Overnight moorings near Curdworth Conveyor Bridge, 27th August 2007.
This picture highlights a growing problem on the canals.
The pleasant stretch pictured here is below Curdworth Locks, between Gravel Pit Bridge and Fishers Mill Bridge, about a half a mile. In this open stretch there are eight boats moored overnight, with substantial gaps between them.
Increasing numbers of boats are now looking to stop overnight - or for longer periods - in the middle of nowhere. That's fine, it's good to get away from it all.
The trouble is that we are supposed to slow down to a crawl past moored boats. And that moored boats won't moor together, so that eight boats don't occupy a hundred yards, but half a mile.
The problem is also that empty stretches of canal are getting fewer and fewer. People who want a lonely mooring 'away from it all' are going to find it harder and harder in the future. I remember Mike Stevens remarking a couple of years back (I think it was on uk.rec.waterways) that he was infuriated how, every time he tried to moor out of sight of other boats, someone else would moor up close by and spoil his isolation. Well, it seems to me that that's simple courtesy. Not courtesy to him, perhaps, but certainly to other passing boaters.
British Waterways wants to remove one online mooring for every ten created in new offline marinas. But it won't remove the problem of the growing number of cruising boats seeking remote overnight moorings.
I suspect that people who are already irritated about having to slow down past long stretches of official online moorings are going to be less inclined in the future to slow down past boats moored in the middle of nowhere.
I also suspect that boaters who are moored in the middle of nowhere will eventually have to be less complaining about speeding boats and get used to tying up more tightly.
What would the boaters of old have said?
