I really hope it is not a sign of things to come that on the day of the
launch of the Canal and River Trust a senior IWA man was making vague threats
and allegations about the minority of boaters who are continuous cruisers.
Tweeting after the champagne launch Jo Gilbertson of the IWA reported: “Much
mutual muttering about need to sort out overstaying moorers in IWA , NABO and
BMF camps over coffee - will be following this up.”
He went on to assert in a Twitter conversation about CCers with
continuous cruiser Peter MacDonald, that: “I'll wager its 80% not making
any attempt at a continuous journey.”
When challenged by me and asked how he proposed to
prove his assertion, he admitted that, “.. it’s not for me to prove it but for anyone else taking up the wager
to agree with me how to measure it with me ...”
It is disturbing
that this kind of prejudice appears endemic amongst those who now have
tremendous influence over our waterways. Don’t forget that the boater positions
on the CRT council are overwhelmingly held by IWA people and that the CRT
senior management, in the days when they had BW hats on, have attempted on
several occasions to attack CCers, usually financially.
Over the years we
too have been hobby boaters, rushing down to our moorings at weekends and
holidays, determined to get out and explore the waterways. We have also been
static liveaboards in marinas and boatyards, working during the week and
getting out whenever we can. We have had a GRP, commissioned a shiny boat and
owned a novelty boat.
Now we continuously
cruise, covering a thousand or two lock miles each year, along with several
thousand other boaters.
When we were hobby
boater’s we looked on CCers with some envy. They had the freedom to carry on doing
what we loved after we had had to return to work. We did not regard them with
resentment, as some do these days.
When we started
living aboard nearly nine years ago we knew we were part of a minority of
boaters and when we began continuously cruising (although we technically have a
mooring we never use it) we knew we were becoming part of a smaller minority –
but we always saw ourselves as part of the jigsaw of boating types that use the
waterways.
We were IWA members
from the start of our boating, nearly 20 years ago, but that ended three years
ago when we attended a National Festival and found ourselves denigrated and
looked down upon as liveaboard, continuous cruisers by the largely
middle-class, well heeled membership of the IWA.
We have always
regarded that as unfortunate, but we are unwilling to be patronised by those
who may have spent more on their boat than us, but have forgotten the
campaigning past of the very organisation of which they are now part.
We are now very
concerned that the arrogance of the IWA, symbolised by Mr Gilbertson’s attitude
to continuous cruisers will permeate the new charity, despite assurances given
to the supporters of the Boaters’ Manifesto by CRT trustees, that they were not
going to conduct a witch-hunt against CCers and liveaboards.
Assertions like “I
bet 80 per cent of CCers are over-stayers,” made without proof, or even any
concern for proof, too easily become the propaganda of a hate campaign with
CCers as the target.”
Mr Gilbertson is
anxious to portray CCers as attacking his style of boater. When I described
those who do not live on their boats as ‘hobby boaters’ he declared that was pejorative
– as opposed to simply factual, I assume.
Well, I have news
for the IWA, the CRT and anyone else who thinks they can isolate CCers and develop
any sort of institutional discrimination against us – we are boaters, just like
you. It is just that we do more of it at this stage in our boating lives.
Many of us have
been hobby boaters and hire boaters - that is where we learned to love the
lifestyle.
As we get older
many of us may become marina moorers again or even return to a little light
hobby boating if health and age forces us ashore.
We are boaters and
you demonise us and exclude us at your detriment because we spend more time on
the system, know more about the obscure corners and problems and often already
do our bit to keep our backyard – even if it is only a temporary backyard as we
pass through – clean, tidy and cared for.
And, no, we have
not lost our sense of reality about those who over-stay, we know they exist
although our full-time perspective is probably more realistic than a hobby
boater who only sees a particular mooring spot at a weekend.
We know boat
owners, especially in and around London who use every other weekend to move
their boat from one location to another rather than pay for mooring. They are
not liveaboards or continuous cruisers and numbers are growing in these times.
We know ourselves
that we can be seen on the same moorings three weeks apart. In the last three
months boaters will have seen us in Nantwich on four or five occasions as we
pass through to Ellesmere Port, the Peak Forest, Chester and then Manchester before
a final stop on our way to Birmingham.
We rarely stay very
long but we could easily be the target of a hobby boaters wrath if they failed
to find an Nantwich weekend mooring and saw us there on several occasions.
Some areas have
acknowledged problems – central London and the K&A for example – but the
problem is not the liveaboards who attempt to work within whatever CC rules the
authorities are working to that particular month. The problem is the failure of
BW, although hopefully not the CRT, to provide affordable, basic online
moorings for those boats. Do so and they cease to become a problem in hotspot
areas.
Those people are not
CCers, except by default, and I suspect that much of the hatred directed at
them is to do with the fact that their boats are often older and untidier than
most.
Get over your
prejudices, there is room on the cut for all types of boater, rich and poor. I
sometimes get the feeling that some boaters would be part of the pack attacking
working boat families for their poverty-stricken lifestyles if hobby boaters
had been on the water a century ago.
When Robin Evans
was interviewed on Radio Four on the same day as Mr Gilberston launched his
attack on CCers, he mentioned the importance of the canals for walkers,
cyclists and anglers but failed to mention boats or navigation once.
The IWA and its
representatives would do better to worry about that and the importance that is
going to be given to all boaters, including CCers, under the new CRT regime,
unchanged at an everyday level from British Waterways.
Demonising
continuous cruisers will divide the boating community, but it is all too easy
to pick targets and criticise. I have now try to stop referring to ‘shiny
boaters’ as shorthand for those who have spent loads on a new boat and think
they own the canal as a result. It is, I recognise, divisive, so I avoid it.
There are many who
attack hire boaters and even some who poke fun at historic boat owners and
their obsession with ‘the oldest rivet on the Cut’.
It may be a natural
part of such a mixed community, but it is a nasty habit and anyone indulging in
it – including me – deserves to have their hands slapped by the rest.
