founded in the early 1960s by the St Pancras, Dunstable, Uxbridge and Lee and Stort boat clubs as an inter-club scheme for an emergency service for boaters, and for safe overnight moorings.
A hotelship is a passenger ship which is used for a period as a hotel. A botel or boatel is a boat that serves as a hotel or hostel. Currently there are few permanent hotel ships. The word is a portmanteau of boat and hotel. Botels may range from small or larger purpose-built or converted boats or other watercraft, to converted ships. They may be permanently moored or grounded, or spend part of the year taking guests on tours. The most famous examples are the Queen Mary, in Long Beach; and the Queen Elizabeth 2, in Dubai. Both ships were originally part of Cunard line. During the 2022 World Cup, Qatar chartered three cruise ships to mitigate accommodation shortages.
A hotel barge is a barge that has been built or converted to serve as a hotel or other kind of lodging. Hotel barges are generally found on rivers and canals in Europe, and may be used for river cruises or permanently moored in one place.
The Canal & River Trust (CRT), branded as Glandŵr Cymru in Wales, holds the guardianship of 2,000 miles of canals and rivers, together with reservoirs and a wide range of heritage buildings and structures, in England and Wales. Launched on 12 July 2012, the Trust took over the responsibilities of the state-owned British Waterways in those two places.
A widebeam is a canal boat built in the style of a British narrowboat but with a beam of 2.16 metres or greater.
